Sunday, January 22, 2006

The Sound of Silence Part II

My good friend Darren likes to quote Einstein alot, he's says, "Time is relative." He's right - both of them. There is nothing that can better describe eternity than being on top of a 20-foot pole, sweaty and fatigued, listening to the faint hiss of speakers that should normally be blasting "Carmen". I am dumbfounded. I feel the audience's expectant eyes rivet on me, tracing my outline, guessing at my next move. Even the spotlight seems to grow brighter. Damn pressure, the show must go on, and so I do. I go on.

I slide back down, I climb back up. I do everything I would do if there was music. It's like a funny pantomime - this nervous performer parading and gesticulating, pretending that all is in order, but really the world has just collapsed. It's the moment when you ask a girl for her number, and she hesitates. It's the moment when you see the swerving car, and you step on the brakes. It's the moment you have two thousand people watching you, and you can hear the lady in row ZZ, second balcony, clear her throat. I go on because I have to. I go on because I don't know what else to do.

Then, as if God himself had descended and handed me heaven itself, my music comes boldly rushing back through the speakers. It's like the saying, "you don't know what you have until it's gone". Whereas a moment before, this music sounded like heavy machinery excavating a coal mine, it was now the voice of angels, a thousand harps playing to lift me from my silent sentence. I am saved and overjoyed.

Until I realize that they started my music from the very beginning.

... to be continued...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You have just described an exciting moment, or should I say any exciting moment, in slow motion. Very interesting and thought provoking.