It Started that Night

Preface

Preface

Have you ever been in the front row of a concert?

Waiting for it to start you can't keep still, bouncing on flexed feet the excitement builds in the pit of your stomach as adrenaline courses through your veins in anticipation. You swallow hard, noticing your mouth has gone dry from your over-breathing, which borders on hyperventilation. You begin to hold your breath making your lungs hurt until you manage to relax your clenched muscles enough to exhale. Every minute seems to take forever to pass.

The venue is small, your knees touching the stage. You take a moment to glance around the room that's filled up behind you. The air around you is fully charged, you feel electricity run down your arms like a cold, sharp knife. You shiver, making all the hairs stand on end as you wait among people feeling much the same as you. 

The moment comes when the lights change and the crowd falls silent in unison and you know. This is it.

Eyes focused on the stage you feel your heart rate increase, you try to breathe normally but your lungs involuntarily suck in a sharp breath making you feel like you're being crushed. It's a feeling you crave.

And then there he is. You've seen him on TV, you've heard him on the radio, you've seen photos of him standing there, microphone in hand so many times you've lost count! You've watched him perform before at a festival, a tiny figure you could just make out from the other end of the field bounding about the stage, but you've never been here. This close. You could reach out and touch him. The real him. You almost can't make your mind believe he's real. He's a hallucination. He'd never existed in the same world as you yet there he is in the flesh, stood just a foot away.

The band start and you feel more alive than you ever have before as the bass vibrates your rib cage, and once again you're shuddering in breaths of gasping completion. This is it. This is the moment you live for. As he sings his eyes scan the room, moving along the front row towards you. You're in a daze, eyes locked onto his face, determined not to look away for a second, knowing that it will come to an end. He looks up and his eyes meet yours and for a split second he smiles. You smile nervously back. Fighting to breathe through your gasps as your breathing quickens. You are connected, for a single second in time. You. Him. Two strangers, usually worlds apart, in the same room, in the same moment. And in that moment you're part of his life. And he part of yours. For a split second so short it's immeasurable.

And then gone.

I am not the only person to have ever lived that moment, many times. 'He' is not one person. And 'you' aren't either. He is every influential person that's ever been admired and 'you' is every fan-girl/guy to have been the admirer.

But what if that single moment doesn't end there? What if fate had plans for you. And him. What if you were meant to be stood there right at that moment...