Cancan
Linda Sievers
Arcata, CA
Wham! It happened so fast. I landed flat on my dainty derriere in front of five thousand witnesses. As the Cancan blared, and five other dancers cart wheeled and jumped into splits all around me, I sat in a pile of ruffles, satin, and rhinestones on the stage floor.
I tried to get up and slipped again. “$&@!” I said through clenched teeth. Instantaneously I relived hours of sweat to perfect my dance image, how I had swallowed buckets of self doubt, how I hadn’t gone to proms and games because of rehearsal and performance commitments.
Maybe if I rolled over, I could push with both hands against the floor, but my right heel was caught in my skirt. All I managed was to moon the audience with my ruffled behind! “$#@%,” I blurted under my mad scramble to disentangle myself. Then, I heard a strange sound echoing through the microphones lining the front edge of the stage. Oh, no! My groveling amidst my ruffles to get back onto my feet had triggered my long time bad habit of swearing like only a good Catholic girl could swear. My profanities reverberated through ten microphones out to the audience who roared in waves of laughter! I must have looked ridiculous; a pile of fluff in graceless frenzy, flat on my fanny, feathered plume askew, spewing four letter expletives into the St. Paul Auditorium.
Courage! Fight! Get up, I thought as seconds pounded in my throat!
At last, I loosened the skirt, and like a Phoenix rising from the ashes, I shot up, grabbed the culprit heel, extended my right leg above my head, and began hopping in circles.
Audience applause was thunderous with whistles, shrieks, and “Brava! Brava,” as the curtain closed. Lights faded to blackout.
In the darkness behind the curtain, jugglers running past me to their places onstage whispered. “Could have happened to any of us! Nice job! Great finish!”
Smiling, I shrugged and walked offstage toward the dressing rooms. Rubbing my bruised backside I determined I really needed to stop swearing.
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Made me laugh out loud. Some of my favorite phrases: "swallowed buckets of self doubt", "a pile of fluff in graceless frenzy", "Swearing like only a good catholic girl can", "like a phoenix rising from the ashes, I shot up". The first part of sentence "I relived hours of sweat" seemed awkward. Maybe reworded somehow, maybe sacrifice, my obsession, my private world????? instead of sweat?
ReplyDeleteThis and some other sentences may work better as two instead of one sentence. Great story. Judy
Great and very amusing story - You jumped right in with the fall - what if you started it with a couple of sentences about the preparation you had put in with rehearsals in anticipation of the big show - just to set the stage for the reader and then surprise them with the part where you fell?
ReplyDeleteyour story was geniunely funny. it is also very creative and inventive - i enjoyed the metaphors, the images, the exclamations.
ReplyDeleteI am a huge comedy nerd so perhaps this is simply my bias, but I did get the impression that this story reads a lot like a stand-up piece might. Whereas this written piece perfected would likely have some more depth, sensory language, color, and exposition, I think a lively delivery of this piece would be greatly entertaining.
i really hope to see a lot more work along these lines in the months to come. and finally, please re-post this with the expletives put back IN, if they ever were in. we should feel free to exercise every bit of our vocabulary in our writing, especially words as everyday and universal as the handful of curses we've inherited in English. keep up the good work! j.e.g. iv
Loved the visual energy of this writing. I agree with James put in the expletives they are an important part of the narrative, and the personality of the dancer would resonate with the scene even more than she does. Why is a "good Irish girl doing the cancan anyway" this question left me unable to be as engaged as I would have wanted to be for the rest of the narrative. G
ReplyDelete