Three-second Pause
My knees trembled harder and my mind still went blank. Three seconds ago I should have pressed one or two piano keys. I started to regret the decision of taking this competition. I held my breath as I tightened my grip on a fragile string of the faith to get the brightest light in my life.
- Flashback-
5 WEEKS AGO
“Where are you going?” My mom asked me – probably while she was cutting some carrots for dinner.
“Umm, I am going to Tina’s house”
“At this late?”
“Yeah, there is still one assignment that I have not finished yet, so I should find somebody who can help me”
“You can ask your father”
“No, this is not math, Mom”
Literally, we did this conversation by shouting to each other because she was in the kitchen and I was in my room which was at the second floor in our house.
“I can go, can’t I?” Now I was in the kitchen to save our voice just for ourselves.
After a long-deep-breath she finally allowed me “Alright, you can go. BUT, you should be home before 8.”
--
Tina had been waiting for me – I could hear her playing video games in her phone – and she possibly had her bored face when I greeted her.
“Did you bring ‘it’?”
“Sure”
I was a bad girl. No, I did not use drugs. I just did not go to Tina’s house for assignment. We had some kind of ‘tradition’ to watch movie together. I felt the guilt for lying to my mom, but I could not help it. This was my new habit because I didn’t have anything to do at home except for assignments.
The word ‘home’ in my life was not as sweet as it had to be although I had a ‘super family’. My father and Haris - my older brother - were genius at math and physics. They went to the best university in our country. My father became the well-known architect and Haris was soon to be. My mother had been accepted as a medical school student before she heavily dropped it because she had me and my younger brother. My twin, Hans, was an Information Technology student and he was going abroad next month after being accepted as the youngest participant in The Global Change Makers Conference.
Then how about me? I was the inverse in my family. I got an accident ten years ago which had been making my life like a ‘hell’ since that time. Things were not handled the same way as before. Now I only studied how to play a piano at college all years and there was nothing special on me.
I never succeed at any level of my academic life. Then the accident happened and my parents slowly took down their expectation towards my future. At first it seemed supportive for me because I need to be cured physically and mentally. Things were going smoothly until I realized they were not expecting anything from me at all.
There was no pressure to push me up to get any achievement and there was no looking-down either. My life had been ‘super flat’ until Tina’s father came home and handed a magazine to his lovely daughter. The main theme of that magazine was about Hero. He read one chapter for us. Those 3 pages of Hellen Keller – the first deaf blind hero – suddenly reminded me of my disability. They also lit my almost forgotten sightless light of hope.
-Back to present-
I was about to cry when suddenly somebody hug me from the back. Although I could not see anything, I knew it was my mom – her strong watermelon fragrance perfume was never changed.
“Excellent! We are so proud of you” said her followed by the sound of long-standing-applause from the audience.
I didn’t know whether it was Tina’s father or Hellen Keller as the hero in my life but I knew for sure that the three seconds pause during my concert failed to bring me down or even turn the ‘light’ off in me.
--
This cerpen was submitted to EWC 4th Writing Competition this year. I got the result on November 30th. I hope you enjoy reading it and feel free to give any comment :)
-fels
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