St Vitus' Dance

I can’t hear because of the screaming of the crowd. I can feel them all around me.
They don’t know I’m there yet, but they’ve come to see me. I allow myself a grin - I try not to cough, or make any sound.
Someone is banging, a rhythmic pounding, almost upon me. It’s too regular to mean this is my time. I will remain here just a little longer.
Sweat is starting too engulf me. I wonder, for a mere second, if I might drown in here. I have an orange stress ball in my hand which I squeeze after every blow rains down. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Fear and excitement well up in equal measure. The adrenaline feels like it’s going to burst from my skull in a vibrant fountain, gushing and mixing with the sweat to create strange chemical concoctions to feed the frenzy of the waiting mob.
I’m in a box, a crate about six feet long and a couple of feet deep. I think it’s used to carry lighting or wires or something. A massive stagehand dragged me over here a few minutes ago and I’m supposed to wait in silence for five minutes.
I’ll be able to tell when the rest of the band take to the stage - the cacophony will increase as screams mix with chords. An A-minor to start with, I believe. Then, just as the audience think there can be no more excitement - that excitement does not have a level beyond this point - I will rise, with grace and power. My made-up face inches from theirs. And in one moment they will know fear, awe and then rapture.
I picture this moment, I imagine the crowd’s reaction. That’s invariably when the shakes happen. Slow trembles in my calf muscles - they twitch like I’m cold - I do feel cold, and clammy now. I’m shivering, but I feel ridiculous. It’s more than a shiver, I’m twitching all over - I’m vibrating.
The crowd roars, as if to salute my St Vitus’ Dance, they won’t hear my head threshing against the sides of the box. My body becomes very heavy and my eye lids droop with the sleep of a child. I’m shutting down and I like it, I will it to happen.
And then comes the chord, the A minor that startles me from my reverie, and I rise so quickly from my casket, so much more wildly than in my mind’s eye.
I whirl around before the baying punters. The room spinning ever so slightly, but the adrenaline tempering it.I fight back the vomit, but they’d love it in their faces.
A strange choreography is at work. There is a crazed man in their midst, floundering, dying; but they feed off it. They go wild.
Every show starts like this.