The Ultimate High

Imagination takes over.

The Ultimate High

Peter Barton was driving home, fearing to even think about the things that had happened. He had just lost his job. Pete was about to lose his home. It had been weeks since his wife had departed, for who-knew-where, and Pete's best friend had recently taken his own life, in a terrible moment of complete despair. One might well have expected it was to about to become Pete's choice as well, and that was the single possibility most worrisome to him. If his best friend couldn't handle it, perhaps depression, the dreaded emotional disorder that made billions each year for the advertising and pharmaceuticals industries, would rear its ugly head and snuff him out as well. After all, what did he have to live for? Where would he go? What would he do?

But, here's a surprise: Pulling into his driveway, Pete at last thought it all through, and discovered that none of it really mattered.

Was that why he'd lost his job? Why his mortgage was about to be called? The reason his wife had left? Had Pete's inattentiveness to the needs of his finest friend, cost the man his life?

No. Pete had worked hard, and had always done his job. His burden of a wife had lately been spending most of their income on herself as quickly as it was made. And Pete's friend had been the master of his own fate, like everyone. No one had been able to talk him out of anything, ever. Pete knew all of these things.

And Pete had a gift, one that everyone has; the different thing about Pete was that he actually used it. That gift, was rational, intuitive and forward-looking thought.

For when things go completely wrong, when all of the things you've worked for are in the tank, when everyone you've ever really cared about is gone, you still have yourself. And even better, things can only get better. The words of Fight Club character "Tyler Durden" echoed in the halls of his memory..."It's only when you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything!"

And that was what Pete decided to do. Anything. What thing had Pete never, ever done that he now wanted to do, now that he was completely free? It might seem crazy, but it wasn't even slightly so to Pete, who felt the need to cut loose in a totally shameless expression of self.

He wanted to dance.

It may have had something to do with the Greek heritage his mother had provided.

So Pete climbed out of his little dull-gray Mazda and stretched, pushing outward with flattened palms as if making room;

For the moment, at least, Pete didn't want a dance partner. He didn't care about an audience, hell no, the thought never crossed his mind.

It was an afternoon in late July. Pete unlocked the back door to his modest old two-story in the Rapid City suburbs, and without hesitation, he walked straight into the kitchen table and pushed it to the wall. With a fully fluid motion, he moved right into it, throwing one arm to the sky, his torso twisting, his hips moving on their own as his legs stepped lightly to the music. His music. The stuff no one else can hear.

Harmony blended with melody, the power of the beat pounded its way out through all of his limbs. Pete's eyes were closed as he moved and grooved, and he very quickly lost all sense of self, his presence on earth, even his being. The bottoms of his shoes began to heat up from friction with the aging linoleum, as he moved faster and faster, every bit of his motion in perfect time with his mind-borne symphonic interlude.

Nosy old Mrs. Stevens was in her back yard watering her flowers, when she noticed Pete's form sailing past his kitchen window. Of course, it looked like her neighbor was dancing, and that needed to be confirmed! If there's one thing a busybody loves, it's news about someone making a fool of himself. And there was little doubt, Peter Barton was doing just that! She hurried around the the end of the fence and crept up to the kitchen window, to peek. As she did, her mouth dropped open.

To Laura Stevens, it was too, too much. She'd never seen anything like it in her life! This guy was good! Mrs. Stevens was a widow, seventy-two years old, and by heaven, she had always been thrilled by Fred Astaire. Nobody danced like Fred Astaire! Peter Barton didn't either, he was...was...

"Psssssst! Helen! Helen! Get over here!" Old Laura was motioning to her neighbor in the yard on the other side of her own, her arms moving faster than they had in at least three decades. Excited? You might say that.

While Helen hurried to come-see-what-there-was-to-see...Peter was doing his own adaptations of every dance move he had ever seen, along with everything he now imagined. And Pete had a powerful imagination...within ten minutes' time he had covered, in some fashion, nearly every move in the entire repertoire of the Bolshoi Ballet, Barton-style. And he was still moving at speed.

As Helen approached to within earshot of Laura, she whispered, "As wound-up as you are, he must be naked..." Then, she looked.

"My God..."

Soon, passers-by were also motioned over, and after another five minutes, a small crowd had gathered on Pete's back porch, because there were two larger windows there. And Pete was oblivious. He had no idea at all that anyone was watching, not that he would have cared. In the center of his mental construct was a vibrating, gyrating column of sparkling water, both flowing and crystallizing, suspended inexplicably and forever, and he was at once both a part of it, and separate from it. He knew nothing of what his body was doing. He only delivered to its extremities what he felt, and Pete felt, well, awesome!

One of the watchers, a teen girl, ventured, "I have to go in there and tell him how great he is." She reached to knock on the back door, but a man in a suit who'd just recently arrived, caught her hand.

"Don't you dare stop him! Don't you dare!" Others in the group nodded.

Many have claimed that some things the human body can do are not actually possible, and yet, they do happen. People break blocks that are far harder than the hand that breaks them, and the physics don't support the reality. Others levitate, in meditation or in prayer. The scientists among us explain that one by denying that it happens. And there is powerful evidence out there in the big wide world, that humans have spontaneously combusted.

Pete was about to accomplish something that was perhaps a bit of all three. Faster and faster he moved, for music from the core of one's soul has no limits, either in beauty or in speed. And soon gasps began to emanate from those in the group of observers, because no one could possibly move as quickly as was Pete. His little audience realized he was moving too fast for a human to move, and soon his image began to flicker, as his speed exceeded the ability of the human eye to perceive it, like the nearly invisible wings of a hummingbird.

"It's a hologram!" cried Helen.

"It's magic!" cried Mrs. Stevens.

"It's gonna blow!" shouted the man in the suit. He pressed down on the shoulders of those closest to him, and everybody ducked, just before a brilliant flash and a bang blew the glass from every window in the downstairs of Pete's home. Black smoke poured from all of them, and there appeared a dull red fire burning in the dead-center in his kitchen.

The teen-aged girl began hopping up and down."Ohhh, someone call 911!" The man in the suit extracted his cellphone and hit the keys. The heat of the fire was too great to remain on the porch, much less to go in after Mrs. Steven's poor neighbor. And in the ten minutes it took for the fire company to arrive, Pete's modest two story in the Rapid City suburbs was fully engulfed.

As I mentioned earlier, Pete had done his best, despite heavy odds against him. His fire insurance was paid. All efforts to determine the cause of the blaze were completely inconclusive. Pete's parents were notified, and a funeral was held out of decorum, even though no body was ever found. Mrs. Stevens and friend Helen split the cost of his simple headstone, placed a week after the funeral. It bears the epitaph, "The greatest dancer the world has ever known, is now free."

And Pete is indeed free. The last I saw him, he was whistling and walking along the highway, his head back and his hands in his pockets, the cuffs of his trousers a bit singed and his shoes melted on the bottoms.

And by the looks of it, Pete will always be, just fine.

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