The Stuff of Legends

Click the pic for the original challenge. Written for Ermilia’s Picture It & Write.

Angie tottered across the map on her silver pointe shoes. Long elegant legs of silver stretched from her tiny silver tutu. She stopped and stood peering contemptuously down at Gordy where he lay. Gordy’s golden trousers were dropped, unabashedly revealing his intricate anatomy for all to see. What his nakedness revealed, however mysterious, appeared useless in the sense of things.

Cartography was a dance for only a skilled dancer. Gordy was clearly no dancer. Exposing himself that way, he wasn’t apt to be a person of any kind of elegance.

“What kind of dancer are you?” Angie scoffed.

“I’m no dancer,” Gordy replied, fanning his parts immodestly. “I am a compass!”

Angie gasped. “A compass? Why, you don’t look anything like a compass! You don’t have elegant legs that dance on needles. You are round and fat and you haven’t a needle about you!”

“My needle is right there before your eyes,” Gordy retorted. “You are just ashamed to see it in all its beauty.”

“What use is a needle like that for cartography?” Angie asked. She danced across the map and back again. “My pirouette defines a range. My deboulé can measure the distances between points and bisect lines or arcs. Can you bisect a line with that needle of yours?”

“Well, no,” admitted Gordy.

“What kind of compass are you then, if you can’t bisect a line?” Angie snitted.

“Well, what kind of compass are you if you can’t find North?” Gordy snitted back.

Angie was mad. North was plainly drawn on the map. It was plainly drawn on every map she’d ever danced. “I don’t have to find North, it’s already been found!” she snapped.

“And who do you think found it?”

“Not you,” Angie said mimicking Gordy’s voice.

“Yes me,” he mimicked back. “That is my needle you see there on that map.”

“Ew! You’re disgusting!” Angie cried. “Is it not enough that you wave it about in the open like that?”

“You are just jealous in that little pin head of yours,” Gordy offered proudly. “My needle is on that map because it’s legendary. Every cartographer and every navigator has gazed fondly upon my needle. Why, I even saw you look fondly upon it as well when you danced up.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Denying it will do you no good.”

“You’re impossible!” Angie bristled.

Gordy was as crass in his mind as he was in his manner. How could he call himself a compass in either case? And she did not look upon it fondly. She distinctly remembered it was contemptuously. She could never be fond of a needle like that.

“If I’m a compass and you’re a compass,” Gordy’s voice was suddenly soft and conciliatory, catching Angie off guard. “Perhaps your elegant legs and my legendary needle were meant to work together.”

Angie flushed with embarrassment and did a quick demi detourné to hide her blush. She couldn’t think what to say.

Just then the cartographer came in and picked Gordy up from the map, fastening his trousers and pocketing him away. Angie was left staring flustered at the magnificent likeness of Gordy’s needle drawn proudly on the map beneath her elegant silver legs. His needle certainly was legendary. Maybe he really was a compass after all.

© 2012 Anne Schilde

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