The Stage

This won WV Writers Contest in...ohmidots, eleventh grade was 2001!

The air itself is electric, swirling around me in zephyrs from nowhere, raising the hair on the back of my neck and shooting invisible static sparks from my fingertips.  My path is marked with footprints on the dusty stage, where imaginary people had become real, had lived and loved and died in two hours’ time.  Shadows of the thousands, their voices whispering in the ancient auditorium, or in my own distant memory, dwelled there.  There were wrecking balls and demolition equipment outside, and soon the faded curtains of the stage would fall, the scent of sweat and greasepaint gone forever, to be replaced with a Gap or a Blockbuster.

            Empty were the old wooden seats, and the once-vibrant paint was faded and peeling; the catwalk above was a home for spiders now.  But in my mind’s eye, it was all still beautiful, still a place of masks and magic, where every step was a dance and every word spoken was poetry.  This was my palace, my castle, my home, for over half a century.

            I remember the first time I had etched myself into the legacy of this stage.  I remember the glaring lights, blindingly brilliant, and the pure beauty and freedom of becoming something I was not.  Here, I had been peasants and queens, soldiers and schoolgirls, a prissy Southern Belle, and an incorrigible tomboy.  I had laughed and wept, sweated and worked and lived.  I had forgotten myself, distorted my face and worn masks made by Shakespeare, Williams, Wilder, Bradbury, Wagner, Twain.  My name was carved backstage, above the broken radiator that was always too hot, but my signature, my soul, was engraved with the sweat, tears, and blood I had spilled in the rehearsals, the ancient shouts of applause and laughter indelibly imprinted in the walls.  Every   character I was, every mask and illusion I’d worn, hung as if tangible from the rusted brass coat hooks.

            Like a moth, I had returned to my fiery lure; for sixty years, I had danced the Mummer’s dance of the willingly trapped, flitting and flirting with the flames, unwilling to fly the final flight into the fire, yet unable to fly away.  For sixty years, I had died and been reborn, like a phoenix, with every curtain drop.  The shadows surrounded me now, the faces blurring as my memories mingled with the memories of the building itself.

“Out, out, damn spot!” “You think living is nothing more than not being dead!” “How was China?”  “I washed my face and ‘ands ‘fore I come, I did.” 

It is dawn, and the workers are coming, stamping their feet to keep warm in the cold blue-gray light. 

“Do you need to lie down?” “A woman moved is like a fountain trouble’d.”  “I was saving this money for a divorce, if I ever got a husband.”

            I have played every part; I have believed every role.  The lines and blocking, the makeup, the director’s cold steel gaze and the hours of overtime rehearsals, the dieting and the set-building, the sprained ankles and the sweat, all crescendo around me, into an ocean’s roar, and I shed the last of my tears, here, absorbed into the soft dust.

            The demolition men outside are getting into their bulldozers; the man with the wrecking ball is ready. 

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...”  “The stairs are always San Juan Hill.” “Amazing how potent cheap music can be.”

I have left too big a part of myself here to go on now without it.  I take a deep breath, flexing muscles I had half-forgotten how to use, and return to a time when I was beautiful, powerful, dangerous. 

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time.”  I am drawn, irresistibly, to the flame, its fiery fingers caressing me.  “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.”  I dance the Mummer’s dance of the willingly trapped, one leg in the flame.  “Out, out, brief candle!”  I have played every part.  “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”  I have believed every role.  “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  And I have left too big a part of me here to go on now without it.

I dive Kamikaze into the fire, I singe my wings, but I catch the updraft, and I soar:  up, up into the night sky.  There is a whirr of engines outside, purring like tigers in the dawn.  The moon is bright, and the fire below is, oh, so beautiful.  The carnivorous machines outside advance, hungry and ruthless. I turn back to the brilliance of the dancing fire, and start to dive again.  The wrecking ball swings back, a pendulum in full tilt.  …So beautiful...  The first brick begins to fall.

Author's Note

If you can name every play I quoted, I will marry you for sheer esoteric glory.

Reviews

[Khef Kha]

Since you specifically asked about pacing, i felt this story was strong with it's cadence. It keeps you reading to see where the character will go. The reader suspects what's coming in the end but at the same time wouldn't want it to end. I like it quite a bit.