"STAGE FRIGHT" in "SHORTS"

They all gathered around the body on the stage that day. She was lifeless, her eyes staring emptily and her mouth stayed open wide.

They’d tried resuscitating her minutes before. Nothing happened. She was still the same.

Then suddenly, a wailing woman rushed from among the horrified audience. She went up the stage, calling for the girl hysterically.

“That’s my daughter!”

Not long after that, the paramedics drove her daughter’s body to the morgue. On the way there, one of the police officers interviewed the old woman. Tearfully she confessed:

“She’s worked hard to overcome her stage fright,” she told the police officers. “She liked being in the karaoke room, practising every song she liked. She was actually a great singer. She had a voice of an angel.”

“I thought that stage fright was the only thing she’d had to overcome,” the woman went on miserably. “Until they gave her the contestant badge number that she had to wear on her outfit.”

“What number?” the police officer gently asked her. Heaving a sigh, the woman looked at him before she finally said:

*“Thirteen.”*

**R.

*(Jakarta, 8/10/2015 – from The Couchsurfing Writers’ Club Gathering @Bumi Orange, 8:00 pm onwards. The writing challenge topic: “Karaoke”.)*

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