Fly

"Let’s put aside the dream and face reality now”

The words echo in her head, seeping into every thought, snaking around everything else, poisoning her mind. 

“It’s really hard to make it, do you really think you can?”

“Do you really think it’s that easy to get noticed?”

No, no, it’s not easy…that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try…

Frustrated she grabs her headphones from her pillow, hooking them around her neck and collapses into her chair, sinking into the soft cushioning. She retrieves a pencil, blunt from overuse, amongst the mess of balled up pieces of paper inside - discarded lyrics. Frantically, she writes, knuckles turning white from the force she uses to grip the short wooden stub. Graphite scratching across a white canvas, painting a story in the curves and lines. She’s at her desk for hours, late into the night and well into early morning. By the time she’s satisfied she’s torn her way through half the notepad, crumbled up balls of paper scattered haphazardly around her room. She’s long since switched from pencil to ballpoint - the ink doesn’t give the same satisfaction as the smudged graphite but it is cleaner and gives the final draft a more polished look. The lines look as though they were written in one go, as though they belong on some inspirational tumblr blog…leaving no hints to the pages and pages of utter chaos that came before it. 

Her phone buzzes on the edge of the table, dangerously close to vibrating off the glass surface and cracking the screen. She stretches, rotating her neck slightly and wincing at the soft “crack”, one hand flipping over the electronic device and swiping open the new SMS.

From: Music Soc. President

There’s an open-mic night tonight - interested in coming?

Sighing, she leans back, contemplating. It had been months, possibly more than a year, since her last open-mic - scratch that; she can’t even remember the last time she stood on stage. Recently, she’d been unable to write anything she could be satisfied with…either that or she’d been unable to write at all. If she was being honest, she did sort of miss the stage…maybe getting back into performing would lift her spirits - if nothing else, she should try and have fun. Mind made up, she quickly taps out a reply. 

To: Music Soc. President

I’ll be there, see you tonight!

She wakes up her laptop, opening up the most recent track and tweaking the audio balance before setting up her mic and recording in the harmonies and backing vocals, last night’s lyrics lying on the table beside her. It takes her twice as many tries as usual before she deems the track decent, quickly burning into onto a cd and sliding the clear plastic case into her handbag.

She checks the bottom-right hand corner of her screen. Exactly a quarter to ten, giving her a decent amount of time to fret and worry and rehearse and then worry again. Glimpsing her reflection in the mirror above her dressing table, she grimaces, running one hand through honey-brown locks and opening her wardrobe. Swiftly, she picks out a cotton top, leggings and a checkered shirt, gathering the items of clothing and making her way to the bathroom.

As the hot water runs over her skin, steam condensing against the glass and mirrors, fogging up the surfaces, she practices. Her voice echoes around the walls, magnified by the hard tiles. She’s in there for so long that the steam that had condensed against glass and mirrors has made it’s way to the ceiling, collecting in stray droplets against the paint. Almost absentmindedly, she turns off the faucet, steps out and get’s dressed, worrying over what the excess humidity is going to do to the paintwork. Now appropriately dressed, she flicks on the fan and swings open the windows, letting the mirrors slowly clear up as she rummages around the drawer for her cosmetics. It takes a good quarter of an hour for all the condensed steam to evaporate, and when it finally does she purses her lips at her reflection, worrying over how she should apply the make-up…and how much she should use. Half a packet of make-up removal wipes and ten Q-tips later, she’s satisfied - a thin liner of dark eyeliner and a light coating of mascara. The bar is going to be dim anyway, she reasons…besides, people will be there to listen, not look. 

She makes it to the venue an hour before she's scheduled to go on stage, wanting to get an idea of tonight’s turnout. There’s a decent amount of people - not her largest crowd, but no where near as bad as her first performance…that one had had barely 10 people where only 4 of those were paying attention. She sets her bag down at one of the tables near the front, pulling out her I-pad and plugging her headphones in, running over her song a few more times before she starts. The event officially starts half an hour after she arrives and she takes her headphones out, turning to the front and giving her fellow performers her full attention. 

They’re all quite good - the guitar-vocal couple who are acting as the filler between sets, the Japanese exchange student who displayed some seriously amazing finger-style guitar skills, even that guy who performed a Spanish song - up beat and working the crowd like a natural-born performer.