Enter, stage right

1

As a young actor, I know how to make an entrance. You slide across the floor dramatically, and scream out your name in the best or funniest way possible. But with my life now, that's not exactly possible.

It started on January 3rd, 2004. I was a beautiful baby, my mother said. Eyes that seemed to change colour with every day, and dark, curly, hair. The fullest lips, and skin that looked like the perfect combination of light and dark. I hardly cried, my eyes wide with curiosity, like I knew nothing, but everything at the same time.

The one problem?

My dad was never there to see me grow up, or be born. So now, let's start where everything went wrong before I was even there.

December 31st-January 1st, 2003-04
It was a New Years party. My dad, from pictures, my beautiful dad, trusted the wrong person. He was to drive home with them, they promised not to drink.

But they lied.

My dad was pronounced dead on at the hospital, on January 2nd, 5:34am. Brain trauma, the doctors said.That and multiple fractures to the chest, head, and neck. I was never able to see him. My dad. My poor, dead dad.

Some people will say, 'oh I'm so sorry for your loss!' But if you've ever lost someone, you know how empty those words can sound. But that's enough of my past. Let's get to more of me in more present times.

In most school plays, I was the lead actor, no matter the gender. The perfect memory for lines and cues, a voice with amazing projection, and able to do so many accents. Music and drama teachers loved me. I would count down days until the next showing of a play that I was in, and loved the cheering crowds, and along with that, the adrenaline that went hand in hand with theatre.

That is, until the accident.

But we can get to that part later. It still hurts to talk about it. Literally in more ways than one.

My name is Sophie, and what you are about to read is a story about my life, in all of its suffering, loss, and bad puns.

What do you guys think so far?
-Soph