(The Church of the Comic Spirit is now available at Amazon.com.)

 

October 2

Musings on the theme, Dancing Over the Rays of Light

May I have this dance?

She flushed and lowered her head and cocked it shyly to one side. She peeked up at me and said nothing and then nodded slightly and I could see in her eyes that yes, I could have this dance.

And the one following?

She hesitated, then nodded again.

And the one following that?

She smiled.

I put down my cane and placed one hand round her waist and with the other took her hand and squeezed it slightly and looked down into her expectant upturned eyes and the music began and we were dancing cheek to cheek to the guiding voice of Fred Astaire and when that song ended we do-si-do’d to the sound of frenzied fiddles, oh it was hoedown heaven and oh we could have danced forever and we did, we found ourselves rising above solid earth and then we were whirling and stepping from one cloud to the next to the stately count of a Strauss waltz and when we reached the highest mare’s tale we jitterbugged on the ice crystals and then it was on to a-one-an’-a-twoing to the champagne music of Lawrence Welk but even that did not last so we rose to the next level where we stamped our feet to the bolero and looked down in pity on the brown earth and its sorry taints and it was on and up to the outer fringe and we celebrated our ascent with a set of Chopin mazurkas and by the time we had tired of that repertoire we took a giant leap into another beyond where we danced the dance of the ghosts and then the steady thunder of drums put us in a hypnotic trance but then we awoke and ascended to a sphere that would have caught the eye of the divine Dante, a place that was not a place because our bodies no longer touched, no longer longed for union, we had become the Real Persons we were always meant to be, we were dancing to the immortal music of the gods, we were dancing over the rays of light, dancing ourselves into a final and everlasting trance.

Resumption of account

“Barney?” said a voice.

I was reaching down, feeling around on the floor for my cane.

“Are you all right?” she inquired.

I located the cane.

“Barney?” Professor Calloway was speaking.

I picked up my cane and sat up straight, as befits a Christian gentleman.

The others, I noticed, were staring at me.

I adjusted my porkpie hat to betoken my devil-may-care attitude.

But they kept staring. They were showing concern. That concern was, however, mixed with curiosity.

In order to set their minds at rest, I informed them that I had an ailing hip.

Professor Calloway appeared heartened by this explanation. She resumed her lecture, though my attention to the unexpected pain I thought I felt in my left hip prevented me from a full comprehension of the substance of her discourse. And before I could think of a way to request a more robust explication of the point she was making, she waltzed on to the next subject, the gratitude she experienced from our being such a splendid class. Though I did not have a watch to gauge the time, it became clear to me that she was nearing the end of her lecture. She went on to express the audible hope that our lives had been indeed enriched by the course, a sign, I was quick to discern, that we were nearing the end of the entire series of lectures.

The six of us applauded her presentation, though in different ways: four by standing, one (Ms. Cannon) by nodding vigorously, one by repeatedly striking the tip of his fine cane on the floor. And before I could rise, she had left the room, the smile with which she had greeted me just one short week before still intact.

Her sudden exit caused me a familiar discomfort: I was being attacked by my old nemisis, panic. This time, however, my reaction was not a sudden desire to escape my apartment, for I was not in it. Nor was it to lower myself into the comfort of a chair, for I was already seated. No. This time my reaction was to rise from my chair and, with the aid of my cane, to follow Professor Calloway and engage her in an enlightened exchange on the subject of her doctoral dissertation.