Saturday the 4th of March was a day pouring with tear-drops. The heavens and celestial clouds showered upon us with disgrace, embarassment and misfortune. It was the second round of the auditions for the talent show. It was held in Howard Cafe in the Main Campus of AUC. Our spirits were high although I dreaded Howard Cafe. I wasnt worried about the lyrics. The only tension I felt was when I tried to remember the tune and melody of our song. I didnt bother about the sequence of verses because I was sure i would get it right. A call from my rhythm guitarist outside Howard Cafe brought all the trembling to my limbs. I had done it before and reassured myself with the musical highlight of last year. We setup the instruments and tested them cautiously infront of staring eyes so, so close. All eyes were peircing me as I tried to dodge them. I tested the mic and checked the sound. After a round robin of checks we decided it was time to start. "one-two-three", a breathe and then I started. My voice came out quivering and untuned at first but slowly it got better. All I remember somewhere in the middle of the song was looking to my left and seeing Momtaz not playing. I was like, "What the hell is going on?". It was the beginning of another verse and he was standing there paused in disbelief and confusion. He started playing the verse and then I somehow thought that we had entered the last verse of the song, so I started singing the last verse instead of the verse before last. We finished and with ill spirit the guitarist finished the song, with a "shokran ya gama3!!!". We left embarassed, heads-down and cursing the day we started playing music. It was over. It ended with a fall we were not ready for. I exited the building from a rear door and sat in silence. I didnt even know I had skipped one whole verse of the song until David brought me the unfortunate tidings. It was then that I felt the unbelievable betrayal of time and the curse of concentration. I had messed up bigtime. I was too embarassed to walk back and see my friends play. I sat imagining that each person I passed would call out, "Oh look, there's the looser!!!". When I decided to go back and whitness the rest of the auditions I got some believe-it-or-not positive feedback and ofcourse the negative that I already knew. The drummer screwed the tempo of the song. The guitarists sucked mud. Anyways, maybe afterall this was for the good. I had tonnes of other stressful things to finish and put aside.
Arga3 wa a2ool El-Humdulilah!!! It could have been worse.
I know it is impossible, but there is always a part of me that doubts truth. Sometimes I believe in miracles, but in this day and age miracles are extraordinarily rare. You never know what the future holds for us. Life has mysterious ways of revealing itself to its victims.
InshAllah Kheir
