A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 32

Alia checked the time, she was barely going to make it to the concert. So she sprinted. The adrenaline that had kicked in when she was confronting Shahid and the restless crowd helped a lot. She covered the last kilometer in three minutes flat. She was waved in through the back entrance because of the special pass that Maria had given her. She wanted to wish Maria all the best before the concert and then head to the main auditorium.

She was still catching her breath when Maria swooped down from one of the lifts. In one smooth motion, Maria lithely swung off the fork-lift straight into Alia’s arms and planted a quick kiss on her lips. Alia blushed exquisitely with this surprising display of affection. Yet, she had instinctively caught Maria. The crew roared with laughter at Alia’s obvious embarrassment. Maria curtsied extravagantly for the crew and then frolicked away from Alia. Alia merely shook her head in amazement at yet another of her partner’s spontaneous gestures of love. She rolled her eyes at the laughing crew and strode to the auditorium. Too many emotions were competing for a place in her heart at the moment - the frustration of the investigation, the fear of crazy people like Shahid, and the blissful love of Maria. 

The auditorium was unlike any other auditorium that Alia had ever seen. It was, basically, one large empty cuboidal room that measured about fifty meters along each dimension. There was no stage and there were no chairs for the audience to sit on. Everyone was standing around wherever they wanted. Some were clumped in groups while some were standing on their own. Some of them had a bemused expression on their face. Had somebody pulled a prank on them? Alia didn’t know any better than anyone but she was confident that this was no prank. She had seen Maria work tirelessly on this concert.

She had also seen Maria do endless calls with people from all over the world about the concert. She had a vague notion that this concert was being replicated live in several other locations. She had no idea how that was going to happen, though. There was also something about it being virtualized, whatever that meant. It had all sounded quite complicated to her. But she also knew that it would be something incredible. It was just who Maria was. She couldn’t help herself make something beautiful. Her utter lack of inhibition without having to imbibe anything was a gift. It was going to be amazing and Alia was really looking forward to it. 

The lights went out in the hall without any warning. It was pitch dark in an instant. A hush fell over the crowd. There were a few nervous titters from the audience and a few folks tried to say something funny. Nothing was visible yet but Alia could feel the air flow increase a bit. It felt as if something was coming down from the ceiling and settling down all around her. A faint ululation had begun to fill the hall steadily increasing in volume. It reminded her of the ululation nomadic Arab tribes used. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was some clever wind instrument like the flute. She knew that Nadeem had been brought in for his flute-playing skills. Was she imagining it or were there some faint lights she was noticing in the corner of her eyes. She looked all around her and she kept getting the nagging feeling that there was some movement just beyond her field of vision that she missed every time she turned to look at it. 

The gentle ululation had another layer of sound enveloping it. A string instrument of some sort. But it felt as if the wind was now merging with gentle rain as the beats of the string instrument varied in their cadence. The cadence was varying in such a way that her heartbeat almost started syncing up with it. When the speed increased, her heart beat faster and when it slowed down, she found herself taking deep breaths as her heart slowed down. Along with her heartbeat, she felt her emotions going along the roller-coaster. She was losing track of time and space even though she was wide awake and standing in a massive room full of people. The music never sank into dreariness. As if there was some sort of a floor to the emotional roller-coaster she was experiencing. 

At one point, she realized that far more musical instruments were joining in every now and then. If she concentrated really hard, she could isolate the original layer of the ululation. And then the pitter-patter of the string instrument. There were violins and cellos and a piano. There were drums of different kinds or maybe it was all just one kind of instrument that produced these different sounds.

It was at one of the peaks in the musical journey when she was feeling the happiest that the shimmering started. Again, she thought she was simply imagining it. But now, there were a few gasps around her. This was real. It was not just in her head. She was seeing it. There was a sharpness to the shimmering blues and greens all around her and yet there were blank spots every now and then as if clouds were slowly lifting in order to fully unveil the shimmering all around her. That was when she realized that what had settled around the floor of the hall had been smoke from an artificial smoke machine. It had been pumped in when the room had been pitch dark and hence, they had not seen it but felt it. Now, that same smoke was gently being pulled off the floor and vented out of the room to create this feeling of clouds rising up. Oh how wonderful and light she felt. Almost as if all the weight on her shoulders had been lifted. 

