#64 Doomcha Doof

by Suzanne Conboy-Hill

She’s ranting again. “Where the hell did you go?” She flicks her skirt at the knees and cracks a flamenco stamp with one heel, “Bastard!” She exhales vitriol, hammers another stamp, and a memory of flouncing fluidity, flashing swishing colours, and faultless flourishes burns her eyes. Once, she flew with Tinkerbell, expired decorously in white tutu and feathers, and took staccato stiletto steps in puffball skirts and bouffant hair. Then she drifted like a lace and velvet butterfly through technicolour skies, sultry with cannabis and gauloises and filled with Lucy’s diamonds. Then suddenly she was dumped, a lurching uncoordinated misfit, like a drunken aunt in a buttoned up cardigan and a hat with fruit on it at Glastonbury. Left, right, spin, twist. No—twist, spin. No. No.

People didn’t lose their souls, did they? They sold them off or had them confiscated for sinning. So what sin did you have to commit to become a dance floor donkey? What happened to all the rhythms and bops and taradiddles your dance-soul taught your body? Were they all stored in some sort of out-of-town container, packed away for a future time when Sir Dancealot deigned to show up again? And what if its tastes had changed? Would it want her to hoppity-hop to a foxtrot instead of twisting and shouting? Would it know about skank and ska and dub? Well, would it?

She floats her hands across her face like a Geisha, then punches out Rasta kingfishers—doomcha doomcha doomcha doof . . .