Behind the Curtain: Laid Bare

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Laid Bare

When they took her leading man they made a hollow of her heart, and left her soul an empty cavern. 

She danced, every night, as if her lover would return, as if he would appear from the wings and take her in his arms; she danced for him and for him only. 

Gauzy skirts caressed her legs as she traversed the stage, snowflakes shimmered on pale skin, and diamond-adorned tresses flowed down her spine as she teased the very air that tried to embrace her. 

Elegance and grace filled every step, and every gesture, and those who beheld her were enthralled, bewitched by the woman pirouetting and leaping across the stage. She seduced indifferently, smouldering beneath the spotlight’s halo, and the sparkling gems in her hair emulated tears that would never fall.

Music drove deep into her solitude, empowering her body to twist and turn, and rise and fall. Every plié drew sighs, pirouettes provoked awe and her arabesque inspired yearning, as the audience fell in love.

She danced in the wash of the moonlight on stage, the beam chasing her like an infatuated paramour as she stretched and rose to the orchestra’s crescendo. The theatre was rapt as the music surged and climaxed, and then she was on the floor, arms stretched over her head protecting her from the huge explosion of applause. She would rise, and pause like a doe caught in a stray shaft of light, her eyes opening wide to stare into the blackness, at the ocean of faces now standing in ovation. 

Every night her hand would move to shade her eyes and she would gaze out over the footlights, across the pit and stalls, she would scan the circle, the balcony and up into the gods, but every night was in vain. 

As the audience gave her their approval, her empty soul cried empty tears and when she was sure he wasn’t there she whirled and tiptoed off stage.

She stole hearts but nothing filled the void, and those purloined hearts, so freely given, were lost forever, adrift within the walls of her icy core. 

(351 Words)

My entry for Yearning For Wonderland’s Anna Meade’s new contest: Behind the Curtain.

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