Alas! When passion is both meek and wild! -John Keats

To Sheila

The final dying sounds of their dress rehearsal left the Laurel Players with nothing to do but stand there, silent and helpless, blinking out over the footlights of the empty auditorium.

Nobody thinks or feels or cares any more; nobody gets excited or believes in anything except their own comfortable little God damn mediocrity.

But from there on Howard Givings heard only a welcome, thunderous sea of silence. He had turned off his hearing aid.