Cassandra Under Glass

Near a city on the coast, at the outskirts of that city, at a crossroads by a small town, in a tavern without a name, on a shabby, straight-backed stool at the far left end of the bar, sat a tall, slender man in a lavender suit.

“How much for a Jack and Coke?” The man asked the portly bartender. His tone had a fake-innocent quality to it, like he’d never ordered such a drink, or perhaps any drink, ever in his life.

“Five bucks.”

“What if, in lieu of those few, petty, dollars, I showed you something? Something guaranteed to impress and amaze. Something magical that you’ll be telling your friends and family about for years to come.”

“Heh. You got that in your pants I guess?” The bartender smirked and glanced to his left to see if anyone had caught his smart remark. None of the barflies, mostly sailors and dockworkers, had even lifted their eyes from their drinks.

“Oh ha ha!” The man in the lavender suit laughed in a most fake manner. “Very clever indeed sir. But what about this? How about I show you the curiosity in question, then you can decide whether it's a suitable payment for a simple mixed drink?”

And from by his feet, the man produced a package covered in white silken cloth. With a brass handle sticking out the top, it appeared like a bird cage.

The man slid his hands around the base of the package, as if he were about to flip the cover off straightaway. But then he stopped and caught the bartender’s eye. “I get ahead of myself, I should ask your permission. May I show you this treasure, the most valuable thing I own, that I guarantee you’ll never forget?”

“Yeah, okay.”

The man smiled and, with the flare of a stage musician, flipped up the silken cover, though only on the bartender’s side so no one else could see.

What the bartender saw was an octagonal case almost all of glass, with only the lightest of brass frames holding the panes together. Inside burned a small blue flame, like from a bunsen burner, but no other object or artifice save a few ashes in one corner.

“Heh, nice trick,” the bartender said, though he didn’t sound impressed by the flame that burned without apparent fuel.

“Oh excuse me,” the man replied. He reached out and tapped on the glass. “Cassandra really should have been ready right away.”

With his tapping, the flame leapt to life, surging to the top of the case before splitting apart and cascading back to the floor. The bartender’s eyes went wide and he took a step back. From down the bar, curious eyes began shifting in his direction.

Then the dance began.

Cassandra, the flame, started with a waltz of a sort: rising and falling in sets of three beats, then gliding around her confined space at the same tempo, still rising and falling, her fire turning from blue to orange when she licked up toward the roof of the container.

The barman’s mouth hung open, his eyebrows moved ever higher. He didn’t notice that all eyes were now on him and didn’t hear when another patron called for a beer. His reverie was only broken when one of the bar’s regulars reached across to grab his arm.

“What do you see, friend?” The one-eyed old fisherman asked.

“Wonder,” was all the barman could muster as a reply. For now Cassandra was spinning; slowly, gracefully spinning, tight as a tornado but leisurely as an eddy in a puddle.

“Perhaps everyone would like a view of the beautiful and talented Cassandra,” the man in the lavender suit announced. “But first there’s the matter of my Jack and Coke.”

“Oh!” The bartender said, still staring at the dancing flame. Then he moved reflexively to prepare the drink, which he’d served hundreds of times before. He didn’t notice when he spilled some of the coke.

With his drink acquired, the man in the lavender suit slid the case down the bar, whispering “excuse me” to each patron as he came to them, forcing each in turn to move out of his way. When he reached the center of the bar, he whisked off the silken cover and retreated back to his old seat.

For the next hour, all sat in rapt attention. Normally hard men and women watched Cassandra glide about her glass case, turn and pirouette. They watched her flip through the air like an acrobat, then splash and flatten out on the floor before sliding along like a snake.

She didn’t appear as a woman at first, but the more they all watched, the more her fiery limbs appeared as arms and legs, the more they saw feminine features in the shifting blues and yellows, and the more melancholy her countenance appeared.

The man in the lavender suit spent his time sipping one drink after another, and filling up on pretzels and peanuts. His gaze never joined the audience until the appointed hour was up.

“Alas, Cassandra and I must go,” the man said as he slipped between the patrons and slid the cover back over the glass case and its precious occupant.

Murmurs and grumbles from the crowd as the man snatched the cage away. “Hey, you gotta give us another chance to see the dancing flame!” A woman dockworker dressed all in blue corduroy shouted, joined by the grumbled agreement of her compatriots.

“Oh worry not. I shall return again tomorrow evening at six.”

And with that, the man doffed his hat, which was slightly more purple and less gray than the rest of his suit, before scurrying out the door. Once safely outside, he dashed to a side alley, then navigated in the dark to a shady motel two blocks down. He didn’t want anyone from the bar to know where he was staying.

But he kept his promise, and returned the next evening, this time carrying the silken-covered case at chest level, proudly, like a bearer of a royal gift. A sizable crowd had showed up, most of the barflies from the previous day, but also many of their co-workers, girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, wives, even children. The bartender had told them all that kids could attend as long as they kept quiet.

The crowd parted for the man in the lavender suit, and fifty pairs of eyes followed as he strode to the bar with immaculate posture and a grand smile. He placed the covered container at the center of the counter, then removed his hat and placed it beside “in case any of you are feeling generous.” When he whisked off the silk cover and backed away, the crowd flowed in to take the best viewing angles.

