In those days gods walked among us courtesy of Konami Corporation.<\/p>\n
There were two of them arguing right in this spot\u2014<\/p>\n
Right over there, in that blasted pit that not even the repavers can heal.<\/p>\n
It happened like this.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a cat curled up on old Mrs. McGinty\u2019s porch.<\/p>\n
There\u2019re crows croaking raucously on a nearby power line.<\/p>\n
Emily walks up from the south. She doesn\u2019t look around. She finds a square of sidewalk and she sets up her Konami Thunder Dance pad.<\/p>\n
The crows go silent as death.<\/p>\n
She plugs her pad into a PlayStation 6 and an uninterruptible power supply. She kicks off her shoes. She steps up onto the pad.<\/p>\n
The cat uncurls. It stretches. It lopes away.<\/p>\n
Now Lucy slips down the road. Her hair is soot-black, as are her lips. Her eyes and her hat are white.<\/p>\n
She sets up her dance pad.<\/p>\n
She plugs it in, just like Emily\u2019s.<\/p>\n
She steps on. And smugly, because it\u2019s allowed in the club rules for the Konami Thunder Dance club at their school, she scatters the rune stones on the ground beside her; she reads them; her white eyes see through the veil of time, the malice of space, to the secrets of Emily\u2019s dance.<\/p>\n
She looks up at Emily.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can still give up,\u201d Lucy says. \u201cI won\u2019t tell anyone. We can just say \u2014 we can just say I won, and nobody has to be the wiser.\u201d<\/p>\n
The air is clear and still as glass. The sun isn\u2019t moving.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the way it is with Konami Thunder Dance. They could stand there all day, if you\u2019ll pardon some linguistic ambiguity, and the sun wouldn\u2019t move one inch.<\/p>\n
But Emily just shakes her head.<\/p>\n
She doesn\u2019t let it sit like that. She moves her foot to the side, just sweeps it across what Konami calls the \u201ckeyboard of the feet,\u201d and she\u2019s hit the Symbol for storms.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s lightning in the sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a crass marketing move,\u201d says Lucy. \u201cIt\u2019s just \u2014 don\u2019t do this. Don\u2019t do this, Emily. We shouldn\u2019t do this. The club should stick with the real Thunder Dance. The good Thunder Dance. The Konami Thunder Dance, that was given to us by God.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily shakes her head.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s raining now.<\/p>\n
Thunder rolls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t accept it,\u201d says Lucy. \u201cI won\u2019t let you ruin it. I won\u2019t let you take away Dynamite.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n And you can\u2019t see Emily\u2019s tears for all the rain.<\/p>\n And you can\u2019t see her thoughts, if you can\u2019t read minds.<\/p>\n And then, just like God had allegedly done in that sacred vision that inspired Hiro Matsuda to make Konami Thunder Dance, Lucy hits the button with her toe that begins the game.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no turning back now.<\/em><\/p>\n And for Emily and Lucy alike the patterns of the Thunder Dance begin to flow.<\/p>\n As Emily is dancing to Tourniquet<\/em>, it is natural that her first Symbol is BLOOD.<\/p>\n As Lucy is dancing to Jungle Song<\/em>, it is equally natural that her first Symbol is THE ELEPHANT.<\/p>\n In the books of the sacred thunder dance, this is named The Day That Dumbo Fell. The birds are shrieking; they are rising from the power line, scattered even in the face of the dance; an elephant tumbles past, choking on the crimson angst of its existence.<\/p>\n And Emily throws the symbol K<\/em>AMI<\/em> and Lucy throws WILDERNESS, and thus it is that our fair city loses the blessing of Heaven.<\/p>\n They are not dancing well, not either of them. Not now.<\/p>\n Their music is drowning in the gold of Emily\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n But in and through that consuming and subsuming darkness, and in and through that overwhelming gold: wound through that dance and within that dance, that has been stripped of its magic, there rises an ever-louder and ever-more-infectious beat.<\/p>\n And Lucy is dancing now, not just for the Symbols, not just for the power of it, but for the rhythm; dancing in the rising darkness of Emily\u2019s Symbol LOST, and her dance is STRENGTH.<\/p>\n And Evanescence possesses the darkness, while Toybox whispers of how funky a four-armed monkey could get; and then, pivoting one hand down to support her on the center of the pad, and without interrupting the Symbols of her dance, Lucy uses her free foot to throw Dynamite.<\/p>\n There is a flare of light. The air ignites. Emily tries to contain it; she struggles against a rising wind and a missed half-note and the fire that is cracking her PlayStation to stay in the game; and all up and down the street windows are shattering, roofs are caving in, chicken dinners are rising from their graves to run around clucking\u2014<\/p>\n For the chicken, alone of all the creatures of this Earth, is blessed with independence from its brain\u2014<\/p>\n And this woman comes walking, clicking, ticking footsteps up the path.<\/p>\n There\u2019s something fascinating about the way she walks. It\u2019s like the dawning of the sun. The wind of the dynamite doesn\u2019t even touch her. Her face is lined and her hair is graying and she\u2019s smiling ever so thinly as she walks up.<\/p>\n And the dance goes still.<\/p>\n Both Emily and Lucy just stare at her. The Symbols they\u2019re supposed to dance drift past right to the terrible ending of those songs.