Parts of Speech by M.S. Nieson

“Definition, please?”

She was dreaming again. Back on that same stage, the lights glaring in her eyes. The old elementary school auditorium with its thick crimson curtains parted. The microphone before her. Or sometimes she’d suddenly be in the gymnasium instead, the air rank with sweat and floor wax, the bleachers filled to capacity. It was never very clear. It was never . . . Wait, was it possible to smell in one’s dreams?

Either way, those same damn lights. Hot and all but blinding. Blotting out the audience. Though she could still feel them out there, waiting. Their collective breath and expectation. Their wanting her to fail. To fall.

Like the bead of sweat on her upper lip, poised to plummet. Right off her face. Right off this stage. Falling face first. That’s plummet with two m’s. Plummet. P-L-U-M-M-E-T. Plummet.

Wait, had she spoken out loud, or only in her head?

She cleared her throat. “Please, can you give me a definition?”

Now the sweat was sliding down her neck. And her underarms, probably staining her dress. This ridiculous dress Mother insisted she wear. With a floral pattern, no less. Little yellow and pink freesia. In a uniform pattern. A uniform. You’ll be onstage, you have to wear a dress. And these stupid lacy white socks. She hated dresses. Hated having to wear them as a . . . only she wasn’t a child in this dream. She was herself now. Standing there. Standing out. Theirself. Their own, or maybe no. Not yet. Or still. It was never very clear.

Either way, it was a ridiculous dress. Flowered and flouncy and that damn zipper in back always scratching. Ill-fitting, that was the word. Uniform.

That’s freesia. F-R-E-E-S-I-A. Freesia.

Like all these words: Stoic. Aardvark. Misogynist. Selected by the panel to trip you up. Tricky words. Mean even, given all the clear and crisp words one could find in the dictionary. Hundreds upon hundreds, each one standing out on its own. Individual. In bold type. Emboldened. Clear and defined. The dictionary, her favorite book.

Badminton. Raspberry. Precipice.

She could feel the hiss of that microphone before her. Electricity coursing toward her lips. Individual atoms spinning, that’s what they said in science class. Dizzying shells of electrons and protons. The inevitable charges of attraction. Of opposites. Oppositions.

Succinct. Yeoman. Pterodactyl.

She was dreaming, she knew that, but she could swear she could smell something. Wait, was it her underarms? No, the floor wax, that particular eau de . . . what was the word? She could picture the janitor in the hallway waiting for them all to clear out. Each day. Pivoting back and forth, wall to wall, buffing out any sign of her footprints. Of her.

She stood there, the panelists waiting. The air static. The microphone’s metallic curve glistening in the light. The light made of waves. Or was it particles? Or both? It was never very clear.

Particular? Particulate? The right word right there before her, then suddenly gone. As if erased from a blackboard. As if dreamed.

Poinsettia. Scintillate. Imperceptible.

They were waiting.

“Can you repeat the word again, please?”

Cemetery. Congeal. Mellifluent.

“I’m sorry, can you use it in a sentence?”

Bivouac. Hermaphrodite. Idyll.

All these parents and teachers and janitors. These panelists. These judges.

Scourge. Heresy. Aberration.

Every last one saying you have to. Have to wear. To spell. To choose. One, or the other. Like some sentence.

“Is there an alternate . . . pronunciation? Please?”

Yes, that is correct. You may advance.

No, that is incorrect. You must leave the stage.

Still, she stood there. Once again, on stage. That damn zipper always itching.

Parody. Demitasse. Bouquet.

Wait. Freesia. Was that the smell? And what might that word mean anyway? A flower that was free? Free to be a flower? Or to not be a flower? 

To be on stage? Or not? Or always?

It was never very clear. This precipice.

M.S. Nieson

Image by KTravels from Pixabay. A pile of jumbled letter black on white.