New Shoes, Same Roads

Our bodies were no more lost than our minds were, both laughing along the cobblestone streets of inner Denmark. Balls of light hung between rooftops, guiding our way from one drunken getaway to the next. Each bar offered a new taste of culture on draft accompanied by the making of a history on a dance floor.

The quartet glided to a stop at the crossroads of confusion where two unpronounceable street names met. Here the sky revealed itself boldly to us, thousands of stars in the depth of darkness mirroring the ones in our glossy eyes. At the largest corner of the perpendicular pass-ways a man with an open guitar case strummed his first cord. A young girl, presumably his daughter, played the next, adding to her father’s offering to the world. The rhythm developed with the man’s voice rising above it, singing the words of the local tongue. The song sounded as old as the shops and houses that lined the streets and held onto our attention like the Muses of Olympus. And so the myth began.

A man emerged from the darkness of one of those unpronounceable streets and danced his way over to my friend. He trusted, she jibbed, each showing off their sexuality like birds of paradise. He wore his desire as a large keychain around his waist, attempting to show off all the things he hoped to unlock. She played along, dancing and laughing in jest. He moved with the boisterous freedom of his sexual pursue, but a few plucks at soft strings was all it took for our puppeteer to pull him offstage. The melody played on like a wandering wizard, looking for someone to subjugate himself to the magic of the night.

My eyebrows rose with my nod towards Alex. My hand reached out to hers and by my best impression of a Leonardo DiCaprio smile sprung across my face. We returned to a time when courtship was more of a game than a seductive will of the desires. She took my hand and I twirled her into a dance. It was the type of dance grandfathers used to revive the myths of love my generation no longer believes in. We danced, my right hand on the small of her back, her left above my shoulder, the others grasped together, the vortex in which we spun.

I thought of my uncle as we moved our way across the cold-stoned dance floor. I remembered him at weddings sweeping my cousins of their feet; maybe even making their boyfriends a little jealous. He was the best dancer I ever knew, a stunningly handsome man with brilliantly young eyes. Everyone would smile as he would command the interplay of steps and rhythm and give authorship to sympathies. I felt he would be proud of this as I tried out the tricks he so bedazzled us with at family reunions and weddings.

I smiled as Alex allowed me the grace of the dance. She smiled too, laughing with each big move. Maybe the shine in her eyes was more than the effect of the alcohol, more than just this moment. I think she was thinking of someone too.