
03-11-2008, 09:14 PM
oo1. Watching
There are bells on her ankles, bells that ring discordant but sweet as she dances and pirouettes across the stage. Her audience throw daisy chains and flowers to her, tokens that she adores even as she crushes them with her delicate white feet. Theo is painfully aware of how much too big her dress is, the way its sleeves slip down her shoulders even though she works to keep them up. He can see the beads of perspiration on her brow, the dark shadows under her eyes and the purple veins snaking under the translucent skin pulled taut over her skull, where there was once a lustrous shock of crimson hair. He can see his sister dying even as she dances. He can see the cancer destroying what little the chemotherapy left behind. He can see that her adoring audience are aware that this will probably be the last time she dances for them. He can see that the only one with the strength to turn a blind eye, just for a moment, is the frail beauty on the stage who will be dead before she sees her eighteenth birthday.
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