Dancer

First and foremost, I am a dancer. My identity, curved out by the letters my body contorts into, my stories spilling themselves out through the rhythm of my beating blood. The music changes, the message does not. Dance is my culture, my pain, my glory. In all senses, dance defines me.

***

It began as it always began. I awoke, the pattern of the day the same as any other, into the airport and soon boarding the plane. The flight was bumpier this time, but I watched the night lights dance across the blurred window. Our choreography was a tale of African elegance, and as we crossed the deserts, the dunes' delicate curls told the same story. Wilderness, survival, poised in such graceful pride. The Dubai sun is not the same as Kenya's. Yes, we share the skies, but the heat attacks, it burns through the chest and singes itself through the creases of your lungs. "Papa, be safe, okay?" Mum always worries. "Let me know when you land, and how the hotel looks."

"Of course," I always say, "of course."

We were ushered through the gates of the complex and showed to our home for the next while. The months here would bring money home to me and Mum, the Dirhams a currency we'd become accustomed to converting. There were twenty of us, perhaps more, I cannot fully recall. Details seem secondary when survival is no longer secure. Leaving the bus, we were led to a small villa, a rusted red roof creeping over the edges of thick white stone walls. "Thank you," the driver announced, his grating voice seeming to rattle through the maracas in his throat before reaching us, "we'll see you tomorrow. One thirty-five. No later." The engine purred, and he was gone.

I entered, arms heavy with the weight of travel, shifting through the crowd and into the closest bedroom. The horizon tugged the sun closer again, the night's blackening touch smudging across the sky. From the window, Dubai was beautiful, and I watched as the darkness awoke. Dots of light, flicking into life like the birth of a thousand stars, the windows of each and every building beginning their journey into the morning. "Papa!" That's me. "Papa, we have a problem." My team called me into the living room, their tempo slowed, bodies strung over bulging suitcases.The routine was broken, our plans off-beat immediately.

"What's the matter?" I responded, my withered mind only now absorbing the reality of my surroundings. Twenty of us. Artists, of all kinds, smuggled under one roof. There were two bedrooms, designed for no more than a couple each, and a living room, with a sofa and table squeezing between the sweating walls.

"What?" I counted again, still twenty. "We're all staying here, all of us?" Esther, the youngest on our team, joined the huddle.

"I've rang the boss, there's no answer. I tried, I don't know, six times?" she heaved, the soft nightlife lighting up the sweat forming along her temples, "Every time it just dies, like his number isn't active."

I took the lead. "Let's think logically here," I demanded, shifting the luggage to the edges of the room and opening the space to move. If nothing else, we could think like dancers. "We have to keep our rhythm, okay? Let's stick to the routine. Yes, for the moment, we may panic, release it, feel it out." Nobody responded, the five of them deciding on silence. "But we have to stick as a group, we all have our roles. Sleep can be organised; this is not a concern. Space will be a struggle, but we'll live. Yes?" They nodded. "Water, are the taps running? Esther, go check the bathroom." She slipped away and I continued, "Food. We'll be fed at the festival, and any spares can be taken for provisions. Take your bags with you every evening." My hands gesticulated like a passionate teacher, until Esther, her spindly fingers wrapping around my wrists, spoke.

"We have no water."

I continued, regardless, "and tomorrow, we will dance."

***

And dance we did. Days passed like months, our exhausted bodies wrapped in smiles, Dubai's elite flaunting flattering gratitude as the gruelling heat wore on. My body followed the music; my mind followed the orders. We ate only in the afternoons and found water from a village nearby, sleep becoming a commodity on the unforgiving concrete floors. Time felt different out there, until time was no more. Covid arrived, and the planet stopped scrolling. We were flung back to the villa, and one of the painters, whose name I did not yet know, gathered us together. My team crouched along the front of the sofa, a group of singers resting behind us. "I want to talk to you all, please, and I know this isn't good news," his voice sunk into the walls, taking an age to reach us, "the boss, our boss, he called me, just now." The tension seemed to burn the floor beneath us, "he has informed me that, due to the festival's cancellation, we are not going to be paid," Esther's shoulders sulked, her neck slinging backwards onto the knees of Naomi, the eldest of the singers.

"Can we go home?" Naomi asked, tentatively.

"and," the painter continued, "he has our passports."

Anarchy. In the heat, the room froze. We weren't due back home for months, our families were waiting, we had no water, no air conditioning, no way out. Twenty of our country's most creative minds, crushed into one, life-threatening problem. Then the panic struck. "I can't live another week in here" - "My children are at home" - "My mum needs the money" - "We won't survive like this." In a room of inspiration, it seemed that fear was the only creation.

***

The night sulked into morning, and soon we had concluded our plan: we would take to the streets. The boss lived in an apartment only a mile away, a secluded villa with a view across the waterfront. The buses hadn't been back since the virus came, so we'd have to walk. The group huddled around the bruised wooden table in the living room, and I spoke, "Tomorrow morning, before the sunrise, we move." My hands twitched, my words tripping over my swelling tongue, "We-we stand our ground. Okay? And we don't lea-leave until we have answers." I looked up, into the eyes of my team, "We're artists, we resist. Our passion, our pain, it moves us every day. Let's not forget how to do that now." The painter followed, "Above all, passports are the priority, yes?" The room hummed in agreement, "We must get home."

His windows were sealed and tinted, thick black frames around reflections of our tired troops. Our bags behind us, our pride on the line, we screamed. The window slid aside, and he stepped out onto the balcony above us. "What is this?" His voice croaked as if we'd interrupted his sleep, his sunglasses telling a similar story. "What do you want?"

