The Dancer

            Time didn’t exist here anymore; it had done its damage and abandoned it to the people who also didn’t want it. The air was thick with humidity and those smells only associated with large bodies of water. And mingled with the unforgiving fog were clouds of dusts that got kicked up with the wind. The waves moved in their forever torrent which was accompanied by the occasional glop of runaway bricks that throw themselves from the crumbling buildings into the deep. It was here where the discarded and elapsed converged, and it was here that Claude Geloven resided.

            Claude was performing her daily dance with the fog, letting it swirl around her as she spun, and laughing with the sun as it shone crystal beams onto the sea. The treacherous cathedral rooftop tried to cut her bare feet but Claude knew the rooftop too well and gracefully dodged all its attempts. The waves jumped up to join in but the walls kept them at bay, roughly pushing them down. She thanked the walls with an affectionate pat, knowing the sea would only cause mischief, as it was wont to do. However, she did not blame the sea for its nature and tried to calm it down as it was the one constant in this ever-changing landscape.

            It was then that the fog cleared away and the sun hid behind its friends the clouds. Claude glanced around her in search of what had scared them off. Her eyes met a man’s who stood on the other end of the cathedral’s rooftop. Claude stood. The man stared.

            “Who are you,” he asked, taking a step closer.

            “I’m many things,” she responded.

            “Your name?” His first thought was that she had an eerie beauty, so he stepped closer.

            “Claude.” Not that she liked it very much but people kept insisting she had a name.

“Just Claude?”

“No.”

“Your full name?”

“Claude Geloven.”

“Why are you here?” He took another step, searching through his mind where he had heard such a name before.

“To make the sun laugh.” He was so ridiculous, what else would she be on a rooftop?

“The sun?”

“Yes.”

“The sun can’t laugh.” She didn’t look young enough to live in such fantasies, but he took one more step to get a better look.

“Sure it can, all the time.”

“How?” What game was she playing at?

“I don’t know.”

“Why are you here?” She was ignorant, and this saddened him deeply.

“I told you.”

“You’re lying.” His closed the gap between them so his stood within reach.

“No.” Did he really not hear it? The sun had such a powerful laugh; she thought everyone could hear it.

“Then you’re crazy.” He didn’t understand her. She was so wrong but she just couldn’t see it. Or perhaps she didn’t want to see it?

Claude tilted her head inquisitively, feeling a smile tug at the corners of her mouth.

            He sneered at her, she blinked at him, and then they stared. Every once and a while the sun had peered through the clouds to watch the conversation, but now it hid, afraid for its poor friend and not willing to watch. The fog had run away long ago, revealing the chipped tiling on the rooftop. The tiles ware symbols long forgotten but still powerful as they continued to omit superiority, even when under your feet.

Claude looked down at her feet now, scrunching up her toes and shifting her weight to her heels, as the wind started to pick up, blowing her hair back. When she chanced a look at the man he was looking down his nose at her. He didn’t think she was beautiful anymore, or charming like a child; she was naïve. A stupid little girl who believed she had some control over the sun. And then he started to think that maybe she did, maybe she wasn’t silly or insane but could see something he couldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t human, and if that were so she was dangerous.

So he pushed her and she fell over the side of the building and into the unforgiving water. She fell with her arms outstretched to the man, thinking it was all a mistake and he would catch her. Instead he turned away, went back the way he had come, not bothering the watch what would become of her. The sea swallowed her whole and the sun never laughed again.