The Last Bow

Stage lights are on. You’re in center stage. Your audience watch you perform act after act, scene after scene. Your story becomes their story. Then they become part of it; you a part of theirs. But this story has a different ending.

For a moment everything stops, all eyes are on you. You enjoy the spotlight for the last time as the play comes to an end. The audience gives you a standing ovation as you take a bow. They rave about you.

The curtains fall. The lights go out. The smile falls from your face. You stand still on that big stage, alone. Then reality bites. You don’t know what to do next. What role to perform next. Which theater to perform in. Or if another theater would take you in, for that matter.

Then you hear the crowd scream your name. Once again, with great effort, you put on that smiling face you’ve put on time and time again...so many times even you have convinced yourself it’s yours. The spotlight turns on. The curtains open again. And you take another deep bow. And another. The crowd roars. But you couldn’t hear. All you could think of is what’s going to happen next.

You have no idea. But you’re quite sure that it’s time to take that one last bow. To step off this stage. Erase the make-up. Bid farewell.

Move on.

There are bigger roles to play, grander theaters to perform in, a wider audience to perform for.

And maybe one day you could return to that old theater you once performed in. And there the same old crowd would be waiting to cheer for you as they did before.

Then you would think, with a bittersweet smile, that it was worth the pain, after all. - from Jica