ordained, huh

They look brave on the floor. Their shadows are cast larger than life by the moving lights, their hips move with the sharp motion of bodybuilders, their footing sure like sprinters. Yet they twirl and appear close to falling, and it's so clean it's obviously illusion. You seen the muscles bulge and shift under the weight and strain of catching hat motion and redirecting it. Really, though, they dance because they're scared.

What are you going to be if you stop moving? It's the obvious shit, for one you'll be a target for Lotharios, and you'll have to find a place to sit or a wall to lean against. But more than that, who will you be to the music? The religious define their lives by their piety. Your life is worth what you worship.

If we had gods, we don't know their names. It may be they have none. One is the warm tingle of your hips revolving. One is the brush of stray fingers across your back. Different faces of some god of lust and sensation. The church is an end unto itself.

You said you don't dance and it made me wonder about you. Who the hell you think you are to refuse. Too scared? Boy, you ought to be scared not to. If you were naked and primitive, you'd give in without a thought, jump under the stars like something in the throes of death. But here, against a floor of people covered in sweat, eyes blank with meditation, you just sit and drink your beer. That's no way to find heaven. It's not as scary as it looks.