Silence where there should have been none. It exploded through the room.
This was no calm before a storm, it was a miscue.
The groupbody recoiled in shock, like a puppy having its nose slapped. Then, an instant later, the flash, – freezing all it passed. Preserving the image.
Faces frozen, grimacing with teeth bared either in reaction to the silence or in exertion, sweat held on brows, chests bared and glistening. Others smiling, the bliss of light freeing them from the loss. They stood, arms outstretched pulling in the light. Others are caught mid-speech with mouths open, words stolen from them with the shame of having them heard aloud, or with heads thrown back in laughter.
And the bodies, caught in every imaginable shape and position, frozen in a tableau of the moment. Legs risen with steps half formed, the tension of the moment sucked from them. Bodies turned, twisting and thrusting into emptiness, where something should have caught them; where something should have been there to unwind them – forcing them back to a form they knew.
But the lovers; the lovers torn apart from the moment, hands holding faces forever frozen, lips never quite meeting. All their fleeting promises forever unfulfilled.
Nature, as they say, abhors a vacuum and it rushed to fill it. From the silence came a great sucking, hissing sound of air being pulled into lungs, building for a release – a great cry.
And the room plunged back into darkness.
The sound exploded though the room as the cry broke in the throats of the crowd. Those closest felt the noise vibrating through their chests. Clothes were blown by the force of the blast, and the moans of displeasure transformed into cheers and whoops of delights.
Bodies writhed as the beat took them. Couples circled, stalking each other, hungrily looking for the opening to allow them to strike.
People at the edges were drawn towards the heaving mass, moving as one to the constant thump, the constant drive. All were back, once more on the beating track.
