The Dancing Beast

Jonas

First ten years after Matt’s disappearance, we had gotten together every year at that day to share memories of childhood and make sure everyone of us was doing fine. But that was before, and soon we were drifting apart because of adulthood and its responsibilities. Just last year, I heard that Carl had passed away due to having some sort of cancer growth in his intestines. Lena, on the other hand, had moved somewhere out of the country long time ago, I did not know where. And what came to Aurelia and Levi, I had not had any contact with the two of them in years, for no particular reason whatsoever. To be honest, I had no time in my busy life to dwell in childhood memories or to spare my thoughts for some old friends I never saw nowadays anyway. Not except that one day every year. It had come again, the anniversary of Matt’s disappearance. 30 years ago it was now. I sat in a bar with a glass full of whiskey in my hand. It was an Asian bar. There were painted dragons on the ceiling, and next to me a lantern so tiny I could easily escape its light and keep my head in the shadows. Usually, I did not use alcohol at all really, but this time every year I needed it in order to silence the surrounding world for a while. I needed it to numb the quilt I felt about that late summer’s day. I knew, just like every one us did, we would never know what had really happened that day.

The Dancing Beast they had called him. The newspapers. That was because Matt had suffered from neurofibromatosis. He was a normal child until a year-old. Then he started to get freckles and coffee colored stains on his skin. After that came those nasty tumors that seemed to favor his face, for all. Nevertheless, it was all just cosmetics, and none of that really bothered his physical capabilities to live a normal life. When Matt was five-years-old, some of the tumors were surgically removed, but that was more traumatic for Matt than having them, so his parents decided no more surgery was needed. For as long as I could remember knowing Matt he had looked rather grotesque. He had those chubby tumors that covered almost all of his left eye, I did not know whether he could see anything with it at all. His mouth was hanging crooked on the other side and you could hear that in his speech. It sounded a bit blurred. However, after a while, we got used to it and could understand him easily enough. But most people simply seemed to fear the little boy. He truly looked like some sort of a monster or a beast.

However, that did not mean that Matt was not loved. Oh, he was though. Even though, people on the streets stopped to stare at him with disgust, and he was bullied and called names, there was a lot of us who truly loved him as well. His medical condition seemed to had made him grow faster than us others of the same age, and he seemed more mature. He was intelligent as well as emphatic, and some people could sense that from afar. Matt’s mom used to treat his son like any normal child, or she treated him like he was special, but not because of his condition, but simply because he was her son. Matt was close with his father also, who made sure his son would get the same opportunities that every other child, and who taught him all the important survival skills as all dads should. On top of that, Matt had us. The five of us, we loved our monster friend deeply. He was part of the team like any one of us. Besides, we all shared a passion for dancing. We all went to the same dancing school and Matt was the best among us, for sure. His neurofibromatosis did not limit his dancing at slightest, even though, doctors were constantly warning him that that would possibly not be the case later in his life. But right then he was magnificent. He moved effortless with clean lines. He resembled a cat with feet ever so light. His condition did not limit his movement, not at all, but it did mean that he was not to be seen by outsiders, never competing with us.

And compete we did. Every other week. They were not big competitions, no, just small ones. It was all fun, nevertheless. I was doing solos as well as group performances from time to time. But Matt could not compete because of his face. He tried though, to change our dance teacher’s mind into letting him participate. Even his mom did. Our teacher was old, conservative, and strict, a woman who was clearly stuck in her own forgotten past glory. After months of persuasion, however, she surprised us all, and agreed to Matt participating in a competition. She made a chilling routine for Matt and Lena to perform as a duet. It was called ‘Beauty and the Beast’. Lena was dressed as a beautiful princess and Matt was left without a costume at all. He was just himself. Regardless, Matt was excited. He did not know that was to be their first and last routine ever. They danced gracefully. Lena was a great actor and you could see every emotion from her face, as Matt’s face never changed at all. Or maybe it did, but it could not be seen under the tumors. They did not only win the highest score of the competition, but Matt also won the best costume. The judges were not aware that Matt was wearing no mask.

