Performance Anxiety

Heart beating, thumping in the chest. All eyes are on me, and I feel nervous. I can hear them talking, whispering, but their mouths don’t move. They just sit and stare at me. Mocking, waiting for the moment I make a mistake to laugh and point. Their words chill me to the bone. I feel the sweat slowly oozing out of every one of my pores, telling me to run, but my body doesn’t move. The silence urges me to speak, but my lips don’t move. They’ve been glued shut. I need to open my mouth. I feel pressure rise into my face, trying to break through my skin and explode at the crowd. I want to scream at them to shut up, to make their voices stop laughing and whispering. But I can’t move. I can’t speak. I’m just stuck standing in front of everyone. I’ve frozen in place, my muscles and joints glued solid by the voices coming from them and into my head.

They watch the girl stand in front of the crowd, face red and stock still. “She’s got cold feet,” one of them whispers. “She should probably practise more,” another says. And so they waited until they got impatient, and eventually left, leaving the girl with nothing but her feelings of shame and regret.