Work Text:
Before life, there is only darkness. After life runs its course, the darkness returns. But between the two extremes, there is life, and its heartbeat courses through their veins. The drums call them all to awaken and that same drum signals it is time to sleep once again
Their lives are measured by drumbeats. But then, aren’t all lives so measured?
Moha-Samedi is the first to awaken. The unceasing drum brings him no comfort. He tries to control it by controlling those around him, but that, too, is a failure. He cannot understand that the drum is uncontrollable.
Life permits no one to take it by the reins. And life so powerful that it spawns new growth in the desert, it will not bend to the will of one such as he.
The Tribe ignores Moha-Samedi’s fussing, haphazardly assembling as the drumbeat begins anew. The call is too strong to ignore. Each feels it under their skin, a tingling sensation that says look, see, hear, feel .
Do you remember, friend? The drums ask. Do you remember how it felt when the world began? Do you feel that again now that life begins anew?
Their response comes not in words but in movement, in balancing upon balls and flips across the smooth curve of the stage. Their voices cry out a rhythm as measured as the drumbeats. They are here. They have arrived. There is no before, and implicitly, they know there will be no after.
But there is now. There is life. And they will play until it is done with them.
Red Bird tries to ignore the beat. He wishes more than anything to soar as the birds overhead do. In his jealousy for what he cannot be, he ignores what he is . The others see his flips and tumbles. They encourage him to look and see them for what they are: flight of a different sort. But he cannot surrender to what life has in store for him.
As Moha-Samedi cannot control his purpose through words, Red Bird cannot control it through movement. And together, they focus on what could be rather than what is.
The Tribe knows their attempts are meaningless. But they cannot intercede. Not all creatures are content with their place in life. All they can do is find their own contentment and hope the others follow someday.
Perhaps the drumbeat will lead them where they are meant to follow. For now, it leads only to distraction. But there is always the next drumbeat, and the hope it contains.