<\/p>\n And the woman says, \u201cIt\u2019s not worth giving your life for Dynamite, child, and it sure as Hell isn\u2019t worth taking somebody else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy lifts her chin. Her eyes are fierce and white.<\/p>\n She says, \u201cI want to dance the real thunder dance. The one that matters.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou kin\u2019t,\u201d the woman says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe live in a degenerate time,\u201d pleads Lucy. \u201cHobbit-Spock-spider. A Thunder Dance without dynamite. That boy in his mucous hat.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily can\u2019t look at her.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t just,\u201d Lucy says, \u201cWe can\u2019t just let all the old true things go away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI hear,\u201d says the woman, \u201cthat they\u2019ve added Symbol support to the new version so that newbies can get by with just four of the steps.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is good for the community of Thunder Dancers,\u201d Emily adds.<\/p>\n This is the way it must be,<\/em> she is pleading. We must control these things. We must stop them. Gotterdammerung is coming.<\/em><\/p>\n Not that evil prophets would understand about Gotterdammerung,<\/em> she mutters.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people over in America,\u201d the woman says, \u201cthey wired it up through a hacked Furby and abused the Hell out of the four-step system so they could pull off twelve-step Symbols. Things you couldn\u2019t imagine, like itserbani and oieiei.\u201d<\/p>\n Her enunciation is very precise.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought that was clever,\u201d she admits.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not saying the new version is bad,\u201d Lucy protests, although she has been. \u201cI\u2019m just . . . I practiced so much learning to throw Dynamite. And now Konami\u2019s saying that it wasn\u2019t ever intended.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDid you know why I stopped Thunder Dancing?\u201d the woman asks.<\/p>\n Lucy shakes her head.<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped Thunder Dancing,\u201d the woman says, \u201cwhen Konami released the patch that made it so that Thunder Dancers didn\u2019t all die by live burial any more.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy frowns at her.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe original version,\u201d the woman says. \u201cIt had a bug. Or a feature\u2014 who can say?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat you\u2019d get buried alive<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were good enough,\u201d the woman says.<\/p>\n Emily blinks. \u201cThat\u2019s pretty radical,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the genuine thing,\u201d the woman says. \u201cIt was the Konami Thunder Dance as sent to us by God. If you were too good then one day the Earth would open up and swallow you. Or you\u2019d get trapped in a mine cave-in. Or something else like that would happen to bury you under the ground, or under scissors. Or whatnot. That\u2019s how the Kid died. And Lois Lethal. Ren the Bing. But not me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d says Lucy.<\/p>\n She isn\u2019t usually respectful of her elders, but she can\u2019t help it. The ma\u2019am just comes out of her.<\/p>\n \u201cCall me Margerie,\u201d the woman says.<\/p>\n \u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d says Lucy. \u201cI\u2019m sure you\u2019d have been buried alive if they hadn\u2019t released that patch.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMargerie.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy\u2019s mouth twitches in distress. \u201cMargerie,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cI stopped playing,\u201d the woman says. \u201cThat day. I kept my old pad but I never plugged it in. I would practice without electronic aid. Eventually I learned a few things\u2014 just the simplest moves, things like BANANA or GRACE \u2014 without the PlayStation. And when I finally danced a proper BANANA and the world went still and a banana manifest, I cried like the rankest of newbs on their third day of struggling with the dance. But you know as well as I do how many thousands of Symbols I must learn to manifest before I am even vaguely competitive again.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy is staring at her.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are telling me,\u201d she says, half-choking, \u201cthat you can dance bananas into being without a PlayStation?\u201d<\/p>\n And Margerie laughs. She can\u2019t help it. It is an articulate laugh, careful and slow, but still it is unwilling, and it bends her over a little with it.<\/p>\n When her chuckles die down, she says, \u201cYou can see why I am a legend among people who very much like bananas.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI mean,\u201d says Lucy, \u201cI mean, wait. Do you summon them, or?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI dance,\u201d says Margerie. \u201cThat\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou . . .\u201d<\/p>\n Emily interrupts. She has amped the volume so that she can speak even softer than usual and still be heard. \u201cMargerie, why are you here?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cApparently,\u201d Margerie says, \u201cthe School for Wayward Youth\u2019s a \u2018special administrative region\u2019 in Essex. Now, Parliament gets all a\u2019twitter, you know, when you Thunder Dancers duel for real. Flying Ipswich this, lost blessing of Heaven that, why is Orwell on fire again the other \u2014 you know.