Open Mic

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I could feel my palms sweating and my hands shaking just a little. I didn’t realise how nervous I would be. Stupid isn’t it, I’ve spent the last ten years of my life performing to audiences of all different shapes and sizes with barely a hint of nerves; but now here, in front of 12 other people I was on the verge of panic. I was meant to be listening to Donald’s poems but I just couldn’t concentrate on his words. His ugly, contorted mouth was moving but all I could hear in my head was a cacophony of fear. I folded the page in my hand and then folded it again, then I reversed the process unfolding the sheet out to its A4 size, then, I started folding again. Donald was still bleating on about his heartbreak in the rain. Tears running down his blotchy face as he recited his heartfelt words.  

Jesus, pull yourself together man, I told myself. Not that I called myself Jesus you understand; it was just an exclamation. I wished I’d prepared more but I hadn’t thought I needed it, I was confident, a good public speaker, and it was my own work, my own beautiful story, the Painter and the MilkyWay, an early one but if not one of my best, then certainly one of my favourites. It had been a toss up between this and Vertigo or the Michael Jackson scene from Rendition. All I had to do was read it out in front of my new classmates and let them comment. There was nothing riding on it, it was only day 3 of the course; no one would be that nasty, would they? So why was my right armpit soaking wet and my tongue feeling like a old, smelly sock.

Donald finished reading; there was a half-hearted smattering of applause. Donald bowed deeply like a conductor at the Last Night of the Proms, and then took his seat looking pleased with himself.

‘Who’d like to start?’ The tutor said.

Everyone looked at me, I was the oldest except for Donald and the gobbiest, but I was consumed by my own stage fright. 

‘Um, when did you write it Donald?’ I said. It was an old trick, ask a question that I knew was derisory but seemed perfectly innocent and take the onus off me.

‘This one is about two years old,’ he said. I nodded waiting for someone else to say something, which to my great relief they did.

‘So Gareth you’re next,’ the tutor said smiling at me.

I stood up and looked at the piece of paper that had more creases than Keith Richards. The ink was just about readable. I took a deep breath and started to read.

‘It was a dark night and Batjack was in the Batcave.’

This wasn’t the Painter, this was Batjack a story by Jack aged 7 and 3/4s.

‘When suddenly he saw the bat signal in the sky.’  I must have picked up my nephew’s story instead of mine as I ran out of the house. It was a good story, a good structure, good imagination but I am not sure it quite fitted the bill for a first week of an MA in creative writing.  The strange thing was I couldn’t stop reading. I knew it wasn’t my story but the words kept fumbling from my mouth.

‘And the Police Chief said how can we ever thank you Batjack and with that Batjack was gone.’

I sat down to stony, awkward silence.
‘Right, Mary I think we’ll have you next.’ The tutor said. Was he saving me from the humiliation of the comments, or saving my colleagues from the embarrassment of having to give them?