The Djinn

There was a slim girl dancing behind his eyelids. She morphed and smiled, slipping into animation, now a fantasy, now a real person, she looked over her shoulder, biting her lips. Sad stars streaked down the world around her, lonely as she was imagined, burning at both ends.

She was different – that at least she could not hide – a white light, dancing alone on a faraway planet. Some day they would be together, her skin pale as first snow, her lips black and touch keen as the moonlight. Electronic guitars were winding around her form, lasers like drum beats. She twirled her hips, covering herself in lines distinguishing shape as if he’d painted her with his own hand.

He opened his eyes. He was in the desert at night. It was New Year's Day. Neon lights glowed like light sabers around him, scattered among the tents. Creatures twirled around a bonfire, their hands arched on the end of their arms like swans. The moon made the fog that lay upon the dunes incandescent and the dew found its way into the dark strands that fell over his eyes. He took a deep breath.

“Do you want to find me?” she asked. “I don’t mind if we never go home.”

He got up and walked away from the party. The dunes were quiet and endless. He saw some footprints and avoided them, going down the dunes, sand cascading into his sneakers. Stepping out into the night, the stars above radiating presence, he pulled his hoodie over his head.

In this slow life, she was waiting for him, always hiding until tomorrow. He’s been lost for so long it ached. He closed his eyes again, his hands in his pockets, the cold dew on his cheeks, each step breaking into beaches.

“Hold me close when it’s over.” she seemed to say. One step closer, the sand was giving way, climbing, higher up the dune. Over, two steps closer. The world seemed to go on forever in a circle, a loop, like he was an ant walking around an orange peel, with the same songs and the same old rhymes.

“I promised I’d be there,” he said to her. “But you don’t make it easy.”

Paw! Paw! Fireworks crackled across the heavens, a gorgeous hurricane of light, dazzling greens and reds and gold splashing his dimples, tingling them with what might have been, twinkling on his face like dandelions.

“Loving you is too hard.” He said to no one in particular, wishing violins in his chest would stop singing. The feelings were like a live wire in him, falling, vibrating down down deep down. He misjudged a step and half fell down the dune, and he realized that he wanted to cry, there was such fire in him.

“Adrien! Adrien!”

His friend was looking for him. He pulled his leg from the quicksand and wiped his nose quickly. It was dark out here, and cold. He got up to go back towards the party but could not resist a look over his shoulder. There she was, dancing on a faraway dune, the djinn who had followed him all his life.

Surely, one day, she would have him.