After the truth came to light, the newspapers went wild. They called him the Dancing Beast. The reporters were drooling over an interview, but Matt’s parents tried their best to keep the scavengers away from their son. Against all odds though, Matt loved the attention. Not the negative comments, I do not think so, but those that cheered him and the admiring looks and just the attention overall. It was at that point, that Matt started to talk to me about joining a circus when he would be of age. I thought it odd, that he wanted to be known as a freak, but he said to me then:

“I would be allowed to be different. No, I would be expected to be different. Then people would not constantly try to make me like everyone else. I am not like everyone else, I am me. And people would come to see me. I would dance for them. I would become art, beautiful in my own ugly way. And I would have similar people around me. The Dancing Beast. It sounds intriguing. That I could be.”

Oh Matt, how I desire being capable of loving myself the way you loved yourself against all the hardship and mistreat in your life. Oh, how I miss you, my friend. Can you ever forgive me?

All that was 30 years ago. The day Matt disappeared, we were all there together, the six of us. We left our bicycles at the tree line of the forest, on the grass, over the ditch separating the road from it. I had leaned my pear-like-green Canyon bike against one of the huge, old pine trees for it did not have a stand of its own. The day was warm and none of us had an overcoat on. The forest smelled of moss and bark. Matt was collecting pine cones and putting them in the pockets of his shorts, I noticed. None of us asked him why he was doing so. I really do not think it mattered anyway. Even though the day was dry and the sky was clear of clouds, it had rained yesterday and the ground had soaked so that it was still moist under my shoes. I was wearing sneakers and they got all wet when sinking into the mossy ground. I remembered the feeling of my tennis socks turning soggy and squeaking every step I took.

We circled in the forest for a while. We all lived quite close by, on the same street, except Levi. The street was located on an urban area, and all the houses were new and grand. My house was right next to Matt’s house. Around the street were lot of forests, such as the one we were in at the time, as well as a couple of lakes. We had no permission to go to the forest or to the lakes without an adult’s supervision. Both lakes were dirty and full of murky water and vegetation, so we had no interest in visiting them, but the forests we loved. Lena was good at recognizing plants and flowers and had helped us all when we had to make a flora for the school.

Suddenly, Aurelia started to complain that her feet were sore from all the walking and that we should get back. The sun was hanging low in the sky and the rays of light were touching the tree trunks and the ground with their bright orange hue. She was right. And we were just leaving when we heard it. Dry branches cracking and leaves rustling. We stopped.

“Sshh.. It's a bear,” Aurelia whispered loudly. We all got suddenly real scared. We were whispering to each other, trying to come up with a plan. The crackling became more consistent. It was not coming from someone stepping on dry branches on the ground, but it was someone breaking the branches as to inform us, they were coming. And the rustling started to remind that of shoes stepping on wet moss.

“People,” Matt said aloud what we were all thinking.

As we were not supposed to go into the forest without an adult, that meant no one knew where we were. That was obviously how we intended to keep it, so we started leaving quietly but with a quick pace. That was when the noises grew into a terrible rumble. Someone was running. No, not someone, there were more than one. It seemed as if the rumble came all around us. We started to run away in panic and that is when we heard the male voice shouting behind us:

“Damn you devil!”

“Lets scatter up!” Lena yelled, and right that moment everyone had vanished around me somewhere. I ran as fast as I could with my tiny, child’s legs. I think it was my instinct that told me, I was in danger. I could hear crackling and banging around me and someone screaming. I kept running even though my feet started to ache. I kept trying to find back to where our bicycles were. Suddenly, the forest around me disappeared and I could see the road and the houses. I did not have time to stop before the ditch and so I fell into it face down. I could feel all my clothes soak by the muddy water.

