Our seats are in the back of the concert hall. Not in the balcony, but on the bottom floor , sort of the equivalent to bleacher seats at a baseball game. However, I can still see well enough to examine members of the audience as the orchestra warms up on the brightly lit stage. One violinist appears with her two little girls, dressed in Laura Ashley dresses and bright hair ribbons, and shows them to their front row seats. A man, obviously wishing he was elsewhere, makes a paper airplane out of his program as his wife flips through hers with excitement. An elegant-looking young woman with the air of one who comes to the orchestra often, sits next to me. I wonder why she is sitting in the bleacher seats with lowly non-regular concert goers like me.

Finally, after seemingly endless warm-up squeaking and squawking, the orchestra is ready to begin. The lights dim so only the performers are visible. I try to follow the music for a while, but I begin to lose interest and instead focus my attention on the orchestra members. There are so many of them, all dressed alike, yet in so many different shapes and sizes. The white-haired conductor keepslinging his arms at the different sections.

By now I notice the woman next to me has her eyes closed and is lying back in her seat, unmoving. Is she dead? Should I poke her just to make sure? I imagine the ambulance arriving during intermission and the paramedics in white coats.What if nobody notices she's dead and she's left here in the concert hall until a janitor finds her? Before I can embellish further, though, the woman opens her eyes and closes them again. I guess she is alive. I close my eyes also. It's pretty relaxing. I feel myself floating around to the music and wonder if this is what it's like to be dead. My brother is laughing at me, but I ignore him. He's probably bored.

I remember the game I used to play while watching the elementary school band in the first grade , closing my eyes when the music played and opening them when the music stopped. However, I decided not to do this anymore when once I opened my eyes and discovered to my embarrassment my class had gone back to the classroom and I was the only one left sitting on the floor.

My thoughts are broken when suddenly the music ends and the audience claps loudly. I open my eyes and all of the people around me are standing up. The orchestra must have been very good.

This is only the first piece.n