Another Common Man
The auditorium was huge. Extremely huge. Genuinely shocked, he thought how anyone could perform anything on a stage with these many people sitting around watching. He would have sunk beneath the stage under all that pressure. Yet here they were, the performers. One after another, they were coming and blowing away the audience and the judges alike with their talents. However, not one seemed incredible enough for a standing ovation till now. He was a bit jealous, maybe more than a bit jealous. He could not stop imagining himself as one of the participants on stage soaking up all that attention. He was pretty sure the pregnant woman and her husband sitting next to him were dreaming their unborn kid on that stage too. That was when that little girl came on stage. She was cute enough to snatch everyone’s attention to say ‘aww’ in unison with that smile, not missing anything that remained of her baby teeth. Then she started singing. It was incredible. The audience, the judges, the cameraman, everyone was caught speechless. Except for him, our guy, he knew he had to do something. This was too good a performance. Unknowingly, he started clapping his hands to the beat of her song. Everyone quickly followed him. It was amazing; people were following him. Out of all the hundreds of people, it was him. As the song neared an end, the boldness of our hero was entering a feverish pitch. He knew he had to do something more. This can’t be all. That’s when he had a mini-flashback of his life.
He was the second of three kids in a small town. He went to the local school and played football with his friends near his house. He always played as the defender in his team, never being good enough to play as a striker. It was not like he had a rough childhood. He always had food in his stomach, and his parents loved him. However, it was evident that his elder brother was the one who would likely make his parents proud, and his parents knew it too. He was the obvious backup. He never got bullied as they show in the movies or tried to bully anyone, and his friends were honest and pretty much like him. He was the guy who said always said ‘yes’ to his best friend, who was the de-facto leader of his friends’ group, and much of his youth, he remained happy being in the all-important position as his right-hand man. One day, when this best friend asked if he could ask out the same girl with who our protagonist has been swooning since childhood, his years of training kicked in, and ever-faithful, our hero replied with the same ‘yes’. However, it was easy to settle into your circumstances when you thought you weren’t good enough. Afterward, with a job in a local office in his town, he had been satisfied, that is up until now.
Right now, our hero was in the form of his life. He was directing hundreds of people with his own hands like an army general of old signaling his troops. Yet he knew it wasn’t enough. The moment the little girl finished her song, he sprang up to his feet, beating the pregnant woman who wanted to steal his thunder to begin the standing ovations. He could hear the beautiful rhythmic sounds of hundreds of seats being pushed back so that their users could stand up to follow his example. Even the judges were adjusting their clothes subtly in an effort to stand up. The applause was thunderous. He could not care less about the girl on the stage. He was the star of the show now. He was not satisfied, no this was his day, his moment, and he will seize this. He started shouting at the top of his voice, “ONE MORE… ONE MORE”, and once again, like sheep, they were all quick to imitate the man of the evening, our hero. In a few minutes, our protagonist has been transformed from being a mere common man to something far more significant. The girl started singing again, with our hero leading the banter forward. He felt like God. All-powerful and with the weight of several hundred on his shoulders. He felt pity for the sheep that were ready to jump on his cue but not any sympathy, even though he had been one among them a short while back. Slowly the song finished, and another round of applause with it. Our hero was among the last ones to sit down, but it was enough. He was content. He sat there in his seat, unmoving for the rest of the show, enveloped in a feeling of bliss. He couldn’t care about the rest of the show. As the show ended, he made sure to etch his initials into the seat cover and put his ticket into the slot in his purse where his identity card is kept. By the time he traveled back home and entered his local pub, he was a star. Everyone was watching the live show on TV, and he had been featured in it. For 2.4 seconds, that is. Oh, come on, you cant expect our hero not to have the pinpoint accuracy of the day of his life. It might have been the first time anyone from his town got featured on any TV, and so it took at least two days for the hype to die down. By then, he somehow got a DVD version of that day’s show and secretly took a screenshot of him and framed it. He never showed that photo to anyone, nor did he ever talk about this incident ever. He very well knew that what he felt at that moment was the peak of his life.
Finally, it was easier for him to settle into his circumstances, knowing that he could have been good enough.
