Color of rhythm
It starts like a slow gathering of colors, a slowly turning circle of glitter. Bright tunics, colorful cloaks, a rhythm that is hidden but can be glimpsed in their step. It calls the attention of people; it draws their eyes towards the strange characters that roam the area.
Then there is a moon, and a star, and flags, each one more beautiful and shiny than the rest. The light of urban worries bounces off them and shines with a new flash: something different, something magical, something unseen in that dark hole of monotony. There is a change in the air, and the once bored and preoccupied eyes look around, searching for the source of the movement.
Most hear them before they see them. Through the shift in the atmosphere a beat begins, slow and rhythmic, part of the footsteps that walk the ground, part of the pulse under skin, part of the wind…and slowly rises like a roaring lion. Hands fall onto drums, hitting them with a strength that wasn’t known by their owners, rising into a dance of music and skip that is new to the ears that hear it. And like a flock, people come hurrying to that secluded corner, joining the dance of the brightly colored figures in a state of nervous, hitherto unknown excitement.
Feet explore new steps in the night, lights bouncing off the costumes of careless, joyful delight, hands that had never known each other joining in the dancing shadows, and pure, amazed laughter fills the air. Old feet that had not known the pleasure of dancing in decades join the frenzy, twirling and stepping to a rhythm that had never been heard before. And young feet learn the beauty of a hearty, careless dance that exposes the soul so much more than the body.
Children are in the center of the crowd, jumping up and down with a delight that fills the heart of anyone who sees, attempting a catch at the moving flag that ripples and moves like the sea. Men that thought themselves to manly to dance laugh and giggle at the sheer pleasure of being immersed in a world of magic, and women, previously worried and self-conscious, leave their image behind them as they sink into the wonderful swirl of color and music, glitter bouncing off the bodies in the speed and the vibrations of laughter.
In that world, every problem and every worry is left behind, and for the first time in many years, the people learn what it is like to be carefree and truly happy, learning a rhythm and a culture that they had never experienced, like a glimpse into a world of magic, long lost in the past, but brought back under the hands of the drummers, in the feet of the dancers in colors and shine.
And then, they are gone, footsteps leaving the place, laughter fading into the distance, colors disappearing into the shadows. Only the rhythm remains for a few more seconds, the beat dancing in the nostalgic eyes that watch the leaving procession, and with a last powerful thud of hands on a drum, is gone.
And slowly, the pulses return to their natural pace, the feet to their normal footsteps, and the only thing that the colors and the music left behind is the magic of a beautiful, magical memory of a world where everything was right, caught forever in the minds of those who return to their normal, monotonous lives.