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The Skeleton's Dance

B

Bones clacked. It was the night of the Danse Macabre.

Skeletons rose from the graves. But they didn't want to haunt. They wanted to boogie.

"I have no hips!" complained a femur. "How can I salsa?"

"Improvise!" shouted a skull with a gold tooth.

They rattled their ribs like xylophones. They drummed on tombstones. The graveyard became a disco.

A living girl, hiding behind a mausoleum, watched. She was a dancer who had lost her leg in an accident. She thought she would never dance again.

A skeleton saw her. It bowed. It offered a bony hand.

"May I have this dance?"

"I can't," she said, pointing to her crutch.

"My dear," the skeleton clacked. "I have no muscles, no tendons, and no skin. Yet here I am, doing the Cha-Cha. You are overthinking it."

She took his hand. He spun her. Without the weight of flesh, she felt light. She twirled on her one good leg, her crutch becoming a partner.

She danced until dawn. When the sun rose, the skeletons collapsed back into piles of bones. But the girl walked home, humming a tune, knowing that the music was in the marrow, not the muscle.