Totentanz (Death-Dance) -FridayFlash

The hooded figure was whistling up a storm with his four skinless gone-gone dancers. His skeletal show-all girls. What with the metro-nomic clicktrack of his arthritic hips; the kerching of the metal scythe cutting through the air; and the susurration of his cloak wafting out in his wide berthed wake. The Reaper was a veritable beatbox, his four uber-gaunt companions gyrating along to his stroke.

For all the wear and tear of his chronic osteoporosis, there was most definitely a spring in his wintry step these days. For not only was death still in fashion, possibly even more elevated by various doomsday cults and apocalyptic religions, but dance too was undergoing something of a renaissance (abominable word, but you get the drift). Indeed, if he'd had anything but writhing maggots for a face, as sure as eggs is eggs, he himself would have employed a smidgeon of eye liner to match the billowing cape. For in this day and age, even the mentor has to catch the judges' gaze. It was no longer just down to the charms of the corpses de ballet.

Besides, they say the cameras put 10lbs on you.

There was no shortage of willing dance partners. The pert tenacity of tripping the light fantastic in life, now elided into imagining they were auditioning for the great dance-off in the sky. Movement in time, two manifestations the Reaper actually brought the curtain down on in point of fact. He was just relieved that after centuries of being met with horrified disbelief, once again sufficient numbers of the perishers were actually content to follow him. Even though this time they knew there was no prolonged fluffy cloud dancefloor. More the misconception that for as long as they kept on with the rhythm, they could postpone that final bow.

But it's not quite like it was back in St Vitus' choreomanic heyday. There selection was limited to a couple of courtly dances like the galliard and the cinq-pas, with the odd folk dance like the gavotte thrown in for good measure. Even the tarantella wasn't so contentious back then. Not like now, when some opportunists have got the hairy spiders all up in arms, or legs anyway, over their branding and image rights being infringed. Hells bells, as if those furry fiends weren't toxic enough already, now they've got litigation lawyers in their corner? Death for one was treading very carefully in that particular minefield.

The troupe strutting their stuff in his slipstream always numbered four. But the exact compliment of which four could change at the drop of a hat. Or an ulna or femur for that matter. Take the body popper who occupied one of the slots only yesterday for example. Body popping sans body is quite a tough ask and the strain imposed on the skeleton is just too grievous. As for the bump and grinders, well the impact and friction of bone upon bone certainly sends up excitation sparks but inevitably brings both parties to collapse in an unholy mess. Flamenco always seemingly offers itself up as a good choice, with ready-made phalange castanets. But all that foot stamping soon irrevocably loosens the metatarsals and they begin to snap off.

You'd imagine gentle square dances or quadrilles to have the advantage in this respect, but with self-respect to maintain, the Reaper has to draw the dance line somewhere. So who were the ideal coryphee to accompany his non-stop world tour? Indonesian bedhaya was no good, they insisted on coming as a job lot of nine. Besides the dancers were so refined and elegant, they barely seemed to be moving at all and he needed life and energy, or the illusion of both at the very least. The Indian temple dancers more fit the bill, but like horses that slipped their shoes, the unfleshed bones of the Kathakali were too slender to support their bells and the dancers toppled by the wayside, feet severed by the jangling anklets serving as a mantrap. The Brazilian martial art dances were impressive enough, but they tended to frighten his potential clientele to death. The whole thing was so damned tricky.

The current crop were a bit thrown together at the last minute, but that was the fault of the body popper going to pieces the previous day. Rehearsal on the hoof had been minimal, but that was the nature of the beast. Here goes everything and nothing thought Reaper, as his name was announced and the audience's pantomime screams filled the air.

"Ah, Reaper, didn't think we'd be seeing you back here this week" intoned the Panel Chair, "but appears you have your supporters out there trying to keep on your good side".

"Friends in low places" quipped a lady judge with an ugly relish and an anorexic body that made Reaper look plump by comparison.

"Which is his good side?" smirked the male judge, with a rictus more foreboding than Death's own permanently distended jaw.

Reaper merely pulled his hood tighter around the squirm of his face.

"Well we know what you're all about, so why don't we just crack on and let you take it away?" And with that Simon Cowell beckoned for the music to strike up and rolled his eyes at his fellow judges beside him. Reaper caught the gesture and apprehended that tonight his card had been marked. The jig was up, for the phone vote would not matter a jot. Dance was about to pass from favour once again. Cowell, the Lord of The Dance topside, had wearied of the unending diet of streetdance posses with gold teeth and pitted skin. Perpetual motion was no longer sufficient to sway people towards specious notions of eternity. Reaper and his skeleton crew were being cut loose. They would have to find some other method of drumming up support.

His slumped bony shoulders tensed as the first note ascended. Cowell hit his reject button immediately and turned to ham a stagey whisper into the ear of his fellow judge.

"Tod, er hat einfach keinen Rhythmus" ("Death, he ain't got no rhythm")