the audition.

My jaw was rattling. All these strange eyes on me, I didn’t know what to do with my hands, so I leant my elbow on the windowsill and popped my head on my hands, like I was un-bothered and deep in thought. The engine rumbled and my head started bobbing up and down. I knew they saw it. I pretended they didn’t and that I totally meant it and leant my head against the window instead, where the vibrations hit my brain and shuddered down. I could still feel it now. These busses were once an hour and the fucking worst. 

Suddenly I realised just how gross this entire place was and panicked. My make up! I fumbled around in my handbag, a black hole of a place, trying to feel for my mirror. I’d smudged some of my foundation and eyeshadow leaning against the window. Fuck. I felt around for a q-tip and my bottle of micellar water and tried to clean the edges.

“A cotton-bud isnae gonnae fix the state of that!” Some ned sitting across from me piped up. His deadbeat friends and desperate clingers on all laughed out loud. “Absolute freak. Imagine walking about in public looking lit that”

Thankfully the age of the bus, and its woefully shitty suspension, hid the fact I was shaking. I didn’t want to give them a crumb. I took out my brush and fixed up the foundation that had been victim to my not so convincing act of nonchalance.

I moved my right earbud slightly out whilst fixing up my hair, so I could hear anything that might give me a heads up to run or duck, quickly. And I turned the volume up so I could focus on the task ahead. I wasn’t going to throw away two weeks of rehearsal just because I had to get the number 71 bus.

I heard my voice over and over again. I wanted them to become the only words I’d be able to say. Nothing else but that particular sequence. Forget all other sentences, paragraphs, anything. It was just these words and I, forever. Or until Sunday at least.

Touch-ups made, I put my focus away from whatever the young team were saying and instead on looking out the window to the darkened country lanes passing by. I envisioned myself moving along to the words in my ear, like the casting directors were on the bus in my place, and I was chasing them, forcing them to see me. A vision of never before seen athletic ability. My leg points here, then. I grab my hair with both hands at this word. My brows furrow at this pause for breath. I chase the bus all the while.

I was completely transfixed, watching myself perform in this projection of myself. I was hitting all the right marks, nailing the tone and expressions, showing the emotions as I had felt them, the words pouring out of me with ease… and then the spell was broken. I saw a waving motion in my vision. The same ned from before had moved to sit in front of me, trying to get my attention.

“Here, here mate, here! Hellllloooo?”

I paused and pulled one ear bud out, slowly. Deliberately.

“Are you gonnae stab me? Cause you’re pure muttering to yourself.” The laughter roared from the rest of the pack.
I put my earbud back in.

“Fucking freak man, just asking a question. No wanting to get stabbed the day is all, fuck sake”

I pulled my phone out to avoid any further eye contact, and opened up Maps to figure out how much further I had left to go. I’d done this journey so many times before, but this felt like the longest one of my life. I needed to know I was close. By some sort of divine intervention I saw I only had one more stop left to go. I decided to move closer to the front and get some breathing space from the pollution of antagonisation of the local neighbourhood squad. 

I would hardly be using the seat for long anyway, so I perched down next to an older lady with a shopping cart. She turned to look at me, taking everything in, and tutted. “My mother would never have let me leave the house looking like that”. I was so fucking beyond fed up. I reached up, pressed the bell and waited for the bus to slow down before coming to a stop. I pulled both headphones out, got up to leave and turned round. “Well, it’s a good thing your mother’s no longer alive to tell you what you can and can’t wear then, isn’t it” I smiled and said ‘thank you’ to the driver.