Bulbs burn overhead like judgmental suns as I stand onstage wedged between opportunity and failure. My heart is a horse with two bad legs that has to run anyway. Anxiety is the captain of my ship as I stand there plumb-legged before an unsympathetic mob of casting crew and one nasty, bored director.

“Well, we’re waiting.” He stares at me, arms crossed as if expecting me to perform a trick. I stare back hoping this is a nightmare.

The bulbs above continue to burn downward, each a cruel, small god.

What was my line? My brain tumbles over itself searching, coming up blank. Fear congeals on me in sweat form. What was it? It was on the tip of my tongue, and now it’s lodged somewhere between my stomach and Hell.

Skin dries and whitens. Was it this hot when I got onstage?

The woman behind the director is not looking at me anymore. The look in her eyes is nothing short of malicious boredom. I could swear she’s my ex-girlfriend, that same condescending apathy rolling over her eyes, coiling like mating snakes.

“Sir, get off the stage if you’re not auditioning.”

My mouth and throat are so dry they mummify any words that try to tumble out, each stillborn and blanched.

The gloom-covered jury offstage is waiting for an acting miracle, one that will not materialize.

Even my blood feels hot. Is that possible?

I’ve sweat through my shirt and can feel hot rivulets coarse down my pant legs.

“Sir, get off the stage, please.”

I want to speak and explain my problem, but the words won’t survive that fire pit that has become my throat. It feels like my gums are boiling.

Too hot. The bulbs above are relentless scavengers, worming their beaks into every pore of my flesh.

I pull my shirt over my head as my skin ignites, one final corona of annihilation. Just before my ears are consumed I hear the bored woman scream.