Variation No. 3
by Siarra Riehl
The gravel of the alleyway is rough against the soft soles of your cloth sandals. The dust that whips in the breeze and settles in your right eye, sharp.
When you first see the dancer—face and body covered in shimmering purple, holding a gold water can and sporting a selection of colourful, construction paper flower petals atop his head—you imagine the smooth fabric of his costume on your own skin, the crack of your ankles in his gem-encrusted heels. The shoulders of fellow audience members are too far to touch, but the comfort of your wife’s cotton t-shirt envelops you from behind. You watch, as the dancer moves effortlessly toward a nearby tree, imagine the water he drenches it with spilling over your hair—wet and sticky—causing goosepimples on the flesh of your neck.
You lose time in the imagining, and it is only when you hear others applaud that you know he is finished. You cheer—the palms of your hands lingering a moment, as if to hold each other—enjoying the tingle of appreciation.
In under an hour’s time—to settle your quickened pulse after the infectious energy of the performance—you cool fried potatoes with sweet sauce and place them slowly on your tongue, savouring the salt crystals that scrape against your tastebuds. You think of the dancer, imagine biting the very essence of him, and swallow the experience whole.
Siarra Riehl (she/her) lives and creates on Treaty Six land in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with her wife and two cats. A transdisciplinary writer, performer, and teacher, she holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Siarra’s fiction received an honourable mention in AWP’s 2020 Intro Journals Project, and her work has appeared in Zone 3, Fatal Flaw, The Dillydoun Review, and elsewhere. Embodiment, magic, and queerness are at the heart of her writing and research. You can find her at siarrariehl.com.