April/May 2004
Leakage
by Jeffrey
S. Callico
There
were these dancers, they didn’t get along too well, only when
they were dancing did they get along, when they were dancing together,
they would smile and dance like sprites and everyone would marvel
at their dancing, how they were such great dancers, and most people
wished they could dance about
a fourth as well but no, they could never dance even half as well
as these dancers, they were way too good at dancing to be equaled,
but no one knew that when they weren’t dancing together they
didn’t get along, that they fought each other with words and
fists and kicks and scratches and pulling and
pushing and shoving and throwing things against walls and crashing
things onto floors and pounding hands into heads and screaming verbal
bullets into air, sometimes the house
seemed to shake on its foundation they were so loud in using their
respective armaments, but of course the house was sturdy enough to
withstand the dancers’ violent antics which never resulted in
tearing the house down but did keep a few neighbors here and there
awake, but they never
called the police because they didn’t want to get involved,
they didn’t want the dancers to know that they were aware of
their problems, numerous as the problems seemed to be, so they remained
in their houses and endured on a frequent basis the cacophonous outbursts
that emanated from the dancers’
house, yearning for the time when they would realize that by simply
dancing together they would put a stop to their fighting, but the
dancers never learned, they just danced elsewhere, smiling and laughing
and twirling and stepping
while onlookers marveled at their talent and smooth motions, their
inherent ability to glide this way and that, not aware that upon the
dancers’ arrival to their house they would claw at each other
for no apparent reason, keeping innocent neighbors awake, sometimes
into the wee hours of mornings, never seeming to tire of their self-imposed
cycle of dancing bliss and murderous
mayhem
