My Testimony: Part 1

Back at this again: bright lights right in my face, cheering people crowding the sidelines, and a table of judges, all with stern blank faces and glaring eyes, staring at me or staring past me. Which audition was this? My ninth one? Yeah, my ninth one. Sounded about right.

All the dancing I had done this past week, all the effort—it was going to climax tonight. Time to kill it. The music started, and all the noise and cheers for me from the crowd faded away. Taking in a deep breath, I counted myself into the music. 5... 6... 7... 8...


(I'm on the very left in the front.)

As soon as the judges dismissed us from the floor, I marched through the crowd and immediately sought out Sang and Leland (my roommates). I saw some high-five hands reach out toward me and heard some congratulations, but I paid no attention because to me, all that mattered was the iPod camera that Leland held in his hand. I had asked him to record my audition, and from the video I’d be making my own judgments. I didn’t want to have to believe anyone else, having previously learned one of the most important life lessons in my last year and a half of dancing and twenty years of living: Cameras tell the truth; people don’t.

I fiddled with my iPod and squinted at the tiny screen. I could barely make myself out or distinguish any moves, and worse was that I noticed that I had pretty much no battery left. I knew I didn’t have enough for a possible callback round and then my group audition round. I panicked a little.

As I fiddled with my iPod, more and more people came up to me to pat me on the back and congratulate me. I didn’t really notice until I realized that some were dancers who were already on the team, and they said I did really good. And they held eye contact. Something I noticed in the past about half-assed fake congratulatory comments was that no one ever added an adverb, and no one ever locked eyes. Maybe I could start trusting the people here tonight for their opinions on my callback and group audition.

Or not.

---
“God Loves You”
Written June 4th, 2009 (Excerpted)

[Setting: 8:15 PM, at Pippin, the dining hall on campus that I used to work at.]

As I was scrubbing down my area, a random girl approached me and asked very hesitantly, “Are you...are you Brian? What time are you getting off work?”

I looked at her and tilted my head a bit. I had never met this girl before or even seen her around. She was cute though, probably even cuter than she normally would be because she just seemed so in awe of me.

“Yes, I am. I’m off in forty-five minutes.” I answered. “Do I know you?”

She said she didn’t, and we quickly established that we had never met each other and that we had no friends in common. But she had just heard of me earlier tonight. I asked how that was possible.

“God told me,” she answered.

I tilted my head again at her, skeptically this time. Not because she was cute.

“God told me,” she continued, “that your family needs to be healed.”

I was a little fascinated now, but still skeptical and barely able to refrain from uttering, What kind of fucking joke is this?

“I know this is really crazy,” she went on, “and I can’t believe I’m even acting on this. But does this make sense at all to you? Does your family need to be healed?”

I didn’t need to think about her question for more than a second to know that...it did. My family did need to be healed. How could she have known about this? My skepticism slowly subsided.

“This does make kinda sense to me, I guess.”

She beamed at me and clasped her hands together. “Can my friends and I pray for you and your family?!” She motioned back to her three friends who were watching from the back of the room.

Pray for me. I wanted to scoff and tell this girl and her friends off, but I couldn’t. This was really trippy; the timing of it was almost too crazy to just be coincidental. I brewed with curiosity, a kind that I tried to rationalize away yet a kind that continued to grow as my emotions started to take over. I had to find out if her offer of prayer was something that could really help me, and I also had to find out if this girl really did come to me through divine intervention, or rather, a more realistic series of coincidences. At this point though, I think the whole prayer offer was appealing to my emotional side more.

“Yes, thanks, please,” I said it like I meant it. Because I did.

“Alright, cool!” she exclaimed. “You get off at nine right? My friends and I will be chilling around outside. Find us when you’re done!”

I nodded and thanked her again, and I watched as she and her friends left.

This is weird, I thought to myself. I still could not believe that God talked to that girl. When you talk to God, that’s fine; that’s prayer. But they say that when God talks to you, that’s schizophrenia. After a few minutes of scrubbing, I was able to push aside my emotions, and I spent the next forty minutes rationalizing as I cleaned.
---

My cell phone’s ringer went off. I swore, six hours of sleep felt shorter and shorter each night. I opened my eyes, or at least I thought I did. It was still dark. But then my eyes started to make out the lines of the orange street light shining through my blinds against the wall. I looked at the clock. It was only 4 AM.

My phone was still ringing. It wasn’t the alarm clock. It was a call.

I leapt out of my bed and grabbed the phone. This had to have been it; I took a deep breath as I answered the phone.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hi,” it was a girl’s voice. “Is this Brian?”

“Yes.”

“You know who this is?”

“I think so!” I played along. “Does this have anything to do with an audition I had tonight?”

“Yes, I’m sure it does. Congratulations Brian, you got yourself an interview with us in two days, this Tuesday on October 12 at 7 PM!”

This was not a dream. This was not a dream. It was really happening, wasn’t it?

“You’ve made it past the first cut!” she went on. “Be proud of yourself. You did a really good job.”