Sally looked around anxiously. Elijah would show up, right?
He's, afterall, the reason she could write this song at all. He has to be in the
behind the scenes of the record room.
This song is for you. You have to hear it, Sally prayed in her mind. You just have to,
Elijah.
"Sally, you ready?" Robert , the cameraman asked, positioning the camera.
"Just a bit more. Lemme get some water," she said, clearing her throat. She discreetly checked out the time. Elijah should be here by now...
She delayed two more minutes and then just decided to just go on with the recording, and
gave a thumbs up, putting on the headset.
Here goes nothing.
Sally could sing the song perfectly well, but something seemed to be missing. Although everyone else loved it...she just couldn't.
"There's no feeling in it..." she muttered to herself as she walked back home slowly. Her house was just a few blocks away from the studio and she prefered to just be a random masked lady walking home if she was walking back at night.
"Heard of the singer Sally Graham?" someone on the street was saying. Sally walked forward nonchalantly and then stopped at a corner to eavesdrop from a distance.
"That hottie singer? Duh. I heard she lives around here," said person B.
"Yeah, so did I. Wanna lay a few traps and catch her?"
Am I fish or what, Sally wondered in her mind.
"Lots of money. Plus...as you said, she's very hot," continued person A. "Besides, she's so slim and doesn't have much muscles. You and I together are enough to catch her."
Sally silently stepped back and walked into someone. Her eyes widened in momentary fear before she turned and saw it was just Elijah.
"Where the heck were you?" she whispered to him.
"Outside the studio," he said airily, his eyes looking slightly stormy as he looked out towards the general direction of the AB couple's voices.
"You can worry about them later. I'm mad here," Sally said coldly, passing him and continuing her walk. Elijah took one last look at the people and then followed her.
"Mad about what?"
"You not coming to hear the recording."
"I can hear anytime you want me to. Why do you need me to hear it at the studio?"
It just feels different. I wrote it for you. I came this far for you. I wanted you to hear it before the others. But the director and cameramen got to hear it first.
"The sound systems at the studio are better," she said aloud.
"That's a lame answer. Besides, who cares how good the sound systems are. It's your voice and the song that matters."
"Oh of course, it's the voice that matters more," Sally said, coughing slightly. She had got a sore throat recently and had been coughing a bit. Her voice had cracked a few times during the recording. Maybe the studio's people didn't realize it.
It was overpractice. She had fell in love with the song and had wanted to make it as perfect as possible. Singing day in and day out, practicing, practicing, practicing.
Till her throat couldn't take it anymore.
But anyone who's actually paying attention to the song would.
Of course the voice matters more than the lyrics. If it was the lyrics that were to matter, I should have been a poet or a writer. I'm a singer. It's my voice that's more important. How stupid of me to put more feeling into the lyrics than the song itself.
"A cough," noted Elijah. "Look, I'm going to be frank with you. Your voice is what matters to the audience. Not to me, not to your friends, not to your family. To us, it's what you create. But to your fans, it's how much emotion you can make them feel through your voice. I know you feel resentful, angry at yourself, at everyone, for giving so much credit to your voice, and not the power to create that you have.
"But you have a gift. You can choose to throw it away, yes. But even you would agree that you can use this for better things than just ignoring.
"Whatever I choose to do, someone will have a problem," Sally said quietly, staring off into the distance.
"Then just do what you want," Elijah replied coldly and walked away. Sally stood back and took a few deep breaths before following in the same direction, but slower.
Let me just enroll to some college and study something that's not music. I am tired, she decided.
***
Sometimes the smallest of things can end up becoming a big deal to us and hurt us. That's not a bad thing, it means we've finally reached our breaking point after a lot.
When Sally left the world of music, a lot of people might have thought of various one liner reasons why she did it. But she's the only one who has the hundred page list of the reasons why she did it. It's not one thing. It was the incidents accumulating over the years. The inability to do what she wanted. The pressure on her because of her 'natural talent'. And the hate comments. And the 'love' comments that could lead to her life being in danger any time.
Isn't it best if she can just retire from that world and do something she would be able to fall in love with?
