No … no way. Did the teacher really ask her to sing that song … in front of the whole school?

Stupid. Insane.

That song is for little groups where you can stop and cry for a bit – even the toughest people.

She’ll do the intro perfectly. She’s so good – brilliant.

She’s never going to get through all of the song. She sings from her heart and hearts aren’t big enough to cope.

I leave my chair and pretend to go to the toilet. This is the corridor she’ll run through I think.

She’s crying. Tears streaming. ‘Two broken tigers on fire in the night’. That always breaks me when I sing – you know what’s coming next.

I don’t even get that far usually.

Can’t see, but that sounds like her guitar hitting the stage.

I scramble from the hall and pursue her as she races away – no none else does.

The teachers will give me a detention for this. Well, sod you: you don’t live in the fire. We are artists. Please, artists live in a different place. Art is real to us – all the beauty and the pain. It can inspire but also really, really hurt.

We can’t be emotionally detached like other people.

She and I get to a staircase. She’s running up.

I know the door at the top is always locked. No way out there. She’ll be stuck; nowhere to go.

I’m here at the bottom – not wanting to go up and invade her space.

I’ll stay here.

Anything she wants – ever.

She touches my soul. Someone I can truly understand and who can understand me.

Shit: no one, no one, should have to sing that song.

There is warmth, friendship and hugs – and anything she wants here: if and when she is ready.

©Gary Bonn 2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjKajpMoUxM