I'm in a music store big as a high-school gym. And they do host dances--they're setting up for a Latin dance competition tonight. Couples audition. A few will represent this store's dance school. To be honest, they're not great. Better than me, sure, but that's a low bar.

No matter. As long as the judge says you pass the dress code!

Some couples enter with weird outfits draped over arms, not even wearing them yet. He glances and says "Okay."

Next is a smiling waif with a short neck but proportionately long legs. She wears just a tank top and a teeny cheerleader skirt; when she dances her audition, the skirt flares out and... well, let's just say she's smiling at both ends.

The judge says "Well, that's borderline, we have to use the Test--hop up on this counter." She does. Her eyes pop out and she suppresses a whoop. Cold glass on the ass!

He says "The cold is a shock, huh? But if the skirt covers enough of your butt so you don't yelp in reaction... and you didn't... you pass." He knows as well as she does it was sheer willpower keeping her silent. She'll be flashing the audience nonstop tonight!

But if that's what she really wants... he won't hold her back.

Next he okays that tall man in drag--a floral, mostly blue dress of linked fabric triangles, looking half medieval courtier, half a frumpy American granny, half Ballet Russe circa 1910... several more halves in there. Like half-baked.

But this judge okays it. Because... as I watch him okay more weird costumes from around the world, all wrong for Latin dance... I see he okays anything. Want to dance? He'll find an excuse to let you in.

He urges me to enter too--"Everyone should at least get on the floor, even if you don't try to win!"

But I feel so shy. Not about having no costume. It's deeper for me. No strength--chronic illness leaves me achy tired and clumsy--no training in Latin dance, and worst of all, no partner.

Though... I might meet one.

Wait... is that his point?

NEXT DAY

I made hasty notes and biked off to work, baffled. But all day on the job I mulled over that dream, and started to suspect that dance-contest judge was... God. Wanting us all to join the dance and find a partner. No matter how brainwashed we are into thinking we're ugly, inept, unfit...

I was baffled by those weird, ridiculous costumes from around the world, though, until that evening, after work, when I watched Doctor Who. Aliens ask him and his Earth friend Tegan about human fashion; and Tegan enthusiastically sketches... weird, ridiculous costumes from around the world.

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