a half formed thing...
…buried in the sand, almost invisible. Still, it had its own unfinished beauty. The Dancer bent to pick it up, gently brushing it off before wrapping it in her handkerchief and slipping it into the one empty pocket of her knapsack.
She would chance upon it later rummaging though her bag. This thing she had found before discovering he had gone, his only explanation a brief note explaining how, although he still loved her, the ‘old passions had long since faded,’ and how he would have ‘never imagined this day in all his life’ if a ‘chance fling’ with another woman, his new piano teacher, the young one with the pretty blue eyes that he had sworn he wouldn’t touch because ‘short women are such a turnoff’ as he had once put it, hadn’t ‘sparked a brief fire of desire within him.’ His note apologized and explained how he had left the city to see if he could find someone with whom he could ‘connect and start anew’ because he could “not in good conscience bind either” of them in a “relationship that had gone cold.”
As she felt the weight of the new thing, smooth and cool in her hand, the Dancer yet unaware of his letter and as far as she knew he was at home waiting, with two servings of glazed duck with almonds, or salmon tarragon warming in the oven and he himself relaxing on the bed wearing the blue silk robe she had bought him for Christmas three years ago. He would have Mozart playing lightly from their old record player. The antiquated device was an idiosyncrasy they both enjoyed, and she looked forward to their nightly ritual of listening to the masters of old, Bach, Beethoven, Gödel and others as they nestled comfortably in each other’s arms or waltzed across the bedroom floor.
The Dancer closed her eyes for a moment and reached into her bag to caress the smooth contours of the new thing. She could hear snare drums emphasizing each wave to crash against the shore and boats calling low like oboes across the bay. Slowly, she began to turn, dancing to the orchestra of the ocean. She knew the song by heart. She had been hearing it from birth, and it was these sounds which had first taught her how to move, to dance. Her bag fell limp on the sand as she picked up speed, leaping and cavorting to her private opus. She knew why the birds rode thermals over the ocean, for she was a gull, and the feel of the wind was the power that lifted her off the sandy dunes and propelled her on. She contained the wind in her footfalls, the pulse of the ocean in her veins.
The bells at St. Augustine's came crashing through the surface of her dance all too soon, and she stumbled back into the world, reminded that he was waiting back at the greystone which housed their apartment. She was sullen at having to leave the beach, but she swooped up her bag and ambled through the beach grass winding her way back to the parking lot, still swaying ever so slightly to the song. She slid into her car, swinging her bag into the backseat, the half formed thing inside almost forgotten.
She turned on the ignition and drove home.