In dream, images lure: my hands spanning his bony scapula, lips kissing his neck, leg snaking his muscles as I lean back, believing he won’t ever let me go.
Awake, I pray for strength I cannot muster, to rise, to walk, to forgive the texting teen for unraveling our tango.
Sudha Balagopal’s short fiction appears in Jellyfish Review, Drabble, New Flash Fiction Review, New World Writing, and other journals. She is the author of a novel, A New Dawn. See more at sudhabalagopal.com.
Jason flew across the pavement like a dancer, spiraling upward, around and around.
We got dizzy watching him. Then we started spinning hand-in-hand like a double helix in toe shoes.
Laughing, we all three gave into the wind as it lifted us skyward toward the soft allure of the clouds.
A scientist by trade and writer by nature, Laura searches for fiction that is truer than life, conjuring up stories that both draw and promise relief from years spent in a fact-filled, SciTech world.
I could barely see him through the smoke, a wispy silhouette, dancing and swaying to the rhythmless music of the crackling bonfire. His erratic movements transported me to some other place, a far-off, magical land. He was ethereal, mesmerizing, screaming…
Screaming!?
“DON’T JUST STAND THERE! MY PANTS ARE ON FIRE!!”
This story was based on the prompt “through the flames” at TypeTrigger.
Hope wasn’t a talented dancer, but a massive crowd was gathered around the field, watching her sway and leap.
“Park’s closing!” advised a groundskeeper. “She’ll still be here tomorrow. Always is.”
“Does she ever stop?” asked a tourist.
“Not in ten years. Just slows down a bit now and then.”
Rudolf hopped on one foot, pirouetted, leapt to and fro, wiggled his hips, do-si-doed, executed a graceful plie, moonwalked, discoed, waltzed, two-stepped, wriggled like a worm, jigged like a hillbilly, and slapped his knees, but no matter what he did, it kept snowing.
Apparently he wasn’t a raindeer after all.
She danced like a bird; she danced like a gazelle; she danced like a hurricane.
She danced like chocolate; she danced like a song; she danced like a rainbow.
After the accident, the doctors say, though her body was motionless, she danced in her mind, painting pictures in their EEGs.
Two bodies sway across the living room, their dance accompanied by the soothing strains of Barry Manilow.
“Mmph,” says the woman. “Your chin is… prickly.”
“Yeah,” says the man. “I’m going for sort of an ‘anthropomorphized wombat’ look. Do you like it?”
“…Here’s a razor. Your choice: chin or throat.”
Editor’s Note: This story was based on a call on Twitter for a noun, an adjective, and a verb. @Sarahkitten responded with wombat, prickly, and dance.