Grist for the Mill

He hadn’t meant to belittle her, but it would have been cruel to allow her to believe she had a chance of dancing in the ballet.

“There is no hope for you, I’m afraid.” The words stung even now, as he remembered them and the way her face looked red and swollen as if he’d slapped her. He knew he was foolish to obsess about it, but her face floated like a phantom in the slate-grey sky as he traveled through the outskirts of the city. The road swelled with a human zoo dripping with discord, Twinkie wrappers and bicycle messengers guzzling energy drinks between stops. He feared it would take nothing less than a séance to rid him of the memory of her, them and the world in general.

“So much for sleep tonight.”

Perhaps, he wondered, he could go back to that awful little theater and help her improve so that she could become the bright light he’d been looking for to feature in his company. He knew it wasn’t possible. She wasn’t good enough to stand on the stage besides the men and women he’d carefully selected like perfect porcelain puppets.

Now he sat in his luxury sedan that was built not only by the will of his own particular genius, but also the blood and sweat of generations of dancers and began to wonder what would happen to her now. She’d spent her life taking lessons. She’d told him that while pleading for mercy, a second chance, anything, as he strode away after dramatically putting on his tam. He remembered thinking it was all just grist for the mill and not worthy of his time.

What happens to those who’d built their lives living up to the moment when they’d audition for him with nothing but raw talent and hope only to fall short of achieving their dreams? He’d never considered them until now. Instead, he had hidden himself behind the self-righteousness of indifferent genius and art.

Truth be told, his life could be chronicled in moments like this. He rejected some one-on-one and others in groups of tens, fifties and hundreds. Open calls were always a nightmare. If he could find one or two good dancers, he was lucky. Most were as bad as that nervy young woman had been or worse. Awful lines and non-existent arches without a clue of what it takes to become a dancer.

If enthusiasm was all it took to make it, she would have been a star. Instead, she would probably end up working at a beauty salon amongst a throng of mature sweeties and sluts who all wanted to look like fashion magazine covers.

Perhaps this was why she haunted him and why he’d spent so much of the ride home lost in introspection. With one word, he had destroyed not only her dreams, but any chance of her getting out of that rancid little town. He knew what theater-life meant to small town kids. He’d been one himself once. If he’d told any of the people in his current inner circle that his first job had not been – as he told had them – working as an assistant to a choreographer of note, but instead shoveling cattle cadavers at a processing plant, they would have been theatrically shocked.

Yet in truth, there would be no real emotion from any of them. They didn’t care about him and the feeling was mutual. They only wanted to be “in” with him so that they could feel powerful or popular. When the time came for him to step down from the stage, they would disappear like a bunch of street whores escaping police sirens.

He turned on his car radio and was momentarily shocked to hear ukulele music coming from it, and looked away from the road before him. It happened that quickly. Crash. The leather seat of his car was covered with blood, his blood or the blood of the woman he hit, he did not know. Was it her? That sad creature he’d rejected. No that was impossible. Obviously it was someone else. It couldn’t be her; she was not only miles away from him, but also a lifetime away from him now.

Sirens, hadn’t he just been thinking of sirens, he thought as he heard them coming closer until they came to a screeching halt where he lay. He heard one of the EMTs say the woman was dead, but he’d known that before they’d come. He’d seen her in that last moment before the impact, and then afterwards when he’d struck her and all the life drained from her face.

That’s two lives I’ve destroyed today.

Then a realization struck him as they cut him from his car. No, I’ve destroyed three. No, more than that. I don’t know the number. I don’t know their names. Then through the haze of the ambulance window there they were; all of the nameless faces of the rejected pressing against the glass. She was there too, her face still red and swollen. He was taking them all with him as he slipped from consciousness to unconsciousness to knock on oblivion’s door.