A Night in Baucom

"The lights on stage anymore are like a twilight moon. My dawn is fading and the cold bitter night has crept in, fastly slow and all the horrible. My dreams dance in and out of those beams, not happily, but more so like the tears of confused solitude that stream down my famed face." America's best rendition of the 1920s in the modern era, singer-musician Blaike Baucom is back home in her small town of Solitude, Tennessee. She has a Hollywood show in a couple weeks but with one problem; she has lost her singing voice. The Cerigo Carnival is in town and Blaike hopes to find some solace while there. Her carnival experience will include meeting a whole cast of characters, including one wise old woman. If her advice is not followed by Blaike, she will never be able to sing again. Her career is on a very thin wire. With heartache and emotions running rampant, everything she has relies upon one huge decision and if not the proper one, she may never have anything left, not even her name. Will Blaike Baucom ever find the happiness and heed the advice to find her talent once again? "Until you cannot feel our hearts beating together and you cannot see yourself both in my eyes and in my heart, do not worry about me not fighting. You know I will fight for you."

Stephen Smith is a college history and agriculture major with a passion for writing. He is a rare vegetable seed curator and founder of the C.L. Smith Seed Exchange & Collective. In his free time he enjoys writing, illustrating, and work with crops to nurture the world with words and food.