I tried to stand and felt dizzy. I was out of breath. I turned around and stared at the now dark forest. I could not see anything. I could not hear anything. Total silence. It was as if all the world had been swallowed by those huge and old tree trunks. I waited for a while, 5 minutes or 5 hours, I had no clue. After nothing happened, I took my bicycle and went home. The rest of the evening, I sat beside the telephone and tried to call everyone, to make sure they were okay. I was afraid of us getting grounded if we were to get caught. Later, I thought how childish a fear it had been. As the night grew closer, we found out everyone else had returned to their homes but Matt, he was still missing. So, we had to tell our parents what had happened. They were worried beyond believe. All that night our parents were searching the tree line of the forest with flash lights. I was not allowed to go with them so I sat my nose glued to the window, waiting. The police had been informed, but they said that they would not be able to do anything before dawn. When the morning sun finally got up, they started interviewing me, Aurelia, Lena and Levi. I was petrified of the thought that I could somehow be guilty and they would put me in jail. They searched the forest with K9-units and they found some leads yes, but after a while it came apparent those did not result in the finding of Matt.

Leonora

I stared through the kitchen window into the first winter’s night and how the sun going down painted the gloomy streets with its orange gleam. All the slush on the streets would freeze during night and become slippery trails. I stared in silence and waited to see a little, familiar figure emerge from the horizon, coming down the street. I had waited to see my son come home for 30 years. He never came.

I had loved my little son more than anything in the world. He had been the most beautiful child I had ever seen. Others did not agree, but to me he had been perfect from the moment I laid my eyes on him. I had wanted to offer my child everything in the world that others kept telling he could never have. I missed him so it hurt my chest as if a knife was cutting trough it. Please, come home. Please.

My son was 12-years-old when he disappeared. At first, the police thought he had ran away. I could not believe that, never. Furthermore, his friends told different. Someone had been chasing them in the forest. They heard it, but no one had seen anything, and that made the police hesitate at first. However, when they searched the forest during next few days, it confirmed that the children were telling the truth. Dogs picked up a trail and led the police to a clearing where there was sings of a struggle. But that was it. They never told us anything more and they never found my son. Volunteered divers searched both lakes nearby, but the waters were too murky and the other lake was too big anyway. They never found anything either.

Regardless, I kept waiting and hoping. Whatever had happened that day 30 years ago, I was still convinced that he was alive. A mother could sense these things. I would have known if he was not, surely. And that was what kept me hoping all those years.

Matt: 30 years ago

Everyone had vanished around me and there was nothing but silence. I stood on a clearing and tried to hold my breath so no one could hear me. I was in excellent shape and had not ran very far, so I was not out of breath. Nevertheless, my heart was pounding loud and my head felt heavy. Who had screamed before? I was planning out where to go and how I could find the others. I was sure, they would be back to where our bicycles were by now. I let a long, deep breath out and got goosebumps right away. I had no overcoat with me and it was getting chilly.

Suddenly, three figures came out of the forest. They were much older than me clearly, but not adults. They walked slowly towards me and I waited. Should I run? Right then I recognized that one of them was from my school. I had seen him. I knew his dad was a police officer.

“Devil,” he murmured to me, and I could see he was under the influence of some kind of a drug. His pupils were huge and black and he stared with eyes that looked like glass. I could see fear in those eyes. I realized, he was more scared of me than I was of him. Then they were right beside me and grabbed me. The boy I knew punched me. The others joined him. They struck me multiple times and I fell, that I remember. The pine cones I had been collecting for my mother, who made animal figurines out of them, fell out of my pocket and scattered on to the ground. I could taste blood in my mouth and I felt unable to breathe. They were cursing aloud. Devil. Was that me? I got delivered a big blow to my head. I guess, that was what really killed me. I knew, they were serious about hurting me, but I knew as well that they did not intend to kill me. They panicked when they realized they had done that.

After all that, they wrapped my body in a baby blue fleece shirt one of the boys had with them. Then they were carrying me for what seemed like a really long time. We were on the lake. They pushed my body into the cold water. The current was carrying me for a while, but then the thick vegetation grabbed on to me and pulled me under, right to the very bottom. My grotesque face became unrecognizable.

The divers, they were close, but they never found me.

And still I wait, in my watery grave, for someone to come and take me home. I dance under the water, dead. Dance like the Dancing Beast.