Dancing at the End of the World

We never knew it would end like this. When I was a child, people predicted that it would be a violent end. We were told that Mankind would show itself to be ultimately savage, with brother fighting brother till the very end. They said we'd blow ourselves up. But it didn't happen that way; there was hardly a whimper and there was dancing. There was just a lot of dancing and shit.

My town of St. Odilia was a thriving, busy place as I remember it as a child. Huge trucks roaring with cut timber and juggernauts loaded with crude oil made the whole place vibrate with industry. The paper mill and the chicken hatchery employed thousands. It was well far from the hell that it is now. They say that most of the buildings were rock and metal back then, not the cardboard and rotting wood used nowadays. I just remember the sprawling acres of businesses with their around-the-clock bright lights as you traveled down the highway. When I go down the main road today, it feels more like a Hollywood set from a disaster movie than a real town. The older buildings made with their rusted and rotting materials contrast greatly with the buildings constructed of whatever solid debris that could be found, including old twisted signage and sections of other ruined buildings of the past. Since nobody cares enough to create new materials, people have gone to using whatever can be found and salvaged for shelter and everything else. Nothing looks clean and shiny new like I remember. Everything has a stain of the past on it. Burned edges and scorch marks are taken as everyday beauty marks now. I say "beauty mark", more like a mole that everyone notices but no one wants to talk about.

Everybody just waits nowadays. Nobody really works anymore; the lush economy tanked years ago. What is there to work for? Pride? Garbage? For a brief period there were those few that had always been that go-getter-type walking around collecting bottles and cans, or trying to form committees to fix or change something, but how do you fix junk? I myself called it crazy. They seemed to have the attitude that if they stop, everything will really end - too late, you idiots. We, those who just wait, watch them twitter about talking to themselves, ignoring the reality of what is the truth. Eventually, they gave up too.

The only ones nowadays that seem to have any true direction are the members of the Dancing Tribe - young and youngish men and women, traveling around acting like what my mother used to call "heathens". Most only wear loose brightly-patterned pants tied around their waists, usually baring their naked chests to the world. With all that long hair tossed about or blowing in the wind, I can hardly tell any difference between boys and girls, except for the big titties. They just dance together or alone out in the open or down the old streets, usually in something like a trance. Even now, people still laugh while saying things like, "they just don't give a fuck about propriety".

I remember when it started, and that young guy announced that he and his youthful friends would "dance while the world around us falls or until changes were made, whichever comes first. But something has to be done." Nothing else had worked up to that point. People had protested. People had gotten angry. People had risen up. People had died. But the Powers That Were had already secured our future and by doing so, they dismissed it all. By this point, no one really seemed to care anymore...except for the Dancing Tribe.

They had started as a way to get people's attention about what was happening around us. This guy and his buddies had tapped into the communications grid and sent messages for groups to meet and to protest. They pleaded, they tried to coax. When no one listened to them, that's when they started to just simply dance. Some thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever conceived. It was ridiculed as new-age hippie Mother Nature nonsense. Some called it sinful, demonic even. When they started to dance across the land, they began to have some people join them. There was nothing else that could be done, it was actually too late. Just silliness, the world thought.

Back when the Powers That Were announced that The End was finally here, nobody cried. They just gathered up and made do until their time came. Oh, occasionally there were those who would scream and bellow, shouting prayers to the poetic ominous grey clouds. Or those who would go on a rampage killing whomever or whatever in their path. Or those who quietly thought they knew the answer and then vanished into the mist never to be seen again. Most of those who acted out or gnashed their teeth were those who had done nothing when they had a real chance of changing things. They weren't mourned.

Now just these dancing beautiful young people travel the countryside, dancing among the last remnants of our civilization. They used to make me mad. I don't know if it was jealousy or grief; but nowadays, I always give a little clap when I see a roving band dance into town. The beauty of their beautiful half-naked sweaty bodies, their silly wide grins. To me, they were the only beautiful things left in this dying world. Mrs. Green usually thumped my head when I did my little cheer. She was visited by a young woman with fiery red hair wearing brightly-colored pants and a loose-hanging shawl the last time this Tribe danced into town; now she's long gone and regulated to the past.

The last time they danced down the street, they only talked to a few of the sickest older folks. "Dance on," I yelled to them inside my head, as I pulled my old blanket tighter to me.

This time, a young long-haired guy caught me looking at him and smiled at me. God, he was so beautiful with his tight muscled body, his loose pants falling low on his tight hips. He walked toward me with a big wide smile, pushing back a curly lock to get a better look. He cocked his curly head to the side, and started to reach into a pocket of his pants. He leaned toward me.

