Shorties

Broken soles

A bullet to the chest was the best way she could describe her first death. It wasn't quick and painless, nor did it happen in her sleep as she hoped.

The agonizing pain that spread through her veins like the plague rendered her immobilized. Her body rattled as she gasped for air, and her lungs constricted tightly beneath her rib cage, cutting off her air supply. It was torture to experience the venomous ache ripple through her as she stared at the white tiles.

Was this how she was going out?

There wasn't any blood spilling from her wound, yet it felt like the scarlet liquid was draining away by the second.

"I'm afraid you will no longer be able to perform because of the injury to your ankle."

The very shell that pierced through layers of skin and muscle was shot from the lips of her doctor. A sentence that packed the power of a shotgun and gave birth to her despair.

She died hours ago, yet her mother wasn't calling her relatives to pronounce her passing. Her family wasn't mourning and preparing for her funeral. She wasn't getting shipped away to be laid to rest in a casket or cremated. She was surrounded by the four walls of her room, propped on her bed like a lifeless puppet.

Dried tears stained her cheeks. Her eyes burned from crying, and her throat was raw. The loud thumps of her heart grew sluggish in her ears. Everything in sight grew blurry except the pair of worn-out ballet slippers resting in their new home. A cardboard box. The remnant of her first life.

They say a dancer dies twice. Once when they stop dancing, the first death hurts the most.