Written by Nandini Sethi
“Honey, wake up, it’s time for school,” my mother woke me up the same way she did every day. Usually, I’d stretch, agree, then plead for 5 minutes, but today everything went a little differently. I had a horrible dream, and I knew for a fact that it was going to come true.
“Are you ready for your theatre show tonight?” A bunch of kids from school were putting on a play today, one we had been preparing for months now, and you’d think I’d be excited to perform in front of everyone, especially considering I directed it, but I couldn’t get myself to get out of bed. Ignoring mom’s question, I pleaded with her, “I can’t go to school today! I had a dream! Something is going to go wrong with the play, first the lights will go out-” mom was having any of it, for she cut me off with a glare and a brisk shut up.
I tried explaining it to her at the breakfast table, “Mom this stuff happens all the time! I had a detailed dream of how everything’s going to go wrong, first the lights will go out at Sammy’s part, then the-” the woman wouldn’t let me finish. “You need to stop watching those horror movies and stick to musicals.”
I groaned loudly. “In my dream, I saw that Minnie would misjudge the distance between the table and her, and the milk in her spoon would drip all over her uniform,” I narrated, watching in slow-motion my words come to life as Minnie sleepily wiped off the milk with a soaked tissue.
Mom scoffed, “nice try, Minnie does something ridiculous like that every morning.”
When I reached school, I still felt unsettled. In the make-up room, I practised my lines but I fumbled through them, I went over my dance routine, but I only stumbled and fell. This day was already turning out to be a disaster.
There were only 20 minutes left to the show. People began to filter in, finding seats, having a chat amongst themselves. Even backstage, all around you could hear people warming up their voices, groans that accompanied stretched muscles, and general nerves that come before every show.
When the lights went out and the crowd got silent, I dreaded the events that were about to follow. Slowly, I got on stage, did the first scene, and closed my eyes tight, waiting for one of the lights to fall from the roof and tumble off-stage. But that didn’t happen. I had predicted the music would go wobbly and come to a complete halt next, but it didn’t. This had to be some sort of miracle. I got my confidence back and vowed to enjoy the rest of the show.
The next scene encompassed me and my theatre beau, confessing our love, as he waited on land, and I flew in the night sky. Obviously, I was suspended using high-safety equipment, not fairy wings. When the scene got over, I waited for them to pull me back down. But I only went higher up. And up. And up. I was starting to freak out, but I didn’t want the audience to think that this was not part of the play.
Suddenly, with a jolt I came back, my feet dangling just above the surface. Then I went back up again. I was doing all kinds of flips in the air, my dress going helter-skelter, god knows what being exposed to everyone, and I couldn’t suppress my shrieks of fear any longer. The crowd didn’t seem to bothered, I could only hear pitch of their laughter go higher up with every wrong movement.
With a thud, I came tumbling down, fell to the floor, and rolled off the stage. Just like the lights and curtains in my dream. Except it wasn’t lights and curtains in my dream, it was me.
I sighed as I heard the crowd burst into another fit of laughter. I was never showing my face to anyone ever again. Except for mom.
