Short Stories

The Audition

That silence hung in the air. Everyone is awaiting the first note. The conductor's hands swept through the air, shaping what was expected to be an angelic sound. His baton twirled through our conscious, striking invisible beats. They breathe together, they are one: one sound, one instrument. Their tones blend seamlessly, harmoniously.  At that moment every person in the room is connected. The non-believers will say we are just hearing the same thing with our ears, but in reality, we are hearing the same thing with our hearts. Our souls are ebbing and flowing together, to the beat of the music. Listening to the notes hanging in the air like snowflakes. Suddenly I am frozen, they play one note. I recognize it. The tenderness is exactly like my solo. Everyone disappears from around me. Suddenly I watch myself on the stage. I stand alone. I am wearing my pretty dress. The dress is now in a box in my closet. Maybe it will be worn by my grandchildren in 30 years, but never by me. I stand on the stage with my instrument in my hands. I am alone. The audience of 3 is silent. They are waiting for me to play. To impress them. The girl on the stage is too nervous, her knees are visibly shaking. Her hands are trembling, her breath is not confident. Her sound is not as good as it was 5 minutes ago in the little dark practice room, where no one could hear her. 

I see the music slipping from her grasp, music she had practiced for months. Music I had practiced for the audition of a lifetime. Suddenly it is gone. I stand there frozen, as if the judges will not see me if I do not move. But they see me. One rips the page out of the notebook that was reserved for me and crumples it up. My dreams are crushed in his hand. Sudden overwhelming applause strikes me. I fade back into reality. The clarinetist on the stage bows, she who got the role. She wears her pretty dress in front of millions of people like mine never got too. Like I never got to. Suddenly the music doesn’t seem so perfect. Not so connected. I realize how these people manipulate to get their spots. Just earning it isn’t enough. They all look off into the distance. They are experienced, they know how to play the game. 

Mistakes 

The audience is waiting for us to play. The auditorium is quiet, not silent. Concertgoers shift uncomfortably in their seats or get their last coughs out. They gently rustle the paper of the programs I printed this morning. All eyes are settled on our conductor. The stage lights filter through the dust of the stage. Waiting for what her first move will be. My hands rest on the keys of my clarinet. They are smooth and cold from sitting in the band room. Our condutors hands sweep through the air and we hear ourselves play. We are one sound, united. Our tones blend seamlessly. It sounds effortless, but we know how much time we have spent perfecting our technique. 

Everytime I play a concert I get brought back to my younger days. I remember playing my instrument as a punishment. I had to practice. I had to perform. It was hard, and it was almost never fun. But as my talent grew so did my joy. Never before did the saying, “You get out what you put in” make so much sense to me. Slowly the hours of practice I was forced to log on a piece of paper became easy. They suddenly went by quickly. I was suddenly asking for 5 more minutes to play before bed instead of 5 less.

I remember my first recital. I was in elementary school and I was required to play piano at a small concert. I remember how nervous I was. I thought it would be the end of the world if I made a mistake. I assumed the audience's attention would rest solely on me. I also assumed that if I made a mistake it would be the end of the world. Most 6 year olds assume the world's attention rests on them. I walked on stage. I was wearing unfamiliar clothes; black flats, a black dress. Little did I know I would have dozens of these outfits in my closet by the time I reached high school. I was so focused on not tripping over my own feet that I walked right past the piano and had to circle around before I took my seat. I took my seat and laid my hands on my skirt. The nylon was satisfyingly smooth. I stared at the keys. I wished they would somehow play “Skater’s Waltz” for me. They did not. I forced my fingers onto the keys and started my piece. The fear of making a mistake gradually took over. My mind was going a-thousand miles an hour, and as a result my sweaty fingers slipped on the ivory keys and I made my first mistake, not even half way down the page. I froze. My once sweaty fingers were now a frozen block of ice. I could not move. The audience cooed at me, it was embarrassing. After a few seconds, seconds that felt like years to 6 year old me, my teacher came on stage and helped me walk me off.

 I felt like a disappointment, but what I didn’t know is that the only people that were really paying attention to me were my parents. They of course supported me for the 14 measures of “Skater’s Waltz” I did manage to get out. As for everyone else, they were focused on their own children who were having similar panic attacks as mine. Now I sit on the stage more than 10 years later knowing that I will stand up and give a lightly prepared speech as the Vice President of Band Council. I sit there knowing I will walk across the stage and play a solo I make up in my head as I go. I sit there knowing that if I do make a mistake, which I undoubtedly will, it does not matter. At my level now, the only way the audience would know of my mistakes is if I did freeze. As far as they know, maybe that finger slip was written into the music.