She Danced Until She Couldn’t [FICTOID]

The news chopper followed her down the 405 towards Santa Monica, spinning and pirouetting madly on the freeway in the setting sun.

“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” the airborne reporter told the audience. 

“Except in L.A., of course,” the studio anchor replied.

“True,” said the reporter.  “Right now she’s performing aa arabesque at the southbound Wilshire off ramp.”

“You keep saying ‘she’,” said the anchor.  “Technically she should be called an ‘it’.  She is a machine, after all.”

“That may be true, but she’s presenting as a female, all her moves derived from the greatest ballerinas in history.

“Let’s put it this way:  If you stood on the 405 right now and called her an ‘it’, do you think she wouldn’t pound you into the pavement?”

“Point taken,” said the anchor.  “We have an update here from the UCLA advanced cybernetics research lab.  The backhoe we’re looking at -- “

“Perhaps we should call her a back-sex worker,” said the reporter from their two thousand foot height advantage.  “We don’t want to be accused of slut-shaming.”

“The back-sex worker we’re watching was part of a UCLA engineering project to develop self-operating construction equipment.  Unfortunately, at some point in the programming the wrong app was downloaded and now the backhoe -- ‘scuse me, back-sex worker --  thinks it’s a ballerina.”

“And a damn fine one, I might add,” said the reporter.  “We’ve been following her for over an hour and I must say her movements are absolutely breathtaking in their grace and beauty.”

“We just got breaking news from the California Highway Patrol.  They’ve been remotely monitoring the backhoe –--sex worker’s fuel supply and it appears she’s operating on fumes.  We should be seeing her finale shortly.”

The massive backhoe spun daintily under the helicopter’s searchlight beam like a dancer onstage under the spotlight.  For several seconds nothing seemed to happen then the audience noticed the machine faltering and petering out.

Realizing its performance neared its end, the backhoe launched into one final routine, “The Dance Of The Dying Swan,” before finally sputtering out new the I-10 interchange.

“Beautiful,” the reporter sobbed.  “Simply beautiful.”

© Buzz Dixon