Kinetic Communion

It was a cleansing, always; but not a physical one. They met at night, after the needling clangor of the sunlit preoccupations of man had receded into a low susurration over which their souls might be properly heard. During the day they toiled as hard as any other fellow pilgrim of the mortal coil—no, I dare say: harder—but here they released their ceaseless cyclings and obviated the demands on their attentions. As the music poured over them, they allowed it all to wash away in mirror to the ablutions that precede and follow such things. Rhythm and rhyme and sweat ran down their skin in so many streaming rivulets.

It was an intensely private affair, of course; but an open one. They welcomed any and all who might be willing to join them—even, I dare say, begged. Not hidden away in basements or burrows, they conducted themselves in grand halls and greatly windowed rooms set visibly atop the horizon, though not as a beacon in any traditional form, for the lighting was muted, drawn down and dimmed. Subsequently, newcomers shambled around in awkwardness until they adjusted, when dilation allowed for greater reception of the twinkling lights of celebration within, those of the cityscape without, and those of the universe above. And when the pupils of their souls widened, when they learned to draw deep from the light of one another, then newcomers were no longer so, and no longer stumbling.

It was an escape, perhaps; but not a shirking one. If love is merely a fuller appreciation of another—and I dare say that it is—then they came together in that darkened, lamp-lit room in an act of love for life: one expressed in body, mind, and soul; in both unity and individuality. Where others wound their escapes by imbibing spirits, they enlivened their own. Where others wound their escapes in dulled senses, they spun in graceful arcs and balanced motions that exhilarated their own. Where others wound their escapes in head-pounding oblivions unremembered in morning’s light, they in the sunset of their lives would recur their adventures: evoked, say, by a song on the air or the steady rock of a chair—the limit of their motions, which, in tune with such melodious memories, brought languid contentment.

It was an addiction, to be sure; but a hale one—and, I dare say, a symbolic one. Here they were alive, the wind in their lungs as fierce as a runner’s, the pounding in their chests as buoyant as a musician’s, the song in their soul as passionate as a lover’s. They operated in partnership and communicated on a level deeper than mere words. They held one another and breathed in concert. They drank deep and were sated for all times even as they thirsted for more. An addiction, yes, to an expression of life itself: it drove them with the same power as the will to live. Hours passed them and they noticed not. When came the time to cease, they ignored it. When the time to cease could no longer be ignored, they lingered in the glow of the touch of one another, only reluctantly parting at the need to rest their bodies or cease a more physical hunger, and some times not until the sun cast its signal for the commencement of the return to toil for another week. They reserved for it prior, reveled in it during, and relished in it long after.

It was a secret, I suppose; but not an intentional one. They exulted and explained, spoke and shared, talked and taught, posted and published, announced and advertised, and yet: it could not transmit thusly. It was only to be experienced, and saddeningly too few who heard of or witnessed it were also brave and persistent enough to truly plumb the depths of its joy. I knew the secret because I watched them. I saw their beckoning hands and allowed myself to be taken into the pleasure of their embrace. I knew because I became one with them, and—I dare say—I would never be otherwise again.