An Unlikely Swan

Alicia lay awake in her bed staring at her dorm room ceiling. Beaming from cheek to cheek it was the happiest she had ever been. Could life get better then this?
Deaf since birth, Alicia learned to cope with her impairment quite well. Everyday she worked hard to be like anyone else. Forcing herself to learn lip reading and listening to music by feeling the vibrations of her bedroom floor she learned to dance and ballet was her passion. Gliding around her room while playing to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake she would arabesque and plie imagining she was Odette.
Heaving and sweating from her last two hours of practice, Alicia turned off her music and laid on her floor feeling her chest rise and fall with the excitement. It was eleven p.m. and Alicia practiced again until she finally mastered the last piece of choreography for her audition. Judging would be brutal and Alicia knew her chances against a prima ballerina and several other rival students for a lead role were slim.
Katrinka Yankov is the company’s prima ballerina, studying at the prestigious Kirkova Ballet School in St. Petersburg she worked with some of the best instructors in the world. Landing starring roles in twenty eight productions including Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, and Don Quixote she was favored to win the coveted role in the new production of Swan Lake.
Monday morning auditions brought an eerie calm in the halls of the American Ballet School. No one spoke. Only the feel of constant vibrations coming from stage echoed in the halls. Pirouetting ballerinas passed Alicia in the hall nearly knocking her over as if she wasn’t even there. “QUIET PLEASE AUDITIONS IN PROGESS!” was written on the backstage door. Realizing this could be Alicia’s last chance at a career in ballet she shed several tears which she quickly wiped away and began feeling the walls and the floor to find her place within the score of music.
Scene eighteen, the Allergo Guisto.
“Turner your up,” lipped a girl to Alicia and she made way to the stage.
Unbelievably, with a flick of the composer’s wand Alicia started and ended her audition piece with absolute precision.
“Very good, Ms. Turner,” said the director as he showed no emotion whether he liked it or not. Watching from the backstage Katrinka’s anger at Alicia’s great performance threw her into a rage as she wailed her canvas bag at Alicia spilling all its contents onto the stage and into the orchestra pit. Xanax pills flew in every direction.
“You’re a deaf girl and deaf girls can’t be ballerinas!”
“Zip it Katrinka!” shouted the director from the audience, “Ballerina’s shouldn’t be using pills either and congratulations Alicia I think we just found our new Odette.”