There was a young girl; she used to love dancing. A merest hint of music, whether in her own drum-beating heart or a bird's whistling tune or even just the wind blowing through the cottonwood leaves, any caressing drift that suggested itself to her feet, would cause her to flutter. It would cause her to awaken and to leap, to twirl, to realize her spirit as a song in motion, no matter where she was. Nothing – not the harsh, cold eyes of the public, not the expectant audience dazzled by the bright lights, not even the rose-gentle but restraining arm of her mother could make her pause, because when music was there, there was nothing she could do but dance. Except – except...

What used to be a perpetual and shimmering sensation in her bones, an ever-lingering urge which caused her to break out in pirouettes or glissades or whirlwinds of tapping, whatever the choreography might have been, no matter what the choreography might have been, that sensation was lost. The restless and sleepless song in the back of her mind, her own restless muscles, the never-ending tunes from outside, something caused them to finally wind down when everybody said they never would. A day came when she found herself, sitting in a crimson-fire dress with her hair done up and the audience waiting, looking through a window.

Through that window, she could see a gray and uneasy afternoon, with starts and stops of startled rain. A biting and crackling breeze chased the gray leaves in circles, in endless circles over asphalt streets.

In the window, she could see herself.

She could see herself, faint and ghostlike – transparent. Her eyes were large and dark. But they were barely visible, with the rain falling down behind them. Hr dress was framed between and in the frames of the glass pane, and it was red as blood and yet it was watery, dissolving. She could hardly see herself, and yet could not tear her eyes from the gray that showed through her being.

Her lips – painted crimson like her dress – moved, murmuring some soft and meaningless protest. As she stared at the figure which was her, the girl was helpless, and a fog closed around her, and a leaden nothingness seeped like rainwater into her bones. It chased away the restlessness, and she could not budge from where she was, a wilted rose trampled into the dust. Time slowed down and turned into arbitrary numbers that quickly faded into the background.

What had happened to the dancing girl? where had she gone to?

The big, dark eyes were uninhabited; the world itself was see-through, the world was drifting away into its ancestor, the gray rain, and so was her dancing crimson life. There was no music left, and thus there was no motion.

Far away, a golden child danced bathed in sunlight, and then she was no more.

could nothing bring them back?

Eventually she went out – for she had to, don't you see? - and she danced again, but the world was silent, and so was her heart.

There had to be someway to bring back that quivering warmth.

And she took off her crimson dress, and washed the paint off of her sorrowful and grieving (but most of all empty like a twilight sky) face. And when she stepped outside, though the beaming sun touched her skin and the deep blue sky fairly glowed with warmth, to her all was still rain and wind and death. She wandered the city the whole day, losing herself among concrete and metal and glass. Her feet followed the streets, and her soul was dragged along with them, every new sharp edge cutting another gash into it. As darkness fell and neon lights flickered on fitfully, to block the stars, still she stayed outside. Still she did not return to her home, for home, to her, was meaningless. What did that artificial, sterile place offer her that was better than the equally artificial, sterile streets? No, she did not go back; she stayed with the night, pale skin and dark eyes and shadowed alleys all. At first, she was still surrounded by roiling throngs of laughing, talking people.

She kept walking.

The silver-lantern moon swung higher, and the crowds thinned. The paved street deteriorated, the skyscrapers retreated and shrank, and still she kept going. The chilled night air, made even frostier and harsher by the moonlight, flowed around her; she did not put her coat on. Now a single candle flickering on the horizon was the only hint of civilization. Her shadow, alone, crept silently behind her. A silver, engraved plain surrounded her, still and quiet in the frozen night. Her breath was small and warm, the only movement for miles.

In the back of her mind, a moist dripping reminded her of the rain behind it all.

A minute later, the one little candle vanished beneath her horizon. And now, only now, she slowed down and paused, then stopped. The grasses glimmered about her, the stars shivered above, the moon was large and pale and lovely now, not harsh the way it had been earlier. The pulsing afterimages of electric neon signs gave way to the landscape, quiet and unchanging like a painting.

Bu was it quiet? It was much stiller than the city, that was true; but that was because – she could almost swear that the stillness came not from a bone-white (but she meant gray) death, but because the rain beyond had gone away, because somewhere a never-ending rippling had stilled. It was because there was nothing real but her dark and her light and the moon and the plain. Perhaps there was no motion, but there was no erosion, either. She gazed around, her breath slowing but staying warm, and quiet tears streamed from her eyes, graceful tears that only a few lucky people get (without any drama, or violence, or wrinkled-red faces). She just stood there, limbs loose, and took it all in.

Her tears dampened the ground by her feet. Bending, she untied her claustrophobic shoes and felt the air on her feet. No more street shoes, or dance shoes. No more stage, doused in blinding lights, no more murmuring audiences, no more music, loud and deafening. Just here, now.

No music, but -

Even if before it had been golden sunlight, there was still the moon, there were still the stars. There was still light, and the rain was gone. Sh wiggled her toes, flexed and pointed a foot. The cold felt good. Taking a shaky breath, she took a step, a gliding, balletic step, like the breeze when it whispers over cold snow. A dancing step. Hesitantly, she took a few more half-running steps – and leaped – and leaped into the air, and the ground fell away beneath her. She landed now, softly, softly, like a dark-furred cat. She had felt something, hadn't she? There was no music still, but she had felt something...

The unblinking moon-eye looked upon her, and she took another deeper, calmer breath. There was a rhythm, somewhere, wrought in silver on her vision. And any rhythm, visible or heard or just surmised, any rhythm could be realized. Suddenly her eyes widened into deep, dark pools. Suddenly, her muscles were all a-quiver, tense, like taut violin strings about to burst into glorious song.

And suddenly – movement.

Movement, a whirlwind, a frenzied waking of the body, splendid and charged with energy. She was the whitewater, roiling and bubbling, of the river; she was the trees which quaked and trembled in the terrific storm; she was the swiftest spring swallow, darting back and forth, sewing the air together with her soaring leaps. In the lonely plain, something was alive and jumping, perfect even in its unabated flurries of quick and quiet movement for the previously motionless plain.

The stars turned overhead, and gradually, the sky began to pale. She greeted this change with luminescent eyes, stilling her hands and feet that so wanted to express this sudden and bright, shining joy which had flowed, in a dizzying rush, to her heart. As the sun rose, she gave one final dance to it, one that gently rose to the light. Squaring herself to the place where the city slept just below the horizon, she began the long trek back, though her whole body ached with sweet exhaustion.

There would be performances, standing ovations. There would be famous stages and many faces and stupefying lights. There would be all music – loud, and fast, and creeping, and peaceful. There would be glittering costumes, in all shades of the rainbow – and crimson, too. And she would accept this all. But in her heart, she knew there would only ever be one stage, one performance, that mattered. One performance, in which the rain had cleared forever.

And the sun would be forever dawning there.