Sword Dancer

 

I’ve become a sword dancer.

‘Come at seven,’ they said.

On a day rainy day I pulled into the car park against the gothic pile of a church and then waited for others to arrive.

I was on time, but the people who were to unlock the hall doors were late. It was a cold night and raining. Thankfully some degree of prescience meant that I had a hot water bottle with me.

The hall eventually was opened up and the sword dancers entered.

It was my first lesson.

Thankfully the ‘blades’ looked nothing like swords.

“Hold the swivel in your right hand,” I was ordered.

I puzzled over the handles wondering which one was the swivel. The ‘swivel’ obvious the others had to be pointed out to me. It was a handle that moved. The wooden handle on the other end was fixed.

So that was how the illusion of the dance was created, the handle moved saving twisted arms from falling off.

Before too long I was walking under ‘blades’.

These were ‘rapper’ blades apparently used by miners to scrap the coal dust from the backs of ponies.

“Don’t duck,” a woman called.

It was all right for her. When the arches formed she was quite safe, being so short in statue, whereas for me the blades were circling just above my head.

“Don’t duck,” she yelled again. But I did, ignoring her, and wisely so it turns out as the blades narrowly missed slicing into the forehead of a tall girl opposite me.

Somehow we weaved in and out, formed what they called ‘nuts’, spun around and picked up our blades anew.

Afterwards, I rang the ex-teenager, ‘I’m now sword dancer,’ I proclaimed wanting to impress, but I left out the information about pits, ponies and coal dust.