Dance a Mile

Chapter 1
Dance a Mile

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Chapter Description: Steven is a perfect child and his mother's love. While this child has felt comfortable going threw life just pleasing her, he soon gets an opportunity to see what life would be like without such a requiem.

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Steven was what one would call a perfect child. He’s attentive, responsible, naturally curious, an A student and multi talented. The boy has also been very attentive to his mother since he can remember, as it’s his mother that’s the problem. While not a horrible, she has had her own share of issues that have made her more distant that what she’s wanted to be. Steve’s father was killed tragically before his birth, and that was after his family rejected their union and him. So Steve has often made it his mission to be as attentive to the main woman in his life. But this has often proven problem some to a this young child, often sacrificing friends for his mother. Only his closet friend manages to deal with him. He’s had his own issues.

In an effort to increase her child’s happiness, today Wanda has brought her boy to the local open concept mall. The two pass down the small walk way, pass the small variety of stores. The boy walks just in front of her, excited by this new opportunity to get just about anything he wants.

?Xbox, not Playstation, no Wii.’ He thinks.

“Have you decided yet?” She asks.

“Not really.”

“Well, what’s the difference between the two of them?”

“Three. The Playstation is the most expensive, but has the best games and graphics. The Wii has the nice controller but the graphics aren’t all that great. The 360 has the best of both worlds, but has a lot of technical issues.”

“Well, you know what I said.” She says as merrily as she can manage. “Anything, there’s no price cap.”

“Okay, its not that wooo...” While walking backwards, the boy trips and falls to the ground. Wanda does nothing more than stop as the boy inspects the damage. He’s not injured in the least bit, but the sight of part of the tread of his shoe lying a few inches from were is should tells he the problem he’s had with walking.

“Well, it appears new shoes are more the order.”

The boy looks up to his mother with a rather pathetic look. “But moooom...”

“No buts, those shoes should have been put out to pasture years ago. You use them for track and you walk a little over a mile every day. They see more wear and tare than the rubber on the bottom of a Southwest 737.”

The boy grumbles, but is not one to complain or talk back. He looks at the completely worn out section of foot ware the white leather on the shoes is now completely brown with dirt, and the bottom of one of his shoes is missing. The boy stands up, sweeps back his longish hair and looks around. The two have landed in front of a small T intersection in the mall, were a shoe store sits.

“What about that place?” He points to the store.

The woman turns to see the store. Just from the windows, she can tell its one place she wouldn’t go herself. There are shoes all over, and from there she can tell most are used. Its like a good will store. But....

“Okay, bu...”

An electronic ring goes off and the woman immediately flies to her purse, she pulls out the small flip phone and realizes it’s the office.

“It figures.” She says to herself. The flips it open and hits the on button. “Hello...yeah, can you hold for a minute...okay.” She turns to her child. “Okay, here,” she reaches in her purse and hands him twenty dollars. “Get a pair of shoes that you can beet up and ware on those rocks you insist on climbing ever other day.”

“Okay.” He charges too the store, feeling the lack of rubber on his shoe every step. He runs into the store. He immediately stops the second he sees the wide variety of shoes sitting around the room. There’s no obvious organization, but the boy cares little. He passes into the shoes store. His big brown eyes watch every ounce of merchandise as if it was made out of gold. Then his eyes fall on one item in particular...a pair of ballet slippers hanging by their ropes from a metal rack. He reaches up to them and removes them from their perch to examine them. The pair of pink shoes captivates the boy.

“You can try them on if you like.” An ancient voice announces out of no where. The boy turns his head towards the source. Its an old woman who’s stature screams classic grandma.

“I can.” The boy says skittishly.

“Go ahead. Just remember, if you go a mile in them, there yours.”

The boy drops were he is. He takes off his own warn torn shoes and immediately brings the ballet shoes up to his own feet. The first one flies on with ease, which is a little too large for him. Steve notes a slight change in the floor material, but ignores it. He takes the second, and flings it one. Its only once the shoes are on does he realize something.

“Excuse me, but how do you tie these?” He says, then looks up to realize that he’s not where he was. His body is slumped over, and his view is pointed towards the his feet. He can see his feet, dressed in the ballet shoes which are wrapped in the straps he just questioned the old woman about. Then he catches something different. His legs are no longer bare as before. Their now wrapped in opaque, white nylons that give them a since of allure that he’s unfamiliar with. He fallows his legs up to his waste. A sheer, white skirt covers it, of which leads to a white wrapping and pink sash...a leotard. The whole package appears to be some sort of tutu.

