"Missed Cues" by Kavya Kamath

“Missed Cues” is a short story I wrote over the summer and is from the perspective of a high school student in a school theater. Fair warning, I don’t usually like to write happy endings.

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Missed Cues

He sat quietly backstage, waiting for his cue to enter, stage left, head at a 30 degree angle from the audience, voice at about 60 decibels. The watch on his wrist, one of many peculiarities, read 5 minutes to 6:00. This was the timeliest show he’d ever encountered, it ran like clockwork. In ten minutes, his cue would come. That was ample time, he allowed his mind to wander.

He had been so excited when he was cast as a young farmer boy in this year’s school production, despite having only a couple lines, despite it not really being a true ‘casting,' despite his part being absolutely unnecessary to the plot. The director had written in the part just for him. The months since his casting had flown by, every rehearsal he was there, memorizing his few lines and 1 cue line until he knew them better than his own name. And he did it because he knew he could, because no else believed he could. He would prove them all wrong.

He thought back to the day of his diagnosis, His parents had realized late, a couple days after he turned 5 years old, and he could still remember (though probably aided by all the information he had received over the years) that one day that changed his life. The bits and pieces came flooding back to form one giant mental image. The cold linoleum floor of the hospital’s psych ward, the practiced friendliness of the nurses who handed him stickers and other things to shut him up. At the time, of course, he’d had no idea that the nurses didn’t like him. It was only upon retrospection did he realize that it must be hard to be nice to strange, aloof people like himself the whole day, every day, and there was no way a simple 5-year-old would have sparked their sympathies. He sighed in frustration. These were not pleasant memories. The reason he didn’t realize that the nurses didn’t like him, that nobody liked him, was because he always missed the social cues. They simply flew right over his head, and he didn’t notice. Others, however, did notice—that this girl’s raised eyebrow meant she was angry, that this boy’s smile was perfunctory, not welcoming. He didn’t notice. He couldn’t comprehend. And that made him different.

That was why he had been so elated when he was cast as the young farmer boy, he was finally being welcomed. To him, it didn’t matter that the arms receiving him were forced open by the school administration, it didn’t matter that these people were only including him because they had to. He was finally getting his chance, his golden opportunity. And once he proved to all of them that they needn’t worry, that he may not be completely normal, but he’s normal enough, his problems would start fading away. All he needed was a chance. And he was getting that chance.

He glanced at this watch, six minutes until his cue. He stood up in the darkness of the stage wings and stretched out his arms and legs. He could hear the chatter of conversations a bit too close to the stage. A while ago, he used to tell people to quiet down. But, as ashamed of it as he was, at one point he’d started joining these conversations, desperate for social interaction. But it seemed that his whispers were never quiet enough, and his stories never exciting enough, because he was always shushed and ignored. It wasn’t until when people, their patience finally worn thin, explicitly told him to leave that he realized he wasn’t wanted. Because he always missed the social cues. Whispers meant nothing and gossip went in his one ear and out the other. A nudge to the shoulder, a subtle wink, an eye-roll. He knew what they could mean, of course. He’d read books, watched movies. He knew. Yet all that information flew out the window in social settings. His limited knowledge of people just… disappeared. Another frustrated sigh left his lips, but a smile quickly took over when he reminded himself of his current situation.

Another glance at his watch told him that it was 6:00 exactly, 5 minutes to his cue. He pulled the crinkly straw hat a little more over his eyes and held his straw of grass in his other hand. He was going for a mysterious, rugged farmer look—the exact opposite of who he really was—but didn’t feel like chewing his stalk of grass just yet. With his other hand, he took off his watch and set it down. It didn’t really fit the character of a young farmer boy. 

“Oh, my love! You mustn’t leave me here! Please!” a girl wailed on stage. Her desperate pleas could’ve fooled him, but then again, he wasn’t very difficult to fool.

“I’m so sorry my love, I must go!” her love interest cried right back.

“Oh and I must stay! What tragedy it is!”

He could hear the next line in his head, his cue. The love interest saying “And how!” He’d walk on stage, hat down, a smolder on his face. He’d say “Sir, shall I ready your horse?” He’d play his part. He wouldn’t miss his cue. And the love interest would say, “What sorrow it is to say, but aye, thou shall. Farewell, my love!” and the lights would dim and he’d finally get his chance. He’d belong. He wouldn’t be so different anymore. He waited for the line. His cue. Time seemed to slow, eternal moments flew by, spanning immense forevers and swift instants simultaneously. He waited and waited and waited and waited.

The line never came. The stage lights began to dim, the two actors frozen on stage. Frozen beforehand. They knew.

The world sped up again and the curtains closed, indicating a scene change. The two actors walked off stage, their loud voices carrying across the small backstage space, but when they neared him, their voices shrank to whispers and their glances became sparing. He hated it, the feeling of emptiness, of missed opportunity that always came when he realized he missed a cue again. He must have missed it! They couldn’t have skipped a whole scene on purpose! No, he must have missed it.

It was his turn to shrink, down to his knees, down to the floor. He missed the cue, his cue, his opportunity, again.

And he didn’t know when he’d get another one.

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The Emblem of Theater:
Melpomene of Tragedy and Thalia of Comedy

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