Roscoe

Roscoe and the Flying Heads

Roscoe moved silently into the theater with the crowd, the seats filling quickly. When the curtain rose, ten men and ten women were in two lines on stage, all in white tie and tails, tap-dancing and singing, with brio, “Somebody Else Is Taking My Place.” As the performers danced, the heads of one man and one woman flew off and sailed across the stage to land atop the headless torsos of another man, another woman, whose heads were flying to the dancing torsos of yet another man, another woman, and so it went until all twenty singing heads were flying to and fro across the stage, perfectly synchronized in the labyrinthine choreography of their arcs.

Roscoe, sitting in the balcony, saw Elisha pushed onto the stage from the wings, obviously confused to find himself in the midst of this performance. But as the singing heads crisscrossed in air, Elisha seemed to realize this was a command performance for him, and he moved his own head from side to side in rhythm with the music and the dancing torsos.

“Yes, I do understand the question that’s being asked,” Elisha said aloud. “It’s the music of the spheres.”

The audience applauded his remark and Roscoe ran down from the balcony to ask Elisha: What question is being asked? Why the spheres? But the theater was now dark, and the audience, dancers, and Elisha were gone.