A bag full of nerves

‘Take a deep breath’, ‘suck on your thumb’, ‘release the breath you are holding’_ you say to yourself, trying to resist the urge to go to the restroom for the umpteenth time this hour. You peep through the curtains and spot your parents in the second row; your dad wearing a blue foam finger and your mum, a ‘good luck Charlie’ vest, your brother sits beside your mom in his black sweatshirt, wearing a bored expression with his camera hanging down his neck, his hands steadying it, waiting to record your epic fail. You wipe off cold sweat from your forehead, reminiscing on the events that led to this very moment. It all started when your dad saw the town’s talent show ad from the newspaper you left on the dining table, the one with the ‘voice on fire’ caption. Your voice was fire, this everyone who has heard it knew but its embers had a way of dying each time you try to sing to someone outside your nuclear family. Dad and mom played the pity card and you ended up signing up for it, plus the fact that you needed to prove to your brother that you weren’t a wimp, a dare you felt at this moment that you would lose alongside the little reputation you have managed to gather in your community over the years. Amber’s ‘surrender’ brought you back to reality, her voice sounds like that of Mrs. Doubtfire who lived across the street, whose voice always managed to grate your nerves like when your history teacher dragged her nails angrily down the blackboard to command attention. You feel butterflies in your stomach, knowing that you were to perform after Amber, not the nervousness you felt when Zeke asked you to prom, no, the one you felt when you realized your carefully planned excuses weren’t going to get you out of going to prom. The backstage suddenly felt hot, you murmur an excuse to one of the coordinators and head towards the restroom. In there you splash water on your face as you have seen people in movies do, you even attempted to fix your makeup but stopped when you almost lost your left eye due to your clumsy hand motions. You sing ‘symphony’ to yourself, the song you have practiced for a month now, perfecting each note with the hope that your lessons won’t desert you on the stage. You wipe the tear that falls down your left cheek and blame it on the mascara that you stabbed your eyes with, but deep down you knew that it was fear, you reeked of it; the fear that had you tongue tied while you were being scorned in public, the fear that made you cut shapes on your laps with the razor you hid behind your vanity, the fear that stopped you from screaming when Brian had his way with you on the last night of the school trip last year, the fear that made you lose yourself; the girl with a never ending smile you begged to come back each time you went through your childhood pictures. Your phone buzzed, it is your mom calling you to wish you one last good luck as Amber was rounding up with her song, you want to say ‘I don’t think I can do this mom’, you knew that she would understand and whisk you out of this place and would probably stop at Joe’s for an ice-cream sundae to cheer you up, but the words get stuck in your throat as usual. You listen to your mom’s words of encouragement as you stare with tear clouded eyes at the person in the mirror wearing a biker’s outfit; an attempt of yours to summon courage from your getup. Your mom ends the call with a short prayer and as her call gets disconnected, the co-ordinator’s call comes in. He yells your name as you imagine his face beet red, his sweaty palm holding the phone and a popped vein snaking its way through his forehead into his receding hairline as he paces up and down with pent up anger. You dash out of the restroom and race towards the backstage while cleaning your face with the wipes you stole from your brother’s room last night. You arrive there and the second co-ordinator; the kind one gives you a smile and says that someone else has already started performing, she hands you a bottled water and vacates her sit while saying that you need to catch your breath and realign your mind. Dad calls you this time around wondering why you had your spot taken, you hear you brother say in the background that you have obviously chickened out and you picture mom jabbing his ribs with her pinkie finger like she always does anytime he teases you, you hear the pain laced in his ‘mother’ and you smile, wishing you were there to take a picture of his discomfort. Beck, the guy who worked in the mini mart was almost done with his performance, you tapped your fingers to the rhythm of the song, loving the way he didn’t let the sound of guitar overshadow his voice as he sang ‘uptown girl’ and the fact that he was dressed up as a cowboy boy added to your growing adoration of him. You smile again, forgetting the nervousness that eclipsed you moments ago but your happiness was cut short when he rounded up his song and did a bow. Red; a name you gave the angry co-ordinator, told you it was your turn and suddenly, your heartbeat became haphazard and your palms, sweaty. You walk to the stage with legs closed like you were holding a pee and your heartbeat echoing in your ears, you give a nervous smile to your excited parents and reach out to hold the microphone. It falls from your hand, an act which earns you a smirk from your brother. You whisper your name and repeat it louder when someone from the crowd says ‘louder’, you try to apply the lesson you learnt from an episode in ‘SpongeBob’, the part where he imagines that the audience were stripped to their under wears. An act which failed you for all your mind did was zoom into the bored and impatient faces of the audience, ‘anytime today?’ you hear someone say and you clear your throat to commence your singing. The first line of the song came out as a croak and you muttered an apology, the lyrics of the song suddenly lost its way to your mouth and ended up floating out of you as you found yourself singing ‘conqueror’ from the movie Empire.