There's that moment at the end of a show when a kind of critical mass is reached. The audience loves the encore like crazy, is swallowed up by it like a fabulous storm roaring about their wild heads. Then the stage goes dark once again and the band disappears into the wings. And there it is, the anti-magic moment.
It is the opposite of the magic moment at the start, that twilight pause of anticipation when all you hear is the PA hum, the tap of a drumhead in the dark, fingers settling over hot strings. Like deities seconds away from unleashing mighty revelations and the audience isn't breathing.
Well, the revelation came and went. Over the screaming and clapping the ground still moves and the air quivers. It's slowing down though. The house lights come on, the logo glides over the drawn curtains once more and that silly music you'd forgotten existed drifts through the air again. It's over. Already? What happened? Yet it's a satisfied kind of disappointment, the anti-magic moment. Like a correct farewell.
The audience has had its fill. Most of them anyway. The others aren't quite finished screaming. The band's done its job, topped expectations and the night moves on and dreams settle back to the mundane.
While the stage hand contemplated all this, having witnessed it countless times, to the point where a poetic philosopher was rising within her, Rivqua and Zana were back up in the control room.
Truck rose to greet them, taking their high-fives and offering her bottom for a customary, friendly kick.
"First one down!" Zana beamed, "and, what is it, sixty-three to go?"
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