The Emerging Writer Volume 1. | Page 5

Words by Dolly Nguyen Images by Anton Corbijn You look across the crowded room, a smile on your face. Your cheeks ache but they can’t drop, you won’t let them. A hand, rough and uncaring, guides you by the elbow around the room, dragging you from one unknown face to another. ‘Nice to meet you’ and ‘what a lovely couple’ floats out of their mouths while their eyes glaze with disinterest. But their words don’t penetrate; they just hang above in a heavy cloud that presses down on you. You stoop to accommodate the words. But still you smile. You’re careful not to slip up, mustn’t slip up. No one can know the real you. ‘So what do you do for a living?’ A caustic voice drawls out from the mouth of a severe looking woman standing in front of you. The cigarette in her lazy fingers smoulders thickly, a veil of smoke obscuring your startled face. ‘I uh, I used to teach. Kindergarten. But I stopped about a year ago.’ You trail off and suppress a cough. ‘Why would you do that?’ Her eyes are razor sharp. They slice you as they flick up and down, taking in the ill fitting black dress that you should have thrown out sometime in the last decade.