A Spotlight on Family

It’s cold, it’s quiet, and it’s empty and barren . Rows of empty chairs, a silent audience of shadows. Fragments of memories form the disjointed melody of a requiem of time. I walk down the dark aisles my footsteps become a steady beat to the chaos, I catch a glimpse at the stage and stop to watch the superimposed performance of my mind. No longer am I a spectator but a performer. The smell of stale air is drowned by the pungent smells of perfume and makeup that masks our faces and masks our exhaustion. My hands are enveloped in the skirt of my dress that I am clutching on to for dear life. The thunderous anxiety once again surging out of me like a tsunami from the sea the roaring of it obsolescent. Undermining the compulsion to be unobtrusive. Mingling of the mind,
I hear the first note and then another and another soon they are tumbling over each other They reach into my memory and I realise just exactly what the song is.
It’s the Finale of the last musical I will every perform at that auditorium. My Swan’s song.
Closing my eyes I can hear the roaring applause, feel the spotlight illuminating the stage, and feel the people that I have grown so close to around me, then my mind fades back into the unforgiving depths of reality. The roaring applause that I had so coveted became only my breathing and the only light on the stage is me. All the world’s a stage but this is my greatest one. The stage is my whole world, and the actors my family. The eye of the hurricane which is life. A small respite from the outside expectations and demands of the world, the once focal point of which my mind is always drawn. The art of which is important. It is my only beacon of hope and happiness. This is but one of many flashes of memories which fill my mind. There are countless others, all amazing and unique and shared with my family. Somewhere in between the sweat and the tears the people on stage became my family and the auditorium became our home. I know that years from now I could still walk into this place and call it home because this is where my family began. Some people say that our auditorium is haunted. I do not know if it is haunted by the dead, but it is definitely haunted by the spirits of those to come before. Those who have poured their heart and soul out onto that stage and left a little piece of themselves there forever. I brings me not only a great joy but a great comfort to know that I have joined them. So while most of me walks out of the auditorium fragment of my spirit that will forever linger joins a thousand others to sing the silent song of the shadows.

Photo on Foter.com