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily makes the rueful shrug made by Thunder Dancers who are not unrepentant evil prophets of space when acknowledging the incredible danger that Thunder Dancers pose to the world.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they said, well, we kin\u2019t send people with guns, and we kin\u2019t send people with papers, so let\u2019s call good old Margerie and promise to push her legislation through if she cools your heads a little. And since my tea leaves were shouting at me all morning about how some young fools were gonna git themselves killed fighting over Dynamite without no safeties on, I figured it was just as well.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d says Emily.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I came down here,\u201d says the gray-haired woman, \u201cto tell you to stop this foolishness; and if you don\u2019t, I\u2019ll dance against you.\u201d<\/p>\n Emily stares at her for a while. Then she steps aside. She gestures broadly.<\/p>\n If we don\u2019t fight,<\/em> she says, forgetting to turn on her amplifier, it\u2019s my win in any case.<\/em><\/p>\n Lucy stares at Margerie. Her eyes are intense.<\/p>\n \u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cMargerie.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI \u2014\u201d Lucy says.<\/p>\n She looks down. She flushes bright red.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to fight you,\u201d says the evil prophet of space. \u201cI\u2014 God, I\u2019d do whatever you say, except\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n And Margerie\u2019s mouth crooks up at the corner. \u201cExcept?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to fight <\/em>you,\u201d Lucy whispers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a tired old relic,\u201d says Margerie. \u201cI only know a few Symbols. You sure I\u2019m the person you want to beat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the way you walk<\/em>,\u201d says Lucy. She\u2019s got this transported air of awe about her. \u201cIt\u2019s just\u2014 you\u2019re like\u2014 you\u2019re like\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n She flails for an analogy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re a goat, ma\u2019am. A goat who doesn\u2019t play rock-paper-scissors. Or a robot. But only, for dancing!\u201d<\/p>\n This is not a very good analogy.<\/p>\n \u201cOr like, like, scissors,\u201d<\/em> Lucy tries again. \u201cPlease.\u201d<\/p>\n And Margerie snorts.<\/p>\n \u201cKid,\u201d she says, \u201cI said I\u2019d fight you if you didn\u2019t back down, so you don\u2019t have to insult me and you definitely don\u2019t got to beg.\u201d<\/p>\n Margerie looks to Emily<\/p>\n \u201cMove,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cMove?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t need your machine,\u201d Margerie says, \u201cbut I need your music and I need your spot.\u201d<\/p>\n So Emily steps back. She leans against the huddled, whimpering elephant and she watches.<\/p>\n And Margerie steps up.<\/p>\n And this time it is Lucy dancing to Yatta! <\/em>and Margerie to Stillness in Silence<\/em>. The former is one of the hardest of songs in the Konami Thunder Dance and the latter is one of the easiest. Nevertheless, the Symbols that flow from Lucy are impeccable while Margerie\u2019s \u2014 danced on the sidewalk \u2014 are fumbling, failing, and incomplete.<\/p>\n And there is impatience stirring in Lucy because she cannot wait for Margerie to fail out of the dance; she must defeat her.<\/p>\n And there is patience in her because she knows that she is in no danger until and unless the gray-haired woman does Lucy the honor of conceding the failure of her technique and steps onto Emily\u2019s pad.<\/p>\n And so Lucy\u2019s Symbols are not offensive but rather a rising pyre of power that gathers around her, such that the clouds in the sky above them are marked with the burning mandalas of the evil magic of her dance.<\/p>\n And she uses her impatience as an engine to drive the patterns of her feet.<\/p>\n And then she sees that Margerie is near the last gasps of her dance, and Lucy yields to the drive in her. She surrenders to the victory-hunger and her hand comes down to the ground. And without ceasing to dance THE LEAF, she dances also Dynamite.<\/p>\n On the very last movement of this step she slips.<\/p>\n It is a banana peel: nothing much: but it burns through her like a shock and her world explodes in whiteness and whirling green. As she tumbles through two buildings and a third, as her consciousness wobbles and begins to fade, she sees her enemy stepping away with grace and she realizes that Margerie has won.<\/p>\n My God<\/em>, she thinks, because this is more amazing to her than even the wicked god of space.<\/p>\n A leaf brushes past her cheek.<\/p>\n And tenderly she thinks, with the greatest possible kindness: May you be buried alive.<\/em><\/p>\n Her head strikes down on the concrete, hard, and the vast blue world whites out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In those days gods walked among us courtesy of Konami Corporation. There were two of them arguing right in this spot\u2014 Right over there, in that blasted pit that not even the repavers can heal. It happened like this. There\u2019s a cat curled up on old Mrs. McGinty\u2019s porch. There\u2019re crows croaking raucously on a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-epilogue","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/KTD3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6121,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5371\/revisions\/6121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5371"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}