"A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever," he quoted softly to me. "But the present form of this world is passing away, and with it those who dealt with the world as though they had nothing in common with it. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; I also will choose harsh treatment for them and bring their fears upon them, because when I called, no one answered, when I spoke, they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes and chose that in which I did not delight'..." he stopped suddenly when he heard the tambourine.

He turned toward the sound and I held my breath until he finally turned away, dancing and jumping away down the street back to the others. I finally lifted myself up and looked around at all the people huddled together in small tight groups on the steps and at the base of buildings. A foggy mist rolled down the street, carrying with it that teeth-clenching sound of the tambourine.

When the night rolled in, the Tribe would pick an open spot on the edge of town. They'd burn a huge pile of dry-rotted wood and their whole encampment was lit up with the shadowy glow. They'd dance around the fire in a ceremonial cadence. They'd eat and drink from the brightly-painted carts some of them would pull behind them. Some would light long tiny-bowled pipes from the edge of the bonfire. Tambourines, drums, and flutes would break through the dark night air.

Then that certain beat on the drum would echo out. Some would go sleep on one side of the bonfire; others gathered on the opposite side, stripping off their garments and grabbing at the hands of others. Musicians would play a low rhythmic drone while bodies unite. There were strong young male bodies intertwining and slapping against other strong male bodies. Strong female bodies explored other strong female bodies. Young beautiful women bouncing on the cocks of handsome young men who made guttural growls in the firelight as they pushed their hips up to meet partners.

Old survivors would wander out toward the campsite and sit in the shadows just out of sight. They'd push down their pants and unceremoniously masturbate out in the darkness to the sexual acts performed in the light of the bonfire. One night, I followed them and sat on a low hill. I watched both groups as they fulfilled their desires, giving themselves up to their passions.

Then I noticed a certain guy...the one who had stopped by me, the beautiful curly-haired young man. The bonfire lit up his visage, highlighting his long ringlets of hair. He was completely naked astride another young man, his hands massaging the other's muscled chest. The other guy's arms were resting on the curly-haired guy's hips. The other guy lifted himself up and pulled him close, their lips meeting in a deep sensuous kiss.

Intrigued and titillated, I crawled closer to them, being sure to remain quiet and still in the shadows.

The couple rolled over onto their sides on the grass. My young man was now on his back, his shadowy partner on top of him grinding his hips. I could hear their every moan and groan, remembering those times I made those same sinful sounds of pleasure while hiding in my own shadows.

I pushed my trousers down and ran my hand over my thickening cock. I shook with voyeuristic lust and vicarious satisfaction as I watched the two beautiful young men coupling. I paused jerking my cock when I heard the new guy speak to my young man.

"I love coupling with you, Nico."

"No talking. Let's just enjoy the moment we have together, Cassius."

Cassius looked away from Nico, his eyes looking out at the shadows. His hips stopped their grinding into Nico's center.

"This moment is definitely being shared," Cassius whispered to Nico, as he spotted me.

Nico turned his head, stretching his neck to see me. He pushed Cassius off him and rolled onto his belly. His eyes squinted as he looked at me. I froze to my spot in the shadows. Cassius slid onto Nico again, his body pressing and slipping over Nico's. Cassius' hips began to undulate gently. Even in the darkness, I felt Nico's eyes riveting into me. I couldn't move my gaze from his, almost as if I was hyponotized. Cassius began to groan, as Nico whispered loudly.

"And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. His voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, 'Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens'," Nico said, quoting some bastardized biblical references. "'I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, 'Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees.'" His voice becoming a growl as he spat out the words, the reflected light of the fire and the night making his eyes take on an ethereal glow.

Cassius fucked Nico harder as his partner quoted the mix of verses. His breathing got faster and louder as he pounded passionately into Nico. Suddenly, his back arched and he pulled out, spraying his seed across Nico's back. Nico bared his teeth at me, his eyes closing and breaking our gazes. I, in a panic, scooted backward on the grass into the blackness of the night. I ran back to my corner in town and huddled under my blanket shaking in fear until I passed out.

The next morning the Dancing Tribe would always prepare to leave. They'd fill in the latrine they always dug; they'd take a bucket of what looked like little green twigs and place it into the ground above where they had all been relieving themselves. Someone would pour water on it and mutter something. They would then all pack up and parade through town dancing as they left us.

As they left, Nico spotted me in my corner. I shook as he walked toward me emotionless. He crouched beside me and smiled.

"For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come," he said as he stroked my scraggly beard. I looked into his wet dark eyes. I felt a sting in my arm as he touched it.

"What do you want from me? What do you want?" I stuttered, slightly trembling.

"'Beloved, we are the Earth's true children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now'," he spoke poetically. "This isn't an end, it's a rebirth."