“Oh my go...Alison. Alison.”

He notes his body position. He’s lying on his side on the ground, as if he’s been sleeping, or had been knocked over. There’s a small tilled floor below him, and a red faucet assembly that appears to have come from some back yard. Suddenly someone grabs his side and begins shaking him violently. He turns towards her,

“Huh, what?” he responds. He sees a girl standing over him. Her green eyes look down on him in extreme worry.

“Your okay?” She says beginning to cry.

“Yeah, but, wha...” He says, as he sits up.

A sudden crash comes from behind, causing him to shoot around. Two woman look towards the wall behind him, and then down to him.

“Oh my...” one of them states, “...what happened, are you alright.” Her attention drifts back up towards the wall behind him. The curiosity to some event behind him causes him to turn around. Behind him is a sink and a mirror, with a hole in the middle of it. The hole it about a foot in diameter and appears to lead straight threw the wall.

“That thing came threw and hit Alison in the head.” The girl states.

The second woman, a more manly version than the previous steps around the two girls and looks threw the whole, while the shorter, middle aged woman comes down and feels Steve’s head.

“Well, you look fine. Not a mark.”

“Welp...” the second woman says, “it looks like the water heater exploded next door.” She turns and looks to the two girls. “Well, lets get out of here, we’ll close this bathroom off and call a plumber.”

Steve is helped to his feet by this woman and the girl he’s never seen before. The goes along with the two, too much in shock from the realignment in realities.

He is walked to a bench located next to a stage area. There a bunch of girls stand around, all wearing romantic style dance tutu’s, all of which mirrors his won cloths. The event causes him to look over himself once again. For the most part, he looks the same, but his chest seems some what inflated slightly. He presses his legs together and catches something that is just as much as a surprise it feels as though his legs have something missing in the middle.

?Where am I...or who am I?’ He thinks to himself.

“Hey.” The girl next to him says. He turns towards her and note her anticipating face.

“Hi.”

“I’m glad your okay. When that thing hit you and you fell I...well I was scared.”

“Thanks, but I’m...not...sure...what’s going on.”

“It did happen fast didn’t it? Well, I’m glad you okay.” She reaches forward and give him a peck on the cheeks. The smiles as she backs off. “I’d make it longer, but I know how you don’t like other’s knowing.”

“Okay.” A loud yells comes out of nowhere. “Since were all okay, then we might as well get back to practice.”

“Okay.” The girl says excited.

“Okay, back out there, back out.” She waves her hands, motioning the two into the stage area.

Steve fallows, compelled to stay with this girl. They arrive to the stage area for all the girls to watch him over. They all circle around him, asking what happened.

“Okay, all to your places.”

The group immediately moves to their spots on opposing sides of the stage. Steve just fallows the girl from earlier, who heads back to the side of the stage which they originally entered from. The girls immediately arrange themselves around him, placing him third in line. The music starts, and the girls file out one by one. He sees as they skip, then twirls onto stage, each stopping at what appears to be a pre-planned spot on the stage. He watches them, wondering what to do, and memorizing their moves. Once his turn comes up, he fixes a position, and adopts their starting pose, and as he bends his knees and hopes for the best, his instincts take over. He jumps out onto the stage, fallowing a different routine. He jumps twice then does at twirl on the front, ahead of all others on the stage. He continues this dance, not realizing that all of the other girls have already come out onto the stage. Then the music hits a beet and he stops. His position leave him, opposite another girl , and directly facing the girl from earlier...Tabitha...the name suddenly comes to him. She sends a seductive smile to him, causing him to smile in response. Then the music restarts, causing him to go into a separate dance. This pattern continues as if there going threw an entire rehearsal for some show. But as they go, information swells into his head, until his own name of Alison flows back into his head. He realizes that he is a thirteen year old ballet student in a prestigious school...in Russia. But the details somehow become un-important. The remembering the dance moves and the pride he takes in performing them somehow deletes these additional factors from his head.

