10min Writes With a TaiSensei #3

Zin jogged off stage, sweat pouring through his tank top. A stagehand tossed him a towel and he wiped away the sweat from his forehead. He felt electrified. The crowds roar still buzzed through his ears, there was still a tingle at his throat from freshly used vocal chords. His callouses felt singed from shredding his guitar. There was a smile on his face, and a cloud nine exhiliration bursting through his veins.

In contrast, the backstage shadows covered over him a few tints too dark.

“Zin— ... Hey, Zin, come back to us man.”

All of a sudden Zin didn’t feel so electric. He felt weighted, numb, short of breath. His friend and co-star Dex was gawking all his concern at his face, while Zin was on the floor, shaking.

“Zin?----- What did you do? The power’s out on the whole stage.”

Zin could barely make out Dex’s features from the dim red haze of the backup lights, and he struggled to decipher the sounds over the ringing in his ears.

He felt Dex grab his forearm to help him up, but Zin knew before he tried that he wasn’t ready to stand. The room catapulted from one blur to a nauseating next and he gestured at his friend to stop.

“Give him some space people,” That was Jeshi, his personal assistant, ushering onlookers away. Even backstage he couldn’t escape the crowd and without his guitar protecting him from them, he felt their heft. Where’d they put his guitar, he wondered briefly before putting a hand to his head and trying to settle his breathing.

“What makes you think, it was me?” Zin asked.

“Huh?”

The crowd was still blaring, he realized, back beyond the stage. Their yells more panicked than raving.

“You said, ‘what did you do?’” he looked up, “what makes you think it was me.”

He didn’t even hesitate,“You were glowing, dude.”