Take a bow

The day’s nearly done. When things are wrapped up, finishing touches are run, and the curtains are hung, the crew wonders. Did the crowd applaud because they wanted or did they do so because it was proper? By the end of the presentation, the crew walked back and forth, paced uncontrollably, and bit their fingers vigorously. “Did they like it or was it just another play?” they simultaneously thought.

There it was and the curtains shall hang. And when the light strikes the stage no more, applause was heard but still they think otherwise. The fear that the applause was superficial was there. Finally, they were ready to step back out on the stage to greet their audience half expecting for the seats to be half empty. But as that bright spot light overhead shone to present the actors momentarily taking away their sight, they were greeted with a louder cheer. Blood pumping, rushing through their hearts, they raised their hands, held them together and took a bow.

Not until they saw that standing crowd in an ovation, they doubted the crowd’s applause. Because in their minds, the best could have done better.

And all they needed was to see the appreciation of the crowd. An evidence so to speak, that their, seemingly worthless play that could have gone better, was good enough to please their audience. A proof. A testimony.

And at some point, the actors and the crew long for that same crowd that once they performed for. In hopes that one day, the crowd will no longer wait for their bow but will bow with them instead.

Bad Day

I recoil at the thought. The heavy days are usually a lot more depressing when the sun is shinning and the birds are chirping and the bees kiss the flowers’ cheeks at dawn. I don’t know why but in that instance when you see them hovering over wanted nectars and scattered seeds of life, you begin to think that in the day of that particular event someone, high above the so called heavens, decided that everyone would be happy except you. Or so it seems. But who really knows. The believer says differently and the one who doubts simply disagrees. I, on the other hand, just don’t know. All I know is that luminescent feeling that in that instance, you feel like you suck. It begins to feel that everything you do is worth less and less and every valuable gold you touch turns into a monotony of shade-less colors that are more or less inappropriate for that day and simply useless to think of.

Your train of thought flows as fluently as that golden moment when, in the middle of billions of people, you trip on your own two feet (priceless). That waking thought pulls your lips into a semi-horror type of form to which no one can relate and no one dares to ask why. Then everything, on cue, crumbles into this oblivious mood. You shout at your wife or lover. You stick a finger up to a stranger. You utter words that offends even Satan – all because you walked yourself into a wall of people. Can you imagine?... Have you ever been in that moment?...

It’s a shameful moment when everything becomes immortally wrong and you repeat it in your head countless of times, blushing internally at the humiliation you have put yourself through for no reason. And then, you realize that in that day you happen to have spat on someone that means to you. And then all you can do is admit that you were a jerk and say sorry in the meekest voice you can muster. Looking down at your feet, you hope that the person would find it in their hearts to forgive you. And when they do… You half expect another “Bad Day.”