The painter barked, "Give us our passports!", his left arm thrashing in anger. The silence settled in the dust, then the roar followed, nineteen frantic souls pouring out towards him.

"Run! Go! Get out of my house!" the boss yelled, an older man now joining him on the balcony.

"You won't intimidate us," I responded, intimidated.

Naomi supported my calls. "Never!" she screamed, and stepped forwards closer to his gate.

"Back off! I'm telling you now, leave! Get out of here and you'll deal with what I give you." Each word seemed to resonate deeper in my chest. I needed to see my family. He continued, "If you don't leave, I'll call the police. And the police know me, they don't know you."

The painter snapped, "We need to go home! That's all we're asking, just let us see our families, please."

The older man swept the boss aside, sending him back behind the shielding windows before facing us again. He spoke with a quiet, almost gentle tone. "The police are on the way. It's your decision now." The glass sealed shut, and the sirens turned the corner towards us.

***

We were transferred to the Kenyan embassy, its marble floors squeaking against the rubber soles of my shoes as I introduced myself to the receptionist.

"Hello, my name is Papa and we're here to report a crime."

The group was moved to a smaller box room, and we outlined the details of the last few months. We told them of the house, our pay and our passports. As each of us spoke, her pages filled with our scribbled thoughts until she left, only to return five minutes later. "I'm sorry," the investigator began, placing her notebook back down on the table, "It seems this company does not exist, in fact, it seems your boss doesn't either."

It seemed the dead had danced. We were nothing - nobodies. The contracts were fiction, our African elegance reduced to emptiness. We'd performed, spread out our hearts and they'd stamped all over us. Yet, now, it is as though we'd never existed. Our bodies given to an empty promise, a cog of illusion.

Before we knew it, we were placed in another apartment, high in the Dubai sky. The grounds were gated, electronic barriers guarded by security twenty-four hours per day. This was more comfortable, indeed, but the embassy informed us we were not allowed to leave. Our meals were brought to the door like prisoners, and, wrapped in uncertainty, we waited. I'd been designated to stay with the painter, Denis, who never had much patience. "I just don't understand," he said, elbows resting on his knees, staring into the rough grey carpet, "they know we're here, they know who we are, why can't we just leave?"

I kicked off my shoes and dropped to my knees, my right leg stretched out in front, "I don't know, maybe they're suspicious."

"Of what?" he retorted, "of us? I'm a painter." He scoffed, standing to crack the window and taking a moment to look out across the night sky. "What are your plans?"

"Huh?"

"When you get out of here," he asked, "what are your plans?"

I switch legs, tracing my fingers along the straining hamstring. "I've always wanted to study more." He stayed silent, so I continued, "I want to understand sports science, maybe physiotherapy. What about you?" I didn't know if I would dance again. I danced what I knew, and this was something I wanted to forget.

"I have a child." The whole time he spoke, he only looked across Dubai, "She's two. We called her Faith. She's beautiful," he chuckled, "and so cheeky. My wife didn't want me to come here, said she needed help with the baby." He pulled the window shut and turned towards me, "But anyways, enough about me. Tell me, Papa, how does it feel to dance?"

"If the mind is only an extension of the body, dance is the extension of the soul." I closed my eyes, my body balanced in a perfect stillness, and he listened, "It's the only definition I understand for peace. It takes me away."

He said "And after all this, will you ever dance again?"

A firm fist beat into the door, and Denis jolted into life, welcoming the visitor. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. I'm speaking on behalf of the Kenyan Embassy here in Dubai." He wore a polished black suit and a watch which glistened even in the dim bedroom lighting, "It's time to go home."

***

The wheels of my suitcase rattled along the marble airport floors, Esther bouncing in front of me like a newborn gazelle. I passed my luggage through the system and slid between the metal detectors. We passed through security and a tall man, his glasses perched on the end of his long nose, called me to one side. "Yes? Is everything okay?" I asked, my patience walking the tightrope to insanity, "Is there anything you need?" He didn't respond, only looking at me and taking my documents from my hand. His pencil rustled against his notebook and the ceilings folded on top of me. Moments later, he spoke.

"You do not have a passport. I'm sorry, Sir, I cannot grant you this VISA. You cannot travel." He spoke with a deafening surety. The floor seemed to sway beneath me, my heavy head wanting to roll from its perch.

"What?" I cracked, my words trembling, "Please, I need to go home."

"Come with me. You're illegal." His chest brushed my arm and he led me to another windowless room, the flickering lights mirroring the drum of my heartbeat.

"Look, you can speak to the embassy, I'm supposed to be here." I pleaded. "I've got all the documents, look, read them." I reached into my pocket and he flinched, stepping backwards. He feared me.

His gaze flickered past me, through the glossy glass door, then he stood. "Wait here."

The shifting minutes added into hours, and soon I had no sense of time at all. I laid my head on the steel desk, and waited.

The door knocked, and a different man flicked it open. He rubbed his hand on the top of his balding head, then cleared his throat to speak.

"My apologies, Sir. You may leave." But I didn't leave. I couldn't leave. I'd been dragged through hell, my freedom ripped from underneath my dancing feet. I was broken.

Esther knocked and snapped me back into reality. "Papa, let's go. It's time to see your Mum."

***

I never did answer the question Denis asked me, and, to be honest, I never really knew. In all senses, dance will always be my life. But now, I dance a different story, and this story does not define me.