The music had subtly started syncing with the colors in the shimmers. Whenever the reds came into focus, the deep bass of huge drums would reverberate right through the floor beneath her feet. Whenever, the blues overwhelmed the sight, the flute would pierce through the music. Whenever, the yellows bled all over the edges of the landscape, the cellos and violas would fill the very space with their unguent notes. Alia found herself going through a whole reel of emotions. Before this experience, she had no idea one could ever feel so many things in succession. She didn’t even know what those emotions meant or if there was a word to describe them to another person. 

She just found herself wafting through the shimmering that had now started occasionally resolving into sharper lines and forms. It was a symphony of forms ranging from kaleidoscopic geometrical shapes re-arranging themselves in sync with the music to more free flowing forms that reminded her of willow trees blowing in the wind. Similar to the beginning, Alia felt a bit more of airflow at one point and she instinctively looked around her for smoke. But there was nothing. There was only a steadily heightened sensation of everything. Things were coming into focus sharply whether they were visual forms and colors or individual notes and musical instruments. She found her heart responding even more willingly to all that was happening around her. 

For a brief moment, she looked at the people standing closest to her and saw that they were all in a trance just as she was. She looked up and forgot all about the people around her. All she saw were the impossibly beautiful shades of different kinds of colors shimmering in and out of focus. Each shade emphasized something extraordinary and otherworldly along with the music flowing all around her. Where was she? She had a feeling of weightlessness. Or was it a feeling of being disembodied? Was her soul floating around in some celestial symphony of colors and musical notes? 

Her mind was wiped clean of all thoughts except what she was hearing and seeing. It was impossible to articulate what she was feeling in a pathetically limited medium such as words. Imperceptibly at first, the smoke started creeping in from both the floor and the ceiling. This was a colder and wetter smoke as the music which seemed to have had reached a crescendo, started slowing down. The lasers that had been creating the shapes and forms were fading as various layers of musical instruments started to peel off. All that was left was the smoke and the mild shimmers as the sounds reverted back to the original ululation. 

Alia had no idea when she had sat down. She glanced around her and realized that many people were sitting on the ground, too. Most had clumped together near the middle of the floor. A few were leaning on each other. The shimmering went away and the ululation faded away to complete silence and everything returned to pitch black. Alia was feeling exceptionally relaxed and at the same time remarkably refreshed. Every molecule of her body felt rejuvenated and exhilarated. She had never experienced anything like this. Slowly, tiny but bright lights came on, in the floor. The lights had formed arrows pointing the audience to the various exit doors. There would be no other light to jar the people out of their state of ecstasy. 

She got up and started walking, still in a daze, toward the exit. She had no idea which exit led where. She remembered Maria and thought of finding her. What was she going to tell her? She had no words to describe what she had felt. She was just going to have to hug Maria hard and hope that her feelings got conveyed through touch! This had been an absolutely magical experience and she couldn’t wait to have these feelings again. Like being in a really hot sauna where every muscle is relaxed and then plunging in a cold pool of water which makes one feel instantly revitalized. All this but not just for the body. For the mind, the brain, for every particle of her very being. As if layers and layers of emotional and mental grime had been scrubbed and washed clean off her soul.

As she walked out in the corridor, it dawned on her that one of the inspirations for this show must have been the Aurora Borealis that they saw every winter. Those shimmering lights in the cold winter sky when seen by anyone for the first time appeared to be otherworldly. One never got used to them however many times one saw them. They were never the same and the experience was always unique. Maria was a genius! She had not merely put them on a video as people had been doing for decades. She had turned them into a breathtaking masterpiece that engaged the mind and body. She could hardly wait to see Maria and tell her all this!