Ballerina

There was a girl sitting at a coffee table at a corner of the café where I am working in the yester night.

As I served her coffee, I saw that she was attentively scribbling endlessly on a piece of crumbled paper that she had in front of her.

Burning with curiosity to know what she’s writing, for a second, I was tempted to just sneak behind her back to take a stealthy look into her writing. On the other hand, I feel guilty for doing so as I know it is wrong to interfere in another’s affair, especially when I’m doing it surreptitiously.

As I served the last customer of the night, all of a sudden, a young gentleman came walking through the entrance of the café. He signaled the lady who was engaged in her writing a while ago, but at that very moment, she was just relaxing in her place while taking a last sip of her coffee.

At the corner of my eyes, she stood up, lightly laid a five dollar note on the coffee table and exited through out the door of the café. She was gone with the young gentleman and never returned.

“My Life as a Ballerina” was the title of her masterpiece that she was working so hard on. Why did she leave it here on the table? I wanted to run after her to return her writing but she was out of sight.

Should I read it or should I not?

Read it! A voice screamed in my mind.

I did, and I read. Being thankful that the day had come to an end and customers were leaving the café to head to their next destination.

I sat at the place where the lady was sitting awhile ago. A coffee in my hand and the letter was held up at eye level as I scanned through her ‘life’ which was narrated in the piece of paper.

She was just nine when she started dancing. She was crowned ‘Princess of Ballet’ at the age of 17 and from then on her career started and ended at the age of 23. She wanted so much to continue pursuing her dreams as a dancer but she was facing a fearful dilemma at that very point of time which stood as a barrier between her dreams and her life.

She fell in love with her dance instructor who was 12 years older than she was. All this while, she was hiding her feelings away from him without even building the courage to tell him how much he meant to her. That was her first mistake in life which she made, and now that he has gone, she was regretting so much that it hurts. She was afraid to go to bed at night because each night, as she closes her eyes, she will see her instructor dancing in the pale moonlight and that sight will never fade away. It just kept lingering in her dreams.

After he was pronounced dead on the night of her performance, she knew that bits and pieces of her life were just slowly tumbling down before her eyes. After 2 years of living in agony, a different story began in her life when a new instructor came to guide her in dancing. He was not only a mentor to her, but also her dance partner.

This time it wasn’t her who fell in love, but it was him who has deep affection for her.

His feelings were guarded by the fact that he is a married man to a beautiful wife and three children. However, each time when they dance, his love was shown through body language and the way he held her.

He reminds me of him! And I don’t want to fall for someone who is married to a lovely woman…

Unconsciously, she was too falling inlove with her new instructor. Only time could tell whether they were meant for each other, but, the very fact that he is married disturbed her deeply.

On the day of the competition, she was reluctant to participate all of a sudden. Hesitating to walk out the door of her apartment, she sat infront of the mirror and asked herself over and over again, “what if I don’t attend, will he ever understand?”

I don’t want him to feel rejected; I just want him to understand what true happiness means when it’s just right before his very eyes. I don’t want him to make a mistake where both of us will regret at the end.

She knew that if she went on dancing with him, it may lead to misery and that she will be the one to be blamed.

She cried, not wanting to loose the chance of seeing him for the very last time, she knew she had a choice to make. At the end, she chose to dance the very last dance.

It was the most wondrous night she had ever experienced. As the song “And When She Dance” by David Foster & Marilyn Martin started playing, they just glided onto the dance floor. They danced gracefully into the night. They were brought into the limelight. At that very moment, she knew very well that she will be leaving the dance floor with memories which will be of burden to her at the end of her performance. She didn’t pay much attention to what will be happening next after the night is over, but, she just wanted so much to enjoy what is now and will be gone at the very moment the music stops.

Mixed feelings of anxiety and joy were what I felt that night, but now, they are just a burdened memory kept in my heart. From today on, as I lay my pen at rest, I will never want to remember these sweet memories ever again. I must learn to let go and carry on with life which I know that I will find meaning to live for once again. Whomever who is reading this right now, do keep it a secret and never share what is felt by ‘you’ to the people around you. Thank you for serving my vision.

It ended so abruptly. I wanted to know more; to know what happened next in her life after she stopped her career as a ballerina. Who was the gentleman she left with that day? I smiled to myself, knowing that she had lay down her burdened memories on this little piece of crumbled paper and carried on with life.

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Listening to a song titled 'And When She Dance' by David Foster & Marilyn Martin

Song: And When She Dance
Artist(s): David Foster & Marilyn Martin

Can you go back in time to a place in your mind
To the one who knew a part of you
That you just couldn't find.

If you ask me to choose between a memory or two
When it's said and done
I'll take the one who's love I had to lose.

Cause when she danced
I lost my inner sense
I loved her then, I always would.

She left with me
It's still with me
A burnin' memory

She took with her a part of me
If I could get back where I've been
Feel the passion I felt then

I'd be there right now and yet somehow
It never comes again

She had nothin' to gain
No where to go
To the way out of pain
The time with
With a song and dance she lost romance
The world had gone insane

Cause when she danced
Cause when we danced
I lost my inner sense
I loved her then
I loved
I always will
I always will
She left with me
He left with me
A burnin' memory
Remember somehow

She took with her a part of me
Can you go back in time to a place in your mind
To the one who knew a part of you
That you just couldn't find

Lookin' back I'm not sure
If I won or lost the war
When she danced with me
Our hearts were free as far as I could see

I'd be there right now and yet somehow
It never comes again
When she danced with me
Our hearts were free
Were free
As far as I could see