May I Have This Dance?
It is impossible to fall off a magic carpet.

They had been married ten years precisely when, as in a dream, they found themselves on the rug, floating 1500 feet above the night lit city, they had been driving through.

It was a warm night with a faint air of music so, after the initial surprise, they cuddled together and watched the view. He experimented with the controls, mentally ordering the rug this way or that, settling for a light drift generally West with a slight random component. She did not like driving in the dark so she let him.

She was never able to resist when the imp shone in his eyes; when he said, "let's dance," she didn't hesitate. They stood, the music swelled ever so slightly (Just the Way You Are, the Billy Joel version, the song they had danced to at their wedding) and danced. They had started dance lessons only a year before, but Rumba is a comfortable dance, adaptable to all kinds of music and tempos. Not their favorite (that was West Coast Swing) but easily danceable and, more important when you are dancing on a rug in the air, not a traveling dance.

The rug was spongy under their feet, not an ideal floor, yet they were able to execute the Latin snap turns of the dance anyway; she forgot where they were and relaxed into the dance, the music, the warm air and the night. When he led her, driven by muscle memory and their usual routine, into a cross box lead and reverse Cuban walk she remembered a little too late the vertiginous height they were dancing at.

He felt her freeze and held them in second position breaks expecting someone behind him, but she was looking down at her feet, at the rug. They were still in the center, nowhere near the precipitous edge.

He led a tentative quick chasse. They watched the rug flow under their feet, always keeping them centered. He looked at her, still dancing, her blue eyes and bright smile, and smiled back.

So when the music changed to Swing they followed, unafraid, into steps and points although by habit he did look back to check for room. Cha Cha followed (fifth position breaks and chase) and, as they gained confidence, Fox Trot, a real traveling dance (promenade, grapevine and junior walk).

The Waltz is both the easiest and hardest of dances. It can take up the whole dance floor with its graceful swoops and turns. In their lessons they had reached the point where they had begun to capture the elegance of the Waltz's rise and fall, the flow that turns men and women into graceful liquid gliding from step to step, magic to watch, magic to dance.

The music changed to a waltz (May I Have This Dance for the Rest of My Life), slow and romantic.

Above the fairyland of lights, warm air brushing their cheeks, they glide, the rug flowing with them, step for step.