I am the first [Audio Flux 04 finalist]

This piece was one of the 15 finalists in Audio Flux Circuit 04. The prompt asked for a three-minute piece that referenced an object related to a first and included the sound of time passing (but not a clock).

I decided to tell about the day I did something that no one in my family had ever done before me. I'd rather not tell you what so as not to spoil the narration. Featuring: strong sense of atmosphere, moods shift, and anticipation and a study on class, family, and the weight of expectation.
Here more about Audio Flux.
[10/11/2024]

What is Art, in all the wrong places?

Characters who can't always be trusted. Because they often don't see the difference between sound and noise, between countryside and abandoned building, between fiction and reality.
I explore sound, speak languages and talk to strangers. This is my work.
AIR Member. www.cristinamarras.com

I didn’t sleep last night. I bet they didn’t sleep either. Scared. Excited.
We are stuck in my brother’s car, the five of us - because his girlfriend is here too.
My brother is driving, my father in the front seat and Mum, his girlfriend and I in the back.
It is too hot and too sunny. I am concentrating on not to sweating, and I regret my decision to wear this black jumper.
We wait in front of the enormous entrance as my brother parks the car.
My Father would kill for a smoke, but we all pretend that he quit months ago, and there are no windows here where you can sneak a smoke pretending to watch the afternoon pass.
I want them to feel comfortable, but I am tense, scared and confused myself.
We climb the echoing marble stairs and wait, wait, while time stops.
When the usher finally waves us inside, my family doesn’t know where to go, disoriented inside the immense hall.
They scurry along a side passage to sit in the last raw of chairs.
I am already walking to the front, so I cannot tell them that it is ok, that they are legit, that they do not have to hide behind.
But they are already sitting, and, despite the fact that I am facing away from them, I sense their uneasiness as they don’t know what to do with hands, handbags, housekeys loose in their pocket, with the weight of centuries of poor farmers’ children sent to mind the animals or to slave away at some relatives’ home.
I sit in the one chair opposite the bench, where a board of professors starts the proceedings by asking me to state my full name.
I clear my throat, trembling, painfully aware that I am the first person in my family to be awarded a university degree.