Ballet Rose

• Rebecca Mazzaferro, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2014

She stared at her reflection in the dappled ballet room mirror. Everyone else had left an hour ago, but she had stayed behind, as always. She dreamed of being a world class ballerina, and spent every day searching the reflective glass- desperately trying to find anything that could help her get there. Looking for any of the features she saw on the girls in Swan Lake last spring, or even her instructor; anything at all. So far it had been two months and she still hadn't garnered any results. She knew that, each day she spent gazing into the mirror, her tiny rose of hope dwindled more and more. But she was addicted to the dream. Sometimes she liked to imagine she could feel that rose dying, the leaves falling and the thorns growing. Sometimes she liked that feeling, and it scared her a little.
“Pale, thick, short…” She mumbled to herself, listing all her disappointing features, most of which she had discovered long ago.
“Hair too thin, greasy…”
Eventually, the sun sank low enough to beam through the windows of the quiet studio, reflecting off the corner of the mirror’s polished glass. She closed her eyes against the glare and saw red behind her eyelids. When she opened them again, she gazed in wonderment at her reflection. The sun had perfectly framed her head with a glowing halo, and was throwing shadow onto her face. She turned her head just so and saw the tension in her neck, the hollow of her throat looking elegant. She stepped forward in wonderment, yet still hesitant, trying not to break the illusion of grace. Placing her hand on the worn wood of the ballet bar, she raised herself into fourth position, and watched as the shadow silhouetted her into someone else.
Lean arms, slender legs, perfectly poised body. Delicately short, yet radiating a heightening power. She twirled once. Twice. Leapt across the floor. Executed move after perfect move in a heartfelt dance of her own creation. She was finally in reach of her dreams. This was the girl she could imagine standing on a bright stage, basking in the sound of applause. She would be the very picture of beauty, and her outstanding talent would be recognised by thousands.
As her improvised dance came to an end, she stood with her eyes closed, head tilted towards the sun, facing the back of the room. She didn’t notice the happy tears until they were dripping down her neck. She turned back towards the mirror with a grin…which fell immediately at what she saw. Red face, sweaty, ugly crying.
The sun went behind a cloud.
Frances Hodgson Burnett once wrote, ‘Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.’
But then she had never been very good with roses.