At 3:00AM in the morning it became clear and apparent that I would not be able to sleep.  After just a couple of hours of rest I awoke and could not return to sleep no matter how hard I tried or how much I wanted to.  It just wasn’t meant to be for me.

I think it was the dream I had that kept me from returning.  Sometimes I guess that the stimulation of the brain while it is supposed to be resting is enough to create a chaos that cannot easily be overcome.  Such it was with me.

It was not a scary dream, it was not a dream filled with heart-pounding adventure or any particularly exciting moments, it was not a dream to cause me to instantly awaken but rather more gradually brought me to this point now.

I dreamed that I was a dancer and that everywhere I went I went dancing.  I never walked and I never ran; I just danced along my merry way.  And where I went the desire to dance went with me and swiftly infected all around me.

For there at the bus stop the two persons waiting with me began to dance as did all the folks on the bus after we had boarded.  The bus driver, though somewhat concerned about all these people dancing on his bus had to pull over and stop the bus so that he too could rise and dance.  He danced right off the bus and then on down the street.  We all then followed his lead and got off the bus and danced away down the street in our own particular directions.

At the coffee shop and in the lobby of the building where I worked the infection spread to everyone regardless of gender, age, color, or even physical condition.  Small people danced as did their larger counterparts; men, women and children all started their feet to movement; old people found partners and danced as if they were young again; young people joined their older partners and danced as if they had all of the experience of age to assist them; bald men danced as did hairy teens and tiny ladies; janitors spun round and offered to kick it out with the security officials at the front desk; all, everywhere and even on the elevator the folks began to move and sway and shuffle and do whatever they knew or felt to be their own signature rhythmatic gestations.  Move they did and move did I, growing more proficient with each passing moment.

And so it went as it spread further to my workmates and later all of my friends and family.  All danced and all looked to me to lead.  The evening news and morning weather were presented in rhythmic forms.  The inmates in the holding tanks and maximum security prisons stood and boogied.  It fanned out until it had moved from across state lines and then even into the hallowed halls of Congress and deeper still into the White House itself.

No one sat and no one cared much about how they looked or might be perceived by others; they just moved and learned as they went along.  Parents taught their children just by doing; spouse reconnected after years of marital misuse; young lovers found some of the long-retired expressions of passion; old lovers rekindled fading flames; teachers joined with their students and preachers with their flocks; black and white and rich and poor and young and old and big and small and men and women and everyone of any color and any religion and any physical condition all moved in beautiful motion to no sounds whatsoever.

It was just the music of their hearts and souls that propelled them.

So before I awoke I danced and danced and was ultimately elected President in a special election.  The sitting President gladly danced aside to allow me into his former position.

The entire country just danced.  I cannot recall how or when any of us ate or slept or performed any other human functions- we simply just danced.

We felt no reason to not bring our dancing to the rest of the world so a special session of the U.N. was called and it was there that I faced the cold, hard reality that the rest of the world had no interest in dancing.  Not then, not ever.

And then I awoke in a cold, hard sweat, lying in my bed with my heart beating quickly and my feet completely still.