Content Note: this piece contains violence and abuse.
Editor’s Note: This is a revised version of “Swan’s Elegant Dance” which originally appeared in What if the World Needs You?
“Now ladies and gentlemen, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…Lucia the Swan’s performance!”
The bright red curtains swung open and fancy orchestral music started to play. As soon as the music started playing, a very beautiful swan with the most elegant feathers came out on stage and started performing, not messing up a single dance move. The whole crowd was in absolute silence, not a single word to be heard. All you could see were people’s phone flashlights swinging up in the air from side to side. Although everybody thought this performance was going to be the most perfect of them all, it wasn’t…
More and more phone flashlights were popping up, they were all so bright. Lucia was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. Eventually, Lucia tripped and fell when she closed her eyes just for one second. The whole crowd gasped and started throwing their belongings at Lucia just for making one mistake. The crowd was furious for this “awful” performance, but the most furious was Lucia’s owner, also known as Nicolas Ruffus, the CEO of Swan’s Beautiful Song. Lucia disliked Nicolas because he always had a kind and impressive mask on, but behind his mask he was an extremely cruel man. Nicolas was a 37-year-old man, and everybody adored him because of his company. Although Nicolas had done many cruel and criminal things, he always framed somebody else and got away with his horrible deeds.
After the show Nicolas threw Lucia inside a small pet cage and started screaming at her for messing up her show. Lucia always had been treated badly. Everyday, before and after the performance, Lucia would be in a cage inside a very dark and scary room. Nicolas left the room with his loud stomping feet. Lucia cried in the dark room but then she remembered, crying isn’t going to help me escape this torture.
It was always Lucia’s dream to meet other swans like her who loved dancing. Just by thinking of her dreams she was motivated to escape this terrible place. But if she wanted to escape she had to give effort into doing so. Lucia looked around the room looking for a way out. After a minute of searching from inside her cage, she saw a window she could fit through! But how was she going to get out of her cage? Lucia thought about many ideas on how to escape her cage and that’s when she remembered she couldn’t escape her cage without the keys. There was one problem though: Nicolas had the keys that unlocked her cage.
At that moment Lucia was starting to have doubts in her mind of getting out of Nicolas’s grasp. But no. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. If she wanted to escape her cage and her horrible life then she must be able to touch the light and get out of Nicolas’s dark abyss. But in order to do that she had to escape! Lucia thought again and then finally she came up with the best and final plan.
A few hours later, Nicolas entered the room to give Lucia food. Nicolas bent down and opened Lucia’s cage to give her a bowl of food. But when he opened the cage door–Zoom–Lucia ran towards Nicolas and attacked him like an angry swan. While Nicolas was distracted she snatched the keys of Nicolas’s belt loop and tucked it under her wing feathers. Nicolas was so angry that he got violent and threw Lucia back inside her cage and then started screaming at her like she was the bad one here. When Lucia was thrown back inside her cage she injured her leg, but the injury was worth her freedom.
After a few minutes of scolding Lucia, Nicholas stormed away. As soon as he was gone, Lucia smiled because she was happy she successfully grabbed the keys off Nicolas’s belt loop. Once complete silence came Lucia used the keys to finally free herself of this horrible cage.
Before stepping out of the cage, Lucia thought to herself it’s finally the day where I can reach my freedom! Starting today I won’t be controlled by Nicolas, I will be able to dance willingly! Lucia started to cry happy tears; it was the most perfect moment of Lucia’s life. She wobbled her way out of the cage and flew out the open window.
As she flew towards the beautiful sunset she landed on a lake shining and reflecting the sunset’s beauty. When she landed her first instinct was to dance, and that’s exactly what she did. The elegant swan danced and danced to her heart’s content splashing the water elegantly side to side, attracting other swans who danced their hearts out with her, becoming one. Lucia was really happy that she was finally somewhere that she could call home.