After about an hour, then girls rest. They congregate in the back were the conversation easily drifts between several different subjects from boys, the body issues, to dance, even stopping on a debate about the recent move to reform the Soviet Union and the introduction of democratic elections. After about forty minutes of break and lunch, the group proceed to a small, dance studio were they go back to endless hours of refining the basics, of which they spends hours performing, but the time seems to just fly by. Its five before the dance instructor releases the class. The girls all walk out and into the locker room. As he reaches a bench in front of a her locker a feeling overcomes him. This feeling of something important, urgent. The feeling draws him down to his shoes.

?Just remember, if you go a mile in them, there yours.’ The old woman’s words ring in his ears.

?I’m at the mile?’ He realizes. He thinks about all the jumps and steps he’s taken today, and while all small, they must have added up to the full distance.

“Hey, Allison,” Tabitha yells, “We got Ms. Rzhova to take us downtown for dinner.”

While a wave of excitement fills him, he’s also depressed. Images of him mother fill his mind. “Yeah.” He says watching this girl. His feelings for her fill him. He feels attracted to her. Memories of all the time they’ve spent together fills his head. But his mother’s memory comes back. “Let me get these off.” He says slowly. He bends down, and slowly removes the sashes for each of the slipper. He then slowly removes them one by one. Suddenly the room changes back to staid linoleum. He looks up to see the old woman. She’s only a few inches from where she was before. From behind him, a woman sits in the chair.

“Oh, blow off, why they hell should I try o...” He voice stops and she disappears. Her two boot heels suddenly disappear from their place next to the chair she sat in, and onto a shelf.

The woman then turns to the boy. “Back, I though you enjoyed yourself?”

The boy pauses a moment, before realizing what has happened. A tears fills his eyes.

“I..I did, but my mom. I couldn’t leave her.”

The old woman looks to him and smiles. “So you did enjoy yourself. Enough to go back?”

“Not if it means leaving my mom.”

“But what if it didn’t. How would you like to go back any time you want?”

“I’d like that.”

She moves towards the back counter. Steven immediately stands, holding onto the dance shoes. He kicks over his old, beat up shoes and slips them on his feat, then heads over to the counter. As he runs threw the cluttered room, he looks towards the seat the woman who was here once occupied.

“What happened to here...where did she do?”

“That mean woman?” She says as she goes threw a drawer behind the counter, “I had he try on some horse shoes. She now in a few delicatessens in Europe.”

“Delicatessens?”

“Yes, that’s what happen to horses that loose the race.”

“So you killed her?”

“No. She had the same chance you had.”

“But YOU killed her. She...”

“Don’t worry. While she voided her current existence, she will be back on Halloween night. Then she, and others who have died under those circumstances will be allowed one chance at a second chance before they must head to the other side.” The boy accepts the answer for now. “Now,” she says producing a small crystal. “you can use this whenever you wish to go back, or come back here. You can only go as far as to skip a nigh worth of sleep, no more.”

“So, if I wanted to skip a test...”

“You couldn’t. The best idea would be to wait till night, then go to your other life, then wait till you go to bed there, then come back.”

“Okay. How do I use it?”

“Just press your mind on it, will yourself to the other life and back. It will travel between life’s with you.” She hands him the crystal. Only in his hand does he notice the small string strung threw the top of the crystal.

“Thank you.” He states.

“Your welcome...that will be fifteen dollars for the set.”

After paying the woman, the boy runs outside to his mother, who just completes her phone call.

“Hey, what did you get?” She ask. He opens the bag and shoes her the shoes. “Ballet shoes?” She says shocked, but not fully surprised. “Well, that’s just like you I guess. Well, on that note, we have to go downtown today, one of our clients is in town, and they have hotel issues.”

“Okay, we can get the game system tomorrow.”

Downtown, in the local concert hall. His mother immediately finds the hard look manager for this latest act that his mother company represents, and they go to debating why they can’t check into a hotel before three. As they fight, Steve walks out into the stage area. There he spots main object of this latest performance. It’s a ballet troupe. They are all dressed in dance apparel, all bending and flexing, prepping for a practice or even performance. He watches there long bodies as they stretch around in their tutu’s, and tights. Non of them are wearing any makeup, they are all just practicing.

As he watches, captivated, he rammed slightly from behind. He immediately turns.

“Excuse me.” The woman says in a hard Russian accent.”

The two look to each other. Steve immediately spots and notes the crystal strung around her like a necklace. The woman looks to him and smiles. She bends down to him reaches into his pocket, pulls out the necklace and places it around his head. She then leans forward and whispers in his ear in perfect English, “You are going to have so much fun.”

 

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