I leave early in the morning, the sun barely peeping from the horizon. Cam is still asleep, he has a fashion exhibition today and hasn't stopped apologising for not being able to be at my audition. I can't express enough how ok that is; I feel guilty for not being at his exhibition. It's just fallen this way.
The district line is hot. The train so packed you have to be touching at least 5 strangers. At least I can't fall over, I try to convince myself. I'm already on high alert by the time I reach my stop.
After entering the theatre and managing a quick freshen up, I'm ushered to the side of the stage. The morning a long forgotten blur. I wait by the curtain, hearing the girl before me perform. It's stunning. It's perfect. I could never be that perfect. I know you shouldn't compare yourself to others, but it's so hard when you have no confidence in your own abilities. She finishes and I hear clapping. She takes her leave and looks down on me as she passes.
I step onto the stage. Left foot. Right foot.
***********
The voices in my head are silenced by the reverberating stillness of the theatre. The vast space is empty. Rows upon rows of vacant seats line the walls, all except two chairs. One male and one female sit a few rows from the front. Papers lie out in front of them, organised into neat little piles, forming a stark contrast to the flurry of panic filling my head. Left foot. Right foot.
I stand in the centre of the empty stage now, feeling so small. Despite this, the walls are still closing in on me, suffocating me. My harp, the one constant. The light above blinds and the heat from them trickles down my back.
I say my name as clear as I can muster and sit on the stool. The stand is the wrong height. Shit. I balance my harp on one knee and bend to reach the music stand. My harp topples, veering towards falling completely. I save it, but not the music stand. It clatters and falls, the metallic echo filling the entire theatre.
"Sorry, clumsy me." I giggle out of nervousness. Hysteria is a funny thing. The judges don't laugh back.I straighten the stand and decide that the damn thing can stay at the wrong height. I see one of the judges check their watch. I begin to play.
***********
It starts ok. My fingertips burn from overuse but I can deal with this. My harp strings are slightly out of tune but I can't change that now. I can deal with this. Then I notice something.
I notice that from where I'm sitting, my harp blocks the bottom lines of sheet music from my sight. I should have adjusted the stand.
I can remember the last part of the piece, can't I? I've played it enough times. But sometimes the more you try to reach for information, the less likely you are able to grasp at it. And so, as play into the second half of the piece, I panic. And not the kind of panic that causes you to worry a little, but the kind of panic that knocks the air completely out of you. My heart punches my rib cage and vertigo creeps up on me. There's tinnitus in my ears, a constant ringing intensified by the deathly silence of the room. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't...
I play a horrendously wrong note. My harp screeches. I stop playing.
There's one overriding rule of being a musician: just to keep going. I didn't.
************
I can't continue now, I stand to leave. "Thank you" I say to the judges, a small sob escaping on my last word.
"You will hear back within the next week," A monotonous reply.
I leave, placing my hand up to my mouth to stop myself from sobbing before I've even left the stage. There is a boy waiting to play next as I pass the curtains. He looks at me. I look at him. I leave.
I dash to the bathroom, my safe escape. I glance into the mirror, seeing the crazed, frightened eyes of a lamb in a slaughter house. I'm afraid and I'm lost. I don't even know who I am any more.
I take the rings off my hands and stare into space. Who am I, if not a musician?
I lock myself in a cubical. Away. I'm away. I let out a chocked noice that had been caught in my throat. And then retch, vomit tumbling into the toilet. I'm falling apart. I'm a mess. My life, a mistake.
I sit on the sticky floor and look at my bleeding hands. I don't feel the pain. What's the point anymore?
YOU ARE READING
Joining the Dots
General Fiction"Life doesn't come gently, it hits you all at once. A tsunami of events." "Anxiety makes being a musician hard. Anxiety makes life hard. My passion, my dreams seem so far away. I could touch it all once, but once is distant now." "I want to be happy...
