The Girl in the Moonlight

The girl in the moonlight danced slowly and rhythmically to the haunting music.  She danced for no one but herself.  Her movements were not one of seduction or lust but those of joy and oneness with the moment.  But her eyes betrayed an anxiety she kept hidden just below the surface.  Happiness and belonging she portrayed for all to see and yet she would never let her guard down or truly let herself go as so many around her did. 

No the girl in the moonlight was alone in a crowd of friends.  Her dress silken and white a contrast to the rest. Giving her a transcendent and ethereal quality.  It was as if this night had been created for her, and her alone.  She adored the community and its acceptance of all that was unique and individual. But come the morning light there would be nothing left but remnants of this evening.  The night people, the dwellers in the dark, artists of the absurd and tragic would all return to whence they came.  Fragile connections that never lasted.

Amongst the stones, the girl in the moonlight lets her hands trace the outlines of the markers.  The bones of the dead resting deep below, dates and epitaphs the only legacy of the forgotten.  Their names like dust on the wind.  Their voices silent.   Memories long forgotten if remembered at all.  What better place to celebrate and embrace the music of the darkness then this empty place filled with nothing but sadness when they are gone, when she is gone.

Soon the music and lights attract an altogether different breed to the festivities and the girl in the moonlight draws in upon herself backing into the safety of her corner.  There she has room to move and dance, and the relative safety it affords her as the others join the dance.  The night people show little reaction as the others take their place, filling in any space, joining in all they perceive.  Some move like predators hunting for the weak amongst the dancers. They see only the shallow exterior attracted like magpies to surface beauty driven by hunger and lust.

The music quickens, the song changes and with it the new comers begin to descend on those they desire, the girl in the moonlight shines brighter and more beautiful than any of the others but she hopes her light will go unnoticed.  Hands slide sensuously up black clad sides, teasing, and playful. Breasts barely contained by fabric bounce invitingly stoking fires of lust and promising so much more. As the night people and the new comers mix and share the moment.  The music obscures all sounds and removes all pretence.  This night, this instant, is about nothing else but lust, hunger, and the sating of desires.

A crescendo of sound rings out and the light vanishes in an instant obscuring all but the girl in the moonlight.  She still dances alone and unafraid. Forms in the dark contort and twist.  Mouths descending and hands pulling bodies close.  If the music abated for even a moment, then all you would be able to hear was the orgy of death going on all around.  Screams of pain, the sounds of teeth and claws tearing through flesh.  All sense of restraint and normality shed to embrace those animalistic urges for this one night.

The smell of sex and violence permeates everything, blood spraying wildly leaving a trail across the silken white dress of the girl in the moonlight.  As song after song plays the forms and bodies begin to retake their former shapes.  As the lights rekindle the night people bask in the afterglow.  Blood smeared faces and tattered clothes.  Some still in the tender embrace of lovers.  But soon they begin to slip away.  The surest sign of the coming of dawn.

The last of the night people vanish to whence they came as the morning sun shines on the girl in the moonlight.  She smiles like an angel, and draws me too her like Icarus to the sun.  For an instant, she turns and I almost let myself believe she sees me.  But it’s not me she’s looking at. Her smile is never for me.  She vanishes with the light. To where I know not, to a life I’ll never know.  When the full moon returns so shall she and the other night people.

The girl in the moonlight she haunts me as I haunt this place.  The tortured days locked here without her fill me with nothing but despair. For one day she will not return. But I will go on.  An endless ethereal existence trapped by chains I forged for myself.  I would give anything just to feel the touch of her hand on mine, but I have nothing to give.  I am but a memory of a memory long since forgotten.  The weathered stone with my name engraved upon it where she dances are all that remains of who I was. The girl in the moonlight she dances, but not for me.