Araby

Araby was very beautiful. Her father had read exactly one short story by James Joyce and named his daughter after it. She was just as dark and brooding.
Araby could however, dance: Ballet, Jazz or just hopping and twisting erotically to that modern urban stuff they played on the radio in the 90’s.
Males flat out annoyed her. Females more so.
One night she was driving home at a late hour. A drunk driver crossed the center line and Araby woke up on the beach at the edge of the world. The Lion Heart looked down on her smiling that Lion Heart smile.
“Dance with me.” It was not a request.
They danced and danced and danced. Araby cried out at last, “If I dance any more I will die! You are so beautiful...”
The Lion Heart laughed and said, “You cannot die, only pass on.”
She didn’t understand this.
“Let’s go swimming now,” the Lion Heart said. They swam all the way out to the edge of the ocean where you can look down at the stars, he smiled sadly and cast her off before she could protest before she’d had the chance to taste his Lion Heart lips.
She fell for what seemed like forever.
Then she woke up even more suddenly than before, with tubes and things stuck in her body. She sat bolt upright. She thought, mistakenly that she had been dreaming, but never again could you call her dark and brooding.
Her smile could have warmed even the Lion Heart.