Her Majesty Autumn

Grace, movement fluidity, flight - this is all what I envy a falling from a birch fiery yellow leaf with splashes of green and red for. In dance it makes its way to land, painting the most beautiful and perfect pirouettes, which I will never repeat the same way. I will never approach it. However, I promised myself that I would do everything and more at least to touch these expressive movements. "Dawn, jump higher! Moves - more clearly!" forty-year-old man walks to me and beats my legs with his pointer that looks almost like cane. "Where is efficiency? You're not even trying! I need results! That's all. Break. Five minutes to summon your strength and show how it should be." I'm standing at the window, behind which the autumn time has almost taken over the world: the flashes of colors, the wind that bothers trees, barely letting them breathing freely, laughing students that run out of the school, the clouds suddenly cover sky and a minute later disappear, the wedge of birds - all of them are free fall colors, but I'm not. I am the prisoner of my dreams who doesn't need freedom at all. "Everybody! Come here quickly! Fulfill the same until it's at least normal," the choreographer's words melt in the melody that fills the entire room, gets inside not only thoughts, but heart. It's like the conductor, the harbinger of Her Majesty Autumn. Whipping up, variability and power, that're combined through sounds. "Is it pas de chat?! Move legs quicker. You're not a graceful mysterious cat, just a clumsy mongrel. You don't finish moves. Where is the diligence? Where is your unsurpassed skill? Strain back!" he's never pleased with me. Never. "Your arabesques were jumpy," the next comment comes. Each of us knows that he must do his best and more. What happens otherwise, it's better not to think. This autumn is my last chance to climb to the top. We're like those leaves, trying to hold on the branch to the last in the confrontation with natural course of time and element. The one who withstands all will stay there - in the sky among the stars. The days change their faces quickly: yesterday it was a morning emerald, today it's already a daily amber. Fulvous fallen faded leaves're all around now. There're few minutes left before the premiere. I have to do it. I can handle. The first chords are coming, the flash of soffits is illuminating, highlighting the scene as a lonely island in the midst of endless water spaces. The move after move - my pas is almost similar to the red leaves that are circling somewhere outside of this stage, this building, somewhere where there isn't anyone, where the natural moves are endless and perfect. The Fall is here - I feel it. It's just on the point of touching me ... The soffits are off. Bit of time to change for the subsequent saturation of the hall with story going through our pas to those who are there out of the stage's life. No extra minutes, but someone pulls me out of this world: "Dawn! Have you seen the news?" familiar man, whose eyes had been absent in my life for many years after our last dance together, said. His voice was too quiet and serious, I felt the cold creeping down my spine. "What? No, sorry. I've been preparing to the premiere." "Understood. I'm sorry. There was an accident," his words pass through me to the heart. Tuk. Tuk. Tuk. Oh my God. Can not be. No. "What?" I say very quietly with fear swallowing a word. "Eric. His helicopter's crashed." "What?!" stranger's voice comes out of my throat when man drops these words. The voice is different. The pain is completely envelops it. Other dancers look at me. I don't care. I can't move. I look at the man with pleading eyes. Maybe he's wrong. It's impossible. My world shatters into a million pieces. It's like a tree losing its clothes during a storm. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I thought, you knew," his whole figure is full of regret. But what 'I'm sorry'? Break time is over. We all go back. I'm not here. I am the shadow that follows others. Who is it? Who are they? Who am I? Where am I? Again, the same music plays that foreshadows Her Majesty coming. Left foot, right foot, arabesque. I do everything. It's even easy. However, emotions overwhelm me. They grow. Last jump. A fall. Applause. The scene becomes empty. Everyone is in hurry. Flowers. A lot of them. Joy. It's not me. What am I doing here? I shouldn't be. "You are bleeding," man picks me up and places on the sofa. "Someone call an ambulance!" people do something, someone screams, someone runs, unfamiliar voice. "Is she pregnant?" "We don't know anything." "The risk is too large. She needs an urgent hospitalization. There is a high probability of fetal loss ..." ___ Again my thoughts go back there, to the same autumn of the same year that've changed my life irreparably. She has stolen, taken away my dear people. When I remember, I cannot hold back the tears. Yes, I've got my own way. I've become the prima ballerina. But who needs it? The doll, which is only a decoration and moves well, even too well. "I hate, hate, hate!" the creak of my voice fills the empty room. No one will hear it, as very soon I will be gone. I am the fall that ruined, destroyed the lives of two my dearest people, the two who had a whole life ahead. The last leaf of the last birch under the window of the small building, that once had been home to a young happy family, is spinning, moving to land. His pas is flawless as ever, but he's wrinkled, dirty red and has no life.