The Tango of the Sun

The light entered the room before I did. A cavernous elegance to a spot unclaimed by dream’s worst reckoning. I hear the sound of my shoes as they touch the marble beneath them. Marble flooring and shiny blue shoes. I have a tuxedo fitted for me by Venus herself. She made me promise not to stain it with burgundy wine. The lapels were soft cerulean demigod dust that she’d gathered from her favorite myths. Venus was the only entity I knew who could dance through narratives at will. She was the one who told me about the ballroom. She was the one who asked me to enter the competition. She promised me a tuxedo and an evening I would never forget. She kept her word.

I stepped into the ballroom, but my light arrived first. I can’t control it. It goes as it wishes, and it wished to hurry up already. It must have heard the music. A large band somewhere invisible to the eye. Tables filled with shadows carrying faces I did not recognize so that while the room was full, it was also empty. This was how I learned to hold a vision in one eye and a reality in the other. I was a moon, yes, but I could be one kind of moon on a Tuesday and another moon entirely on a Thursday. A girl could receive her first kiss while laying out in a meadow defying her mother’s orders to be home before dark and I could be above her shining down with mischief. I could support her in this youthful folly. Foresight was not my strong suit, but I knew the boy she was kissing would be gone soon. I just didn’t know how.

Tonight, however, I was not that moon. I was a moon of wisdom. A moon of insight. I would not fall in love, because I was here to compete. To win a trophy made of amber divinity that Venus told me should be mine. I was entitled. I had swung myself around the planet in search of accolades. I had acted in films. I had raised pedigrees. I had found myself in the record books, but none of it was enough. Venus told me there was a competition. She said I should wear blue shoes meant for dancing. She told me of a tango. She told me of--

“A partner?”

She’d be alone. Her dress a magnet gold. A pull-in. I was told to nod when she spoke to me. We were familiar, but not family. We were civil and had witnessed civilization. Her hand found mine. A gray glove covered each and every finger. Millenia passed until we had fully locked hands. There were so many places to connect. There was so much to desire. I had loved her since the clearing of a throat that led to humanity. I had followed her since calendars were thought to be imaginative and time itself was within its own identity. I told her it would be a privilege to lead her onto the floor, but--

“Where is everyone else?”

This was a contest. Where were the other contestants? The seasoned pros of Autumn and Spring springing around the room demonstrating a samba? The years 1957 and 2085 announcing themselves as the five-time champions before giving the room a rumba? How could she and I be the only ones here when the contest had begun centuries ago and was already running ten minutes behind? She smiled at my confusion and told me that as we danced the tango, the orbit of our story would be filled with similar dances by similar couples, but none would be the sun and none would be the moon. We would have that distinction, and we should use it to our advantage. Her hand felt like Coriana. It felt like sediment. As she walked, I saw the shadows thrust themselves into each other to discuss her radiation. She was palpable. I was passive. We were meant to exude chemistry. I was worried I’d step on her shoes.

The music began quietly, then boomed. I felt her request to lead with nothing more than a ray permeating my right crater. Parts of us that were never meant to touch were now grazing each other with delicate precision. She led us around the floor as the out-of-sight band played louder and louder. I could no longer hear my shoes on the marble, but I could hear my heart in my core. A rocket launch assailed us from somewhere within this edifice. It could have been a temple. It could have been a prison. Either way, I would dance. I would dance and I would win this trophy only so that I could hand it to her. To my partner.

To the Sun.

Our dance lasted until the last person on earth felt their bones split and turn to feathers. The feathers formed wings and they were up in the sky. I was not there to see it, because I was dipping this orb that I had grown to love in all time and no time and every time and any time. Her fire lit the marble. The shadows screamed, but nothing caught. There was nothing to fear. We were all past extinction. The music had stopped and no one had even noticed. I had caressed her with my lunar apologies. She smirked and flared towards a spot on Mars.

When the dance was over, the trophy revealed itself to be something separate from what I had envisioned. It was not a cup. It was not a chalice. It was a piece of information. A song that wrote itself into the tangled tango as we danced and set itself free. The trophy was obliteration. It was an inward spark. A void of transparency. The Sun paraded herself around the ballroom and with each step every shadow became illumination.

I would return to Venus. I would bring her nothing but bad news. She would grant me forgiveness and always suspect that I was holding back. That as I cycled from new to half to full and back, I’d kept something locked away in myself. With each tide rolled and every stirring of arrhythmia, a song would play.

And while I wouldn’t sing along, I’d remember every word.