Beats in Binary Codes
@thenebulous
Tev was standing and watching, as usual; there were things that could only be learned by experiencing them -- by joining in -- but that stage of the experiment was usually a late one, coming only after considerable observation beforehand. Unless circumstances forced a more active role, of course. For now all was calm, at least by the standards of the marketplace; nothing in Colorado Springs was ever truly calm, which was what Tev loved about the place. It was what ki loved about the whole world, really.
Right now ki was trying to love dancing, but it wasn’t going well. Everyone else seemed to be getting something out of the music that Tev wasn’t. They were all moving together, whether they were part of the whirling group of people stomping around the ukulele-weilding musician or just a bystander tapping their feet on the sidelines. Tev tried tapping kirs feet but it felt wrong, felt off; there was none of the sense of connection that ki could almost taste as it flowed between the other watchers and dancers. They moved in time with one another as though to some unseen cue; Tev couldn’t tell what it was. Ki counted in kirs head, one-two-three-four, but it didn’t make things any clearer.
Deciding that maybe this was one of those things that had to be done to be understood, Tev stepped forward and stomped kirs feet like the dancers. Ki counted and watched the steps and echoed the pattern that everyone else was making but it didn’t feel right; kirs feet didn’t move at the same time, didn’t flow the way everyone else’s did. “There’s a component to this I’m missing,” ki announced, more to kirself than to anyone in particular. “There must be.”