Friday 10 February 2012

Friday Flash Fiction - Time Step

We discovered the Time Step by accident one day while we were practicing some new moves for a dance-off. Jason said he had something new he wanted to try out, so we gave him the space. He started out pretty standard, looking like he was just warming up to the music, finding his rhythm, then he did this weird thing where he stood on one foot and kind of started flapping his arms. I started to laugh at it, then he got this surprised look, there was a *whump* like someone dropping something huge onto thick carpet and he was just gone! We panicked right away, and we looked everywhere for him, and just when we figured we should call someone, there was that same sound and he was back again, right in the spot where he disappeared, standing in that same stupid pose with the same surprised expression.

"Jason, what the hell? You've been gone for an hour!" said Max, our crew leader.

"I dunno, man. I was just doing like this..."

We all shouted "STOP!" just as Jason stood on one foot again. Idiot was going to do it all over.

We figured out eventually that Jason stumbled on some kind of voodoo move that sent him just a little way into the future. Who knew how it worked, and it looked stupid as hell, but it was amazing. We started trying it, after Jason failed to get sick or drop dead, and it only seemed to work in certain places, but anyone could do it once they knew how. Mitch found a kind of spinning flip that looked awesome and sent him almost exactly four beats ahead, so we figured we could use it in our routines sometimes, especially for big finales.

So that's what we practiced. We worked out this incredible routine - one of our best, I have to say - that finished with Mitch jumping ahead a few seconds and the rest of us timing our landing to his. It was beautiful.

When we went to perform, we had everyone on their feet even before we reached the ending they'd never forget. Mitch hit his jump right on cue, and the rest of us landed just right to match him ... only Mitch never reappeared. Someone thought we'd used some stage magic or something, until they saw that we were all kind of shocked. We waited for hours that night for Mitch to come back, but he never did.

I still go back to that club now and then. It's abandoned and run-down now, but I figure one of these days Mitch is going to reappear to finish that move. I'm not sure what else to do, so I leave a newspaper to let him know how long he's been gone. We really should have known it would be different in a different place, but we can't fix that now.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I just had a weird idea about a dance move that made you time-travel.
PPS - This is what came out of that.

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