Interrupted by Tim Taylor

 

She took a deep breath, stretched all her limbs and assumed the pose. Left foot planted squarely on level ground, a good solid base. Right leg raised and bent, as if she were running – as, in a way, she was, though her performance would be over before that foot touched the ground. Its role of providing a second point of support was fulfilled instead by a staff of gnarled oak, painted silver and gripped firmly in her right hand. Cupped in a tangle of wood at its tip was a glass sphere, glowing faintly white from an LED beneath it. Her left arm stretched upwards and backwards, its hand holding an eight-pointed sun disc the size of a dinner plate, painted gold. Between the two hands and over her shoulders hung her robe, of which she was particularly proud. It gleamed in alternate pleats of gold and silver which swung down in twin parabolas from her arms, reaching to just below her knees, themselves clad in silver leggings. Her face, too, was all silver and above it was a cotton wool cloud, dusted with glitter and, like the moon sphere, glowing from lights beneath.

              It had taken long days of practice to perfect this creation; to train her muscles to hold it for half an hour without unbearable pain, her mind to bear whatever pain remained without abandoning the pose or crying out. She stood almost perfectly still as people began to gather, curious and, she hoped, appreciating her art. She had heard it described as human sculpture, but that was not quite right. Motionless as she might appear at first sight, there was movement going on, almost imperceptible, as slow as the passage of the real sun and moon across the sky.

 

He had once answered to the name of Scruff, but that had been many months ago and he had long since forgotten it. The name still fitted him, though he wouldn’t have known. His fur was matted and flea-ridden, one ear torn from a fight over a scrap of meat.

              He knew there were always people here in the early evening, and he knew that if you whined and wagged your tail and looked up at their faces, once in a while someone would throw you a titbit of some kind. He was having no luck today, though. The people just stood still and ignored him. It was time to move on. There was something to be done first, though. That strange shiny thing over there, that would do. He sniffed it. No, it didn’t belong to anyone else. So it was his now. He cocked his leg.

 

She felt the warm wetness on her shin, heard the giggles. She felt a tear running down her face, yet somehow she could not admit defeat. She held the pose.

              And slowly, one at a time, the people began to clap.

"Burlesque Bodypainted human statues" by Eva Rinaldi Celebrity Photographer is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.