A hundred people dance, and the air is dead.
No drum. No chant. No stamp of feet that I can hear. Their mouths open in the same shout at the same moment, then fall quiet together, like a herd that hears the thunder before I do. Each wears bright shells over the ears. The shells glow. Blue. Then red. Then green. When many shells burn the same color, those people move as one animal. When the colors split, the tribe splits, and two spirits fight for the same bodies.
I creep close. I watch a young one with red ears sing without sound, face to the sky, arms wide, giving thanks to a god only he can hear. Beside him, green ears, a woman rolling her hips slow to a drum that does not exist. They dance an arm apart and never touch the same song. Each dances alone. Each thinks he dances with all.
This is a trick of a strong shaman. He has taken the drum and hidden it inside every skull, so no enemy across the hill can hear the tribe and come. The dance stays. The noise, gone.
Clever, this. But I do not trust a fire I cannot warm my hands on. A song a stranger cannot hear is a song that cannot call you home in the dark.