In all my life, silence had never been this loud, never felt so tedious. My director raised her baton with a simple flick of her wrist, demanding control over our pulse, which pounded fleetingly in my chest. For a single second, time in that room halted, clinging to the end of her baton. We were fixated on the tiny little point at the tip that defined time, carved it from an amorphous entity into tempo. The daunting task to create something stunningly beautiful with such incredibly challenging music loomed over us, a shadow encasing the stage. She glanced at all of us, love and appreciation beaming through the haze with determined eyes.
"Sing."
She whispered it, caressing it with her voice, emotion and passion radiating out of a single whisper, so soft it fluttered gently like a butterfly to our ears.
The lightning whip of her baton gleamed in the spotlights, and then, the thunder of our voices. Suddenly, I was whisked away to a land of luxurious ball gowns and dancing. My voice twirled in the arms of the music, leapt with the playful bouncing of the piano keys, dipped under the blooming legato phrases. We all felt the phrase, cherished it with honey sweet pianos and booming, rich fortes. There was something in the word sing that evoked a soaring joy in me, sent my mind careening towards the sky with an indescribable desire to make jaws go slack, hearts skip a beat, and skin crawl. To make the pens fall out of the judge's hands, to make my director proud. The finale was arriving, and our voices cascaded and sparkled, spilling into the audience. I didn't just sing. I fell in love, too. With music and all of its complexity and nuance, with its ability to convey such gut wrenching emotion. I wanted to deliver a life changing performance, one that the audience could love too. My mentor's arms flew like a bird's, her smile reaching up to touch the sun. She didn't need to say anything; we'd delivered a life changing performance to her. There's nothing like that feeling of pride and tenderness, passion and humbleness. My voice swelled louder and louder, the majesty of the piano chords becoming serendipitous with each word, the tempo slowing gloriously until-
"Danse!"
