The Oldest Dance

Kusha felt a tinge of pride, exponentially multiplied by her Low-Grade inferiority complex, reading this footnote. It worsened when ads started coming up on her HOME page after reading it. The ads had horrible titles: Dream Youth For The Low Grades. Alternate Longevity. A Secret Pleasurable Way To Youth. Get Your Dream Citizenship With Pleasing Pleasure Contract. The last one is for non-citizens, of course. At least, she’s a citizen. But when Kusha discovered how many unevolved men and women enter such contracts just for citizenship, it made her face crease. As if she’d caught a nasty smell. For a moment, she even thought, she hated every High Grade in the world, including everyone in her adoptive family. Right now, standing in front of Meera, the hatred swells.

Maroc Metz—as usual in his tailcoat, rimless glasses, gloved hands, and neatly brushed black hair—welcomes the Mesmerizer with boiling-hot tea—Earl Grey, raspberry flavor. He drinks a third of it in one gulp, its heat boosting his prana. The boiling-hot tea doesn’t make him blink away from the Devil’s Book.

If his first impression weren’t ninety percent pre-constructed by the entrance, he would think that it was a nice, comfortable place to live in.

A herd of deer catches the Monk’s attention. They are running. He senses the fear in them. Soon, the largest cat in this forest takes one of them: it runs, grabs a neck, halts, and mauls; then it kills. A predator wins. Always. The herd of deer accepts it. Mourning a while, they go back to grazing. Perhaps they even think, this time too, it wasn’t me. Not yet.

It's a laughable lock—one that you would use only to guard a graveyard. Not that anyone would trouble themselves invading a timber hut in a mangrove forest farther away from the Bay of Bengal. Still, how can someone live with a lock like that? Made of ancient iron, reeking of rust. It would need a primordial key to be twisted and turned, going through several moments of mechanical trouble until the old lock opens. Good luck if you can do that without breaking the key. Oh! The key … Well, the owner of the hut has left the key right beside the lock, including instructions. The Monk, Yuan Yagmur—revealing his muscled arms from under his wide, dark shawl—takes the note (the one with instructions): Please, scan your CRAB first before touching the key. For your own safety. From what, you ask? It’s a surprise. Enter without scanning if you want to find out. —Mee-Hae Ra

Kusha freezes her muscles, straightening her spine and lifting her chin. Absolute attention, she tells herself.

The Monk remembers what he has told the Mesmerizer. That he won’t step into the evil. That he won’t read the Devil’s Book. And, he will never let that predator win. Never.

He saw what that man has become in their recent meeting.

It’s too dangerous for her to step into this. Is he making a mistake bringing her? What if that monster harms her?

My nightmares are out of control. The thoughts during my dreams,” Mee-Hae says, leaning against his chest.

Mee-Hae, like the perfect, gentle, and understanding woman from contemporary books of the Old World, lets the Monk avoid her crucial question, the question she should never have overlooked. The question even the Monk will regret not answering right now, right here, not only for her sake but also for his own.

Sometimes, I wonder if he is behind it, too. Or maybe I’m thinking too much.

I know what war looks like, Yuan.” Mee-Hae gazes into the forest from the balcony. Her palm traces her lower belly where her womb should be, and her face creases as if she is in physical pain.

The Monk frowns—almost, noticing how vaguely the Archeologist crafted her answer, for he said he’d believe it blindly.

There are signs of war. The radioactive rain wasn’t natural. I believe they were annihilated.” Mee-Hae utters annihilated so carefully as if someone might hear, as if it’s a cautiously chosen word and not spoken as a part of a casual description.

Evidence of radioactive rain destroying a city seventy thousand years ago,” Mee-Hae answers.

I thought a Monk with no emotions would understand.

You’re after secrets, aren’t you? Just like him,” Mee-Hae says.

Now you’re interested. After three years? No wonder you even found me here!” says Mee-Hae. “I’m sure I was harder to find than the tea I’m holding.

But you’re avoiding my question, Yagmur. Don’t think I didn’t notice.

The Monk avoids the question. He brings out a small package of tea—procured from the Himalayas with difficulty.

I’m guessing something happened?” Mee-Hae says, busying herself with make-the-sofa-sittable and turn-the-room-walkable for a sudden guest.

Mee-Hae stops a foot away from him, who is wrapped in his decades-old, dark shawl that should be torn and faded by now, but it isn’t, thanks to the technology that repairs one molecule at a time if you have the budget for it.

Mee-Hae Ra. Pointy face, angled eyes; skin warmed after years of living in the south; blue T-shirt, jean shorts, and CRAB in her left wrist. Nothing has changed, except the short, dark-red hair—it was black during the war.

The Monk remembers taking this photo himself. Sometimes, he wonders if it’s his fault that that man lost his last threads of humanity.

And there rests him—the Mesmerizer, frozen in one of his rarest smiles, right beside Mee-Hae. His hair is a darker shade of blond in the photos, as it was back then, and his eyes blue like the clearest sky.

The largest wall in the living room is full of framed photos, depicting stories of war, peace, friendship, and love—everything in the last six decades displayed on a single wall.

Things look familiar: the high shelves full of books, jars of green tea, dried flowers—also for tea, big rocks, and crystals that emit strong prana and light. The light trapped inside the crystals makes them brighter, stunning against the dark background of the wooden floor and ceiling.

Not everyone has flawless intuition, do they?

The lights glow, sensing a human presence. “Welcome home!