Short Story

The Last Performance

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative
Challenge #062. I chose Pic #2.
Here’s where the image took me.

© Crispina Kemp

The stage manager found her at dawn, sitting on the white pavilion steps with her shoes in her lap.

“You can’t be here this early, luv” he said, his voice gentle. He recognized the look; he’d seen it a hundred times before. Last-show-of-the-season syndrome.

“They’re tearing it down, aren’t they?” she asked. “I heard people talking.”

The stage manager was quiet for a long moment. “Renovation. Major renovation. It’ll be closed for two years.”

Two years. Miranda looked at the latticed supports, the way the whole impossible structure balanced on nothing but aging iron and stubborn hope. She thought about foundations, about what holds us up when the tide goes out.

“Then we’d better make tonight count,” she said, standing. She slipped on her shoes …. red, to match the marquee.

The stage manager smiled. “The show must go on?”

“No,” Miranda said, walking toward the theatre doors. “The show must be perfect.”

That evening, as Miranda sang her final notes and the applause rolled like waves beneath the pier, she understood that some things were built to last …. not because they were strong, but because people refused to let them fall.


NAR©2025

This is “The Show Must Go On” by Queen

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #062

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶 and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

26 thoughts on “The Last Performance”

  1. This hit me hard in the heart. I worked some years as a theatre manager, and that theatre was perched on a pier (not the one shown). I know how sad we can be at the end of the season. And I also know that imperative, that the show must go on, no matter the personal tragedies and general calamities.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Not knowing your personal history or involvement with the theater, I would say this is quite a bit of serendipity going on. I’ve done a fair amount of performing, so I immediately related to this photo. Thanks for the muse; it turned out to be so much more than I originally planned.

      Like

      Reply

Tell me what you're thinking. 🖊️