The Dancer and the Hill
Photo by Miguel Cano Gallo
The Dancer walked down the Hill with the perfect excuse of a fair taking place at the Village. He had never danced for people other than himself before; nonetheless, he was convinced that the Village shall have the right to see his body moving at the rhythm of the drums and the melody of the lutes.
The Dancer found people on the road who would ask him: “Where are you going with those fancy clothes?” Innocent and arrogant he would answer: “To let others see what no one has seen yet.” The arrogance that blinded him made him ignore the fact that the Hill had seen his dance before, and she was growing jealous of the Village, because the Village, filthy and inattentive, would never have the spirit to appreciate the beauty of his movements.
Driven by this jealously, the Hill started putting all kinds of magical sounds in the Dancer’s way, and the naive dancer, amused by the sounds of nature, couldn’t stop his body from making the most wonderful movements that were ever seen on Earth: His hands started shaping the air while his feet drew kisses on the ground; dancing along the road, he crossed forests, trees, clouds, and rivers. His shoes ripped apart, and his fancy garments became simple dirty pieces of cloth. Now, the people at the road would ask him nothing, for they felt hypnotized by his movements, and these people had then become invisible to the Dancer’s eyes.
The Dancer then lost his way to the
Village, but it would not matter because, in the end, there was only the dancer and the Hill; the Hill whispered sweet notes all along his path, and the Dancer caressed her soil with his magical performance, realizing that the Hill was the only one who deserved his body. And this is how it was meant to be.
The Dancer blended with the Hill, and he vanished in her forests, never to be seen again. The confused Village suffered, for it never got to contemplate his dance. In consolation, the people at the village would say that he married the Hill: She would sing to him; he would dance for her, and they would make love forever, far from the sight of the other mortals.
By Miguel Cano Gallo
