Setting Writing Assignment

Helen slid across the floor, dipping and twisting her fingers with the smooth caress of the swaying music. Her partner, Rick, was a little newer to her current studio, but learning the ropes as he gently pulled her back to him. Their toes moved back and forth in rhythm, both hips swaying together, reminding Helen of leaves falling in a storm, tripping and twisting in limbo. The guitar strumming along paused, and struck it’s final chord, as Rick and Helen hit their final poses, arms up, bodies arched and sweating from the final throes of the Spanish dance. Helen smiled, panting a little from the exertion, and let her arms down.
“You’re an excellent dancer,” she shyly murmured. “I didn’t expect to be placed with someone so…well…talented.”
Rick’s ribs moved in and out as he caught his breath, holding up one finger to indicate ‘hold on’. He straightened up, saying merely ‘thanks.’
Helen was surprised, she’d expected a little more of a man who could dance beautifully, perhaps expecting his verbal charm to be guaranteed and added to the package.
Over the next couple weeks, Helen felt like she was pushed up against a brick wall with Rick. He wouldn’t communicate with her; there was no passion or character to their dance. If anything was happening, the dance was getting worse.
Helen had to confront him; finally, she did after practice. She came in from the rain, soaking wet and shivering, flipping on the fluorescent lights as she did so. They came on with a faint buzz, illuminating the mirrored walls around her. She set up the CD player, and popped in a continuous CD to practice endurance dance for a while. She sat down and waited for Rick. When he came, she stood up, and turned on the music. A samba. Rick turned, shaking rain out of his short dusty hair and scowled.
“Rick-is there something wrong with what I’m doing when we dance? Tell me please Rick, we’re not…clicking.”
He turned, looking surprised. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“No.” Another mono-syllable, it was frustrating, and Helen had heard enough of it.
“Rick, we’re not getting anywhere, and you know it. What’s wrong with it?”
“What’s wrong with me now? Maybe. we. just. need. more. time!” Spitting out the words he whipped her into the dance, surliness and anger in his face, the dance increased tempo as their anger grew. Their eyes locked, they twisted across the floor, Rick exercising daring lift moves, Helen moving her feet quickly, flipping and twisting in his surly rough grip. They danced through the rain, till they were exhausted, dripping with sweat, too exhausted to feel emotions.
Rick bent over, hacking with exhaustion.
“What were we arguing about again?” He laughed now.
“I was innocently asking what your problem was when you snapped on me,” Helen retorted.
Rick became grim again.
“You really want to know that?” His face was a stone, features flat, only a cool emotionless mask was in his place now.
“Yes,” the scared whisper came from Helen. She didn’t know what she needed to hear now.
Rick breathed out in a heavy sigh. He looked at her and smiled.
“Sit down.”
Helen sat obediently, sinking into the cool couch a very puzzled but curious girl.
“A week after I came here and started dancing with you, I collapsed on the way home. I was driving. I swerved off the road and hit a tree. I wasn’t over the limit, so my car wasn’t hurt, nor was I. Still, they took me to the hospital for just a check up to look for trauma or internal bleeding, because I had been briefly knocked out. They noticed something funny with my heart. It was beating irregularly, like it had just been shocked or something. I was diagnosed with Arrhythmia a day later.” He sat quietly then, holding his head in his hands, fingers digging into his temples in agitated circles.
Helen blew out. She had been expecting something terrible; Arrhythmia couldn’t be that bad, irregular beats and that was it.
“Then that’s the last of it? You just have some irregular heart beats now and then and that’s it! I was afraid for a minute that you would keel over on me or something!” She laughed, smiling at him.
“No,” Rick’s glance was desperate, afraid. Helen lost her smile. “having Arrhythmia means that my heart is so irregular, that I can collapse once or twice, but also…Die at any moment. It could happen now. While we’re sitting here, in the middle of my sentence. I could be gone like that.”
The rain beat an incessant ticka-ticka-ticka against the windows, Helen sat stunned.
“But,” She started, “That doesn’t mean you’re definitely going to die does it?”
Rick smiled a twisted, rueful smile.
“No. But it seems somewhat unlikely that I’ll live to be very old doesn’t it?”
“Well - maybe not,” Helen murmured, looking up again she said, “is this why you were angry? These few weeks – you’ve been afraid?”
Rick looked down at his feet, hands folded in his lap.
“Yes,” the word came out, sounding like a scared little boy, afraid of the dark. “Yes. I’ve been afraid, one day, I would get up, go somewhere, and not know it was the last time I’d ever see my friends, family, or do anything exciting. It would just end. I would never get to do the things I loved again, dance, run, football, anything.” He trailed off sadly.
Helen smiled.
“You’re thinking gloomy, Rick. I know you’re new here, so maybe, we should do those things. I think you’re putting Arrhythmia to a greater threat than it is. Yes you may die. But you’re not dead now. So – live a little.” She winked.
Rick smiled. Helen got up, the music was still playing.
“The music continues…It slows down for nothing, until it’s free mind decides to make a change. Not because anyone wants it to, or anything,” her voice freed Rick. “Dance?”