Cassandra leapt to action immediately. She started as a low, spinning disk, then rose from amber ankles in a pirouette, morphing seamlessly from breakdancer to ballerina. Then she solo tangoed in a striding spiral outward until she reached a wall, where she leapt and kicked off, suddenly pinballing around the case, kicking off each glass panel in turn. When Cassandra finally settled, she leapt vertically, backflipped head-over-heels, over-and-over, each time creating a rainbow arc that hung in the air for several seconds before it faded. Next she shot to the ceiling and performed an upside-down solo foxtrot, where on each 4th step she dropped an ember of herself, until she was a smoldering puddle at the bottom, at which point she rose again into a can-can, with each high kick producing a brilliant flash of white. Cassandra held her audience entranced.

The man in the lavender suit had long ago retreated to a dark corner of the tavern to smoke a cigarette and think about what he’d do with all the money he was about to make. While Cassandra was performing, no one in the tavern even cast a curious glance in his direction… no one except one young girl.

She had been watching Cassandra dance from atop her father’s shoulders, as spellbound as anyone by the fiery performance. But her father had a sore back working the docks and so begged to let her down. And this girl, who was a compassionate sort, scaled down without complaint. Her name was Gwen.

Gwen had cast about for other viewing spots. A cluster of children had stacked some chairs on one side of the bar, but their vantage point already looked precarious. One woman stood on a table and placed her hands on the shoulders of the men in front of her, but Gwen wasn’t confident she could move the furniture herself. And one enterprising boy hung from the chandelier, though his angle of view looked poor.

Finally her eyes settled on the small red ember winking from the corner where the man in the lavender suit sat and smoked. Gwen immediately felt curious and walked up to him.

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Why aren’t you watching the dancing flame?”

“Why aren’t you watching the dancing flame?”

“I was watching from my daddy’s shoulders, but then he got tired and now I don’t have a good place to watch. Why aren’t you watching the dancing flame?”

“I’ve watched her many times before.”

“It’s not because she makes you sad?”

The man in the lavender suit ran his free hand through his sandy-blonde hair, normally covered by his hat. “What makes you ask that?”

“Because she was making me sad. I liked her dancing but I felt bad for her, trapped like she is. So I thought maybe you would too.”

The cigarette fell from the man’s mouth and he didn’t immediately retrieve it. Instead he cast his eyes about the tavern, and noted that no one was looking their way. So he narrowed his eyes at Gwen, and lowered his voice as he said “I never watch Cassandra dance. For if I did, I’d feel sorry for her, I’d feel guilty for locking her up. And then I’d be tempted to let her out of her cage. And that would be a real shame, because she’s how I make my money. She’s my little captured star, and I can’t ever afford to let her go.”

Then the man in the lavender suit grinned in a way that made Gwen think he couldn’t feel sadness, or sorrow, or guilt. Then he got up and left the bewildered girl. 

None in the crowd noticed when the man in the lavender suit slipped between them to reclaim his prize. And this time the response of the crowd was more like a low wail. They’d been swept up over the course of the evening, and a few were even crying. As the man in the lavender suit collected Cassandra’s cage and his purple hat, now swollen with cash, he had to beg off their protestation.

“I shall return again tomorrow evening. Same time or perhaps a bit later. Worry not, you shall all see Cassandra again. And I assure you she has even more exotic dances to show you.”

Such was the crowd’s focus that it took them many moments to start to stand, settle their tabs, collect their children, and head for the exit. Gwen tugged at the sleeves of her parents and tried to impress upon them her feelings about the man in the lavender suit.

“I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“Of course he’s coming back. His hat was full of money at the end. And he wouldn’t deprive us of… one more chance to watch Cassandra.”

“But he’s mean. He knows Cassandra makes us sad so you’ll give him money. But he’s the reason she’s sad.”

“That part of it is none of our business.”

Fortunately for Gwen, someone else was listening to this conversation. A group of children who hadn’t found viewing spots had instead taken to playing outside, exploring the alleyways and ambushing each other from behind trash cans.

One of them, a boy named Diego, listened to Gwen argue with her parents, then slid up to her. “We saw where that man went. He slipped down the alley to that old place.” He pointed down the street to the dingy motel. “You really think he’s not coming back tomorrow?”

Gwen nodded. “And he’s impironed that fire girl and won’t let her go.”

“We need to free her! Can you meet back here in two hours?”

Gwen nodded. Diego went among his friends to explain to them. All agreed to the plan. This all happened while Gwen’s parents talked about whether to stop by a convenience store on the way home.

*

The adults slept soundly that night, pacified by the hypnotic performance they’d watched. This made it easier for their children to slip out into the darkness, armed with flashlights. Diego also brought a set of bolt-cutters.

Their quest was helped by the night manager, who snuck in a nap around midnight.

It also didn’t hurt that the man in the lavender suit left his light on until late, meaning he could be identified from the darkness outside. And when he finally went to bed, he kept his window open on a surprisingly hot night, leaving only a wire-mesh screen to keep out bugs.

We’ll likely never know exactly what happened. But early that morning the night manager at the motel woke in a start when he smelled smoke (the batteries in the fire alarms had run down.) The fire was contained mostly to a single room, the building was insured, and no one was injured… at least no one that was found.

Investigators later discovered a felt hat in the charred room, now more gray than purple. They also found a train ticket, scheduled to leave that very morning. But while the room had been occupied, they found no body, and were forced to conclude that the man had found another way to flee. The whole episode became a local legend, though none of the adults could agree on the details.

When the children involved grew up and had families of their own, they would tell their children a story of how a dancing star escaped from her captor. And they say that if you search the night sky closely, scan the smaller, dimmer points of light that most people look past, you just might find a star that break-dances and waltzes and jitterbugs with joy.