Verónica

By Estrella DaCosta

 

As others trickled onto the dance floor, I inched closer to watch her. The dim lights overhead cast her shadow on the floor below and she amused herself as she suddenly started to follow it closely, chasing it here and there.

As the tempo of the music picked up, she began to smile and prance, a deer in motion. I wanted to be her, free and easy to the beat of the music. She only stopped once to take a breath and a sip from her drink that sat lonely and waiting at the high-top table in the corner. It seemed to call her name from time to time.

I thought soon she will tire, but she never did. As an hour passed, then two, she just got bigger and bolder with her movement. She was the red cape of a bull fighter as she fluttered across the slick wood underneath her feet. At times she appeared like the verónica pass of the muleta as the matador goes in for the kill, slowly swinging her arms away from her body while keeping her feet steadfast.

For a long while I sat mesmerized by her intrinsic beauty, her deep brown eyes gleaming as if chestnuts in the morning sunlight. Playful eyes that lit up the room. It was clear that she had flown into this place from heaven above, an angel-bird with golden wings.

I was in a trance-like state, a daze I wished to never end. Everything around me dissolved. Perhaps I could just stay here for the rest of my life in this place, in this moment of pleasure and content: a contentment I had never felt before, never as a child nor as an adult.

As she departed, I knew I would not see her again. Her memory was etched in my brain and would remain there always. The song still in my head as a constant reminder of the sweetness and power that music and the moment has to sweep you up and take you away.

I will always remember her. She had the innocence of a child. She was a child. She was only three. She captured my heart.