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I fill up my lungs with fresh air, savoring the feeling of being the principal dancer of such a prestige production on a stage fit for royalty.
My one dream in life finally coming true...
Behind me, a bus horn honks at a speeding motorbike.
And I am brought back down to crushing reality. My fantasy drops from my mind like heavy rain. No, I am not going to be on that famous stage in a few weeks. Not at all. I am not the lead dancer for a renowned city dance company - I’m not even a dancer anymore.
Reality never lets your mind wander for longer than a moment before it’s biting you in the ass.
I’m not in a ballet costume rehearsing for this new esteemed production but in my hospital cleaning uniform – as far away from any theatre stage as you can get.
I’m merely some minimum-wage cleaner, standing outside a famous downtown theatre, uselessly daydreaming a dream that will never, ever happen.
I sigh.
Some dream, hey?
I really gotta drop these fantasies. Some days I stand outside this theatre for seemingly endless hours, daydreaming a dream that will surely never happen.
Ha. Me, a cleaner, being on this stage? What a joke.
I rummage in my bag for my phone, checking the time. I’m seriously late for work at the hospital. I need to hurry the hell up and stop standing outside the theatre, desperately imagining I’m in there in the spotlight. I mean, I can’t even afford the tickets to even be in the audience toseethe stage in person, let alone be performing on it.
And I can’t afford to lose my cleaning job.
And so I start to run toward the nearest train station.
In a desperate attempt to realize my dream, I’ve spent the last three years in this city saving for a ballet scholarship to the big dance school that’s around the block from here. And that’sifI get in. I will still need to pass the notoriously difficult audition first before I even think about spending money attending the school - an audition where you have to perform in front of an infamously hard-nosed series of judges and teachers of the dance academy. They don’t let any old riff-raff into the school, and they probably don’t let any puny little hospital cleaner with big delusions in without a serious level of appraisal. The chances of getting in are minuscule, at the very best.
I am royally screwed.
And yet I’m still working hard, and I am still saving as much as I canevery single day– just in case I ever do make it past that audition. The problem is, I’ve spent so long daydreaming about making it into the school and then performing on the theatre stage that I’ve worked myself terrified of actually performing for that audition panel. At the moment I’m too scared to evenapplyfor the audition.
I’ve stupidly worked myself up into a little predicament.
As I run down the block, I fit on my headphones and flick on the soundtrack to Swan Lake. It’s how I psych myself up for the working day ahead. That music is what inspires me to keep going and to keep saving, even when times are tough and I don’t have the energy to get out of bed.
Keep going, Emma. Keep going.
One day I will be back here, dancing Swan Lake in front of an audience. I promise myself that.
I manage to jump on the train just as the doors close, heading to the hospital and to work, and away from the theatre I dream about.
22
EMMA
“You’re late,” Diana informs me as soon as I see her in the busy hallway. I didn’t figure on bumping into her here, but I’m relieved to see a friendly face, even if she is being stern with me.
“I know.”
“You’re very,verylate, Emma.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The manager is going to be pissed, I bet.”
“Yep, I’m guessing so,” I reply.
