Red Swan

I keep

-*-

“Dancing is my obsession. My life.”

“Obsession is the single most wasteful human activity, because with an obsession you keep coming back and back and back to the same question and never get an answer.”

-*-

Finally, after being miserably tormented by the filthy old man, she left the train station. She walked up the endless stairs from the dark and quite underground station train to the city of live and movement. There were: people talking, children screaming, cars whistling, weird and awful noises, all that even though it was a snowy day.

It was... disturbing, for her. Indeed for the other people it was normal life, but she preferred the peaceful things. "It doesn't have harmony, not even a bit" she thought. After walking a few blocks to the right she got to her destiny.

When she arrived she contemplated the building for a while. It was majestic. The huge construction had two ballerina statues on both sides and a big automatic glass door. On the right side, just above from a ballerina statue it said "東京バレエ団" in Japanese and in the upper part it said prostrated, on cursive letter "The Tokyo Ballet". Seohyun understood everything, since she spoke Korean, Japanese, Chinese and English. Even though she abandoned studies she still was very intelligent and knew a lot of things, especially math.

She walked up the stairs passing slowly her right fingerprints on the frozen handrail, feeling shivers to her spine; meanwhile few snowflakes were falling slowly to her hair and nose. Suddenly, before getting to the glass door, a pile of snow fell on her left shoulder.

“Not again, it’s the second time…” Frustration filled into her. First it had felt cold but at the contact of her warmth body it melted. She shook the snow off her shoulder and entered to the reception of the academy. Inside of the spacious room there was some black and white furniture; quite boring to be honest, with floral patterns wallpapers, everything very classy and simple. Behind a white reception desk, there was a young and petite woman, with a hypocrite smile that covered her face, smiling to Emma like every morning. She was about 30 years old with short, shiny, brown hair and pink uniform.

-Good Morning Ms. Coleman- she murmured with her squeaky voice, Emma just nodded. She wasn’t in the mood to talk, and less with the receptionist.

While passing by the receptionist desk she headed to her left. Every step she gave the walls were getting darker and at the same time her paces were getting faster. Finally, the room was gloomy.  She could only see a yellowish light. Each beam of the light showed a portion of a metallic structure. It was like a spiral.

She got near to that and saw a few steps. She walked up each step as faster as she could, even though that stairs never had maintenance in decades…

Crack! She heard suddenly. One of the steps bent down and made her stagger. If she didn’t grab the handrail she could have fell off the stairs and even… die?

“It was so close” A little sweat fell from her forehead.

“Today it’s not my day...” Her breathe got uneven more than it was.

Lastly, she finished walking up the stairs and all got dark and dizzy again.

She opened her eyes. It was still dark. But few seconds after, 2 rows of light showed in the roof of the corridor, with a long distance between each other.

Each light of the roof showed a paint of the wall.

“Those paintings” these were pictures of ballerinas doing ballet steps. One of them had a smiling girl doing an Arabesque, and the other had a man holding a woman that was doing Passé, all of them with perfect smiles, “Typical” Emma thought. The first that she passed was the first act of the Company, in 1964 then the second act, and so on. Each painting showed elegance and majesty, showing every part of the ballerina’s body moving, especially there flexible and fragile muscles. Each of them was perfect.

Emma kept smiling without realizing, she wanted her photo to be there one day.

She finally entered in the classroom, after walking some minutes in that long and dark corridor. With a serious face she entered in the class while hearing murmurs from the other dancers, it was like this every time, and she didn’t quite understand why.  The classroom was simple, with large mirrors, brown walls and some terraces, for the people who wanted to contemplate the class. If you kept walking in the left you could see some lockers that led to the bathrooms.

She went to her locker and she placed her pink bag in it, while taking her brown coat and put it in inside also. She grabbed her pink and shiny pointe shoes, sitting on a black sofa; first one ribbon and then the next one, forming an X, finally making a knot.

The male dancers where looking at her almost drooling, even though they knew her from many years, they still couldn’t resist Emma beauty, and it looked like she was even more beautiful that day.

Emma didn’t have any friends in the company, and she had 9 years dancing in there. “I don’t need friends, I’m here for my dream” she always repeated herself. But lately some blonde was talking to her a lot; perhaps he wanted to be friends with her, but she just didn’t let him, she had to concentrate this year. Emma wanted the main role so badly.

The teacher Christian, or Christ as some girls call him, entered in the room, he clapped twice his hands to indicate that the class had started.

-Bonjour! おはようございます! Good Morning!- the teacher smiled widely. That smile… It could melt any woman's heart, except Seohyun's.

Christian was the man any woman would desire. A handsome, hot, sexy, intelligent dancer with a good salary. And he's only 28 years.

Christian gave another smile to everybody. But that didn’t bother Emma, because she kept a straight face. She went to the bars while asking herself where the blonde boy, who always bugged her, was.  “Well, it is better that he doesn’t appear” she thought while shrugging. She prepared for her class, placing herself next to the bar, in first position.

-Ok, so today I have to tell you some good news- Christian told everybody with a smile.

-In this week, I will be observing you so I can pick the main roles for the “Swan Lake”. The auditions will be next Monday- He grinned while clapping once.

-So know let’s start the class-

Emma did the class the better she could, tracing Christian with her gaze whenever he moved “He has to notice me”, she said to herself.

-Arabesque Penchée- Christian said and Emma did it immediately, raising her leg the higher she could.

-Good job- he smiled.

Emma returned to first position with a small pain in her ankle. She frowned “what is happening with me today…”