In the entree of this stirring Point-of-View Pas de Deux filmed in Desolation, human and bat find themselves shyly drawn into an evocative oasis of mutual intrigue… maintaining awkward distance as they soar through a series of pirouette turns, their acrobatic variations risking mutual destruction. Indeed, after a fleeting initial adagio, the human fires a teleport arrow that arcs over Chiroptera, reminding the audience that we are in a virtual world despite the hopeless passion that at once attracts and repels our dancers.

While Mussorgsky’s “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” playfully chirps, we witness rising tension as the coda looms against the stony backdrop of Afterlife. Will this end with a headshot, the red flash of an impact and possible death, or an anticlimactic THWAP followed by the long promenade to Anakim’s lair? Alas, we are left to wonder, for the dancers part as gracefully as they met… the bat hovering in the sky, the human standing on a vast plain of rock, their inter-species encounter fading like a dream.

Bat Dancing in IDU from Steven K Roberts.

This is part of the In Death: Unchained literature collection by Steven K. Roberts.