It's Boring

This second night of the second month, a night like any other, in a life like any other. You have entered the club, and you have sought guidance in the form of musical enlightenment. You have taken the word of those who attempt to shed light in a sea of darkness, you have followed the hazy path and ignored the nagging voice of reason, and it has led you to this place. This ordinary place. There are people milling about, drinks in hand. All is as it should be. You are present but unnoticed. On stage, members of a band are working diligently to build their elaborate setup. They place amplifiers, plug in and tune guitars, build a drum kit, hoist a screen behind them, test films, lights, smoke machines, and other gadgets all to be used for theatrical effect. As you stand stage side, watching the scene, you note that it takes this band an unusually long time to setup. Finally they are done, and all activity on stage is geared towards getting the band in place. By now the crowd has begun to congregate around the stage. As the band begins their performance, you look around you and begin to get an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. You begin to notice that the people in the audience all have the same face. To the one, the same face, and all of them are blankly staring at the band. Instead of panicking, however, you simply register this oddity with unease, and then turn back to the stage.

The music. The music has a not unfamiliar quality to it. In fact, the more you listen, the more you are drawn into how familiar it sounds. As it goes on, you are amused to find that every note, every melody, every facet of this music takes you deeper into your memory of what it is about music that captures your attention in the first place. Every lyric, one that fills a gap in your mind, every melodic line an inroad to something richly personal, but impossible to clearly define.

You look around the room again. The members of the crowd are now holding up masks to their faces, and the masks are of your own face. This makes you feel vaguely confused. You make your way for the door. A few minutes away is another club housing another heavily praised performance.

You make the short drive to the next club, pay, and walk up to the stage. Without shock, it becomes quickly apparent to you that the very same people from the last club surround you, once again. And also, once again, you see the same masks held up to their faces. You are the subject of this charade as well.

As you turn towards the band, you acknowledge that though it has only been maybe ten minutes since you left the last club, the very same band from the last scene is now up on stage, impossibly playing the very same set from before. You are present before your past, experiencing it in the present, and you note this despite feeling no sense of alarm or fear.

Driving home on this night, after this performance, it is now very late. The streets are wet with the sheen of a light rain. The streetlights reflect off the road, casting a wash of color. There is not a single other car on the road. Not a single pedestrian walks the sidewalk.

As you drive you begin to notice a shape in the road before you. Slowing down, you approach. Here in the middle of this great city, on this empty, cold, and wet night, you are a single, lone man, on a trip to nowhere, leaving a scene of incomparable impossibility to find yourself in front of another. Before your car stands a huge caribou. It stands in the road, its massive body turned towards you, its head cocked so that it faces you, its black eyes belying no sense of concern. You open the door, step into the road, and begin to weep.