short little story I wrote, and it was published in Inkitt!!!!**
I’ve always played the piano, ever since I was a little girl. I started taking lessons from my neighbor when I was seven years old, and on my tenth birthday my family moved- in the living room was a lovely wooden grand piano. My favorite songs to play are soundtracks to plays and old movies. I imagine myself in the starring role, with bleach blonde hair and bold red lipstick. If I close my eyes, I imagine myself playing my piano and singing to the audience. I’m lousy at singing, Mommy says it’s my age. My voice gets weak when I try to sing very high, and I’m not much good at singing low. But I picture it anyway.
When I do math homework, as I am doing right now, the numbers turn to music notes and the symbols to dynamics, and I get caught up in the fantasy- I pretend my pencil is a baton and I am conducting an orchestra, the audience applauding me after we finish and take a bow.
“Dottie.” Mommy stands in the kitchen, looking at me. I look down at my math homework, and I have not written anything down. My pencil was too busy leading my imaginary symphony. She turns back to the onions she was slicing, satisfied that I’ve come back down to earth. I could never imagine having a life like hers. Mommy doesn’t work, she stays at our house while my brother and I are at school. She does all the cooking, the cleaning, the darning, the ironing, the consoling, and every other thing I could think of. I have too many dreams of music and movies to stay in one place like that and dedicate my life to my family. If I even have one- the idea of having kids makes me feel icky. But Mommy seems so happy. She is smiling right now, humming along to “Dancing Queen” as it plays on the radio behind her. She has a college degree, in business. I’ve seen the paper in the frame in her bedroom. In has her name on it in big curly letters.
I look down at my math homework again, but a bright red ladybug is crawling across the page. It is cherry red with little black spots. I often wonder if bugs remember their home, or get homesick. They travel so far and explore so many different homes, it must be impossible to find their way back. Or maybe bugs are just bugs. Mommy says I am “over-analytical.” I think ladybugs are the friendliest insect (if anybody’s counting.) It crawls over my fingers and into the palm of my hand, unshielding its delicate little wings and flying into the air and onto the windowsill. It crawls back through the open pane, and out of my little world. How I would love to be a ladybug.
