The Dance

by Elizabeth Zelvin

God, let this be a good day. The sun is shining. I will help bring in the harvest. Friends and strangers join us, first to work and then to dance and sing. Tonight we will celebrate the harvest. The sun and the harvest, work and friends and music ought to be enough. Is it wrong to long for more? Is it too much to want someone to love? God, let this day be special. Let tonight be different from all other nights. Is it too much to ask?

Now it is night. The sky is black. The stars are out. I am dancing with a man I have just met. I like the sparkle in his eyes and the grip of his hand as we circle in the dance. His hand is big and rough, the hand of someone who is not afraid of work. His clasp is firm and gentle, as if my smaller hand is precious, like a child's. I feel warm and safe. The floor is packed. Others all around us have given themselves to the dance, the joyful music. We laugh, for no particular reason.

He says, "Your dress is pretty."

The dress is new. I bought it for the dance. I like his smile.

Maybe he will be the one.

Shots ring out. The man I danced with vanishes. I hear screaming all around me. I cannot speak or move. I have blood spatters on my dress. Blood spatters on my dress.

Around me all is dark. I am dying. I am dying.

How can I go to meet my God with blood spatters on my dress?

Elizabeth Zelvin writes the Bruce Kohler Mysteries and the Mendoza Family Saga. Her stories appear in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and Black Cat Mystery Magazine, as well as Yellow Mama.