In the night

The stars assemble in the great stadium to watch those games whose rules are known only to time. Children scrabble in a field of bloodied dirt, savagely, without choice or reason, our own beautiful red dimmed and perverted by the cold, callous light. Ten eternities pass. The unnamed constellations swirl like pebbles in the tide; and those forces that warp the heavens are equally at play in that field. Unspeakable horrors are redeemed by oblivion and then they happen again.

Still the children struggle. And—now and again, but unmistakably—they dance in that field littered with bodies. Gingerly, stiffly at first, an aberrant upright crawl… but now more gently, and in pairs, and all together, like the spilling water that bounces effortlessly through itself, not learning but remembering. The dance picks up, gaining a rhythm carried on a yet indifferent breeze, a defiant beat that counts neither up nor down. At once the fire ignites and the stars are replaced. Touch regains the warmth that is its right. And the light begets more light. The irregular lines in the dirt join into grand diagrams, great invocations for that one whose name is never forgotten. Now a chant is lifted by a willing wind into a sky that keeps no secrets.

The sun breaks the night and it is over at last. Here is the center of all things. Here we dance