Chords

New People

After hours of waiting in the long line wrapping around the streets, we finally make it in.

There's a single large auditorium inside the building; three judges at the front sit in the cushy red chairs with their papers and other eager bands cram in at the entry and wait. We make our way down the space between those many strangers and the next three, all holding our instruments. It's almost nauseating feeling all of the eyes on us as we get on stage and quickly settle in. My anxiety usually gets better once I start playing, but this time I'm not so sure of it.

I dare to look up to the people watching by the door. A band of three practically stare into my soul. A jab of anxiety hits my chest as I look back down and prepare to play.

I can feel my nerves stirring inside as I take final precautions of tuning my guitar. Ptolemy checks in with the three judges off stage to make sure our names were all written down correctly. I swear over half of us have names nobody has heard of or dared to use. We have to spell this right the first time, this is more serious stuff.

My eyes skip over to Tai as he waits patiently at his stand. He never seems anxious, it's frustrating. He's concerned at most. I silently wish I could somehow learn from him when Ptolemy jumps back up on stage and grabs his instrument.

There's a pause as the lead mic turns on. There's a quiet pop from it and Tai takes hold of the stand and is about to start . . . before realizing something. He stops and looks back at everyone.

It's as if Tai sent a telepathic message to everyone but me. They glare and exchange glances, leaving me confused before it clicks in my mind too.

How could we be so stupid? We did this before. Well, I did. Being swept up in all of the detours we didn't rehearse anything, make any plans, heck we haven't even looked at our instruments in two days. We're screwed.

Ptolemy juts his head at the mic Tai holds. He nods and looks back to the three judges. "I think the mic isn't working." He whispers.

One of the judges slumps and sighs. "Alright, we'll get our stagehand on it." They then start to get up.

"But we got it." Tai reassures, still quiet. "Just give us a few minutes."

They slowly sit back down. "I suppose that's fine too . . ."

Ptolemy smiles with relief and we all head backstage. We all whisper to one another and discuss what we think we play best. I'm in the middle of insisting that we stick to our old songs as we know them more when I run into a much shorter man with an armful of cords.

He stumbles back. "Woah!" Extension cords unravel and spring out from the once neat coil. Everyone is mildly taken back, but as soon as Mary lays eyes on the poor man she's stricken. A smile grows on her and she twirls her hair.

Oh, gross. I look away from Mary's raging hormones and try to help the stranger. "My bad, here lemme get that."

We awkwardly fumble from there. I sigh as I try to take on the aux cords. "Sorry, we just came back here to fix the mics."

He frowns, wrapping his arms tighter around the equipment. "Oh, well I handle that." He replies. He uncomfortably glances to Mary staring at him before moving on. "I'm the stagehand here."

There's a brief silence. Ptolemy sighs. "Alright, we're stalling. Nothing's wrong with the microphones."

A grin creeps up on him and he puts his hand out. "Gray Mustang."

All hands are shaken. Gray continues, "So you're stalling. Didn't get all of your plans together, I'm guessing."

Binny hums. "Yeah, actually. Is it that obvious?"