from "Water and Light"

It was quite awkard to chuckle there, at that moment. But how could he not? It seemed too arbitrary, he thought, how we measure time.

Seconds go by only at the tick of our watches, not any slower. Hours last as long as our lunch meetings will allow. We torture ourselves, staring blankly into the faces of strangers, smiling at oppurtune moments - all the while wishing time could go faster, but only at that moment.

"But the escape," he once told someone, "the escape lies in music."

There was silence as he continued to smile. He kept his head down, and though his posture was seemingly relaxed, under the black tuxedo, every muscle in his body felt the tension of suspended time - a giant rubber band stretched concisely to its limit.

But it was beautiful, and he would not let it go. Now? No...no... just a little while longer. He could feel the eyeballs searing a hole into the back of his neck. The crowd before him watched intently, but he did not look at them.

He only stared straight down, perhaps through, the music stand levelled at his waist...waiting.

"We are all there", he thought, as he looked at the symbol on his page.

Perhaps humanity is merely the raindrop, suspended under that protecting umbrella, the sky. And we're floating there, waiting to die, waiting to truely exist.

He gave one last chuckle at the thought of the newspaper's criticisms of his slow tempi the next morning, and as a single drop of sweat fell onto his score, he inhaled deeply, and gave the downbeat of the next measure.