Upon the stage, a confusion of acrobats leapt through the air; somersaulting, twisting, cartwheeling, the tumblers’ constant motion mesmerized. Soon, I suspected, the chaos would resolve. The stronger men would form a base. The lighter girls would clamber up. A tower of flesh is how these things usually end. A pyramid is the essential thing, simple and elegant. I suspect this troupe will eschew the trope. They are good, and they already did a nice triangle for us.
From the darkness we in the audience are kept in, I feel the change. Something is in the music. Not so brash now, nor loud. It is simplifying, and so signals the simplification to come. What was many will soon be one.
Yes, they are gathering, climbing, growing. Do they really intend? But yes. One man holds the whole up, his great legs set firm and unshaking as the last dainty dancer leaps over the stage and joins herself to the branching tree of human bodies. There they stand as the music fades away.
I wonder, staring at the straining acrobats, whether this tree is the tree of life or of death. What fruit grows upon that bright stage?
Tale Told 