Chapter 15: The Listeners

Jaime and Keira

«REMEMBER: We need to keep ourselves shielded. We’re just listening, » Keira said.

«Listen and identify. We aren’t trying to stop kidnappers, » Jaime grinned.

«Please let there not be any!»

They found their seats in the auditorium. They’d started holding hands as soon as Jaime arrived at Keira’s house and they headed for the streetcar. They’d been using the time to fine tune their filters. Or that’s what they told each other. Both were just happy to be holding hands. There were a lot of mentally whispered endearments, and an occasional memory of their kisses. They tried to keep the latter to a minimum because both preferred to have the physical contact of the kiss to the mere memory.

After finding their seats, they settled in and observed the audience around them.

«Three rows down and over about halfway to the right, » Jaime pointed out. «She’s not happy to be here. Usually it’s men who aren’t as glad to go to the symphony as the women they bring.»

«But look. She’s not with a date. Not exactly. She’s here with her little girl who she promised to take to the symphony. She doesn’t mind being here. It’s just an interruption to what she wanted to do today.»

«The little girl is excited, though. She wants to hear the big drums, » Jaime said.

«Hmm. Brahms might not be the best composer for timpani. The other two pieces are concerti for chamber orchestra. Not a lot of percussion in that, I don’t suppose.»

«Here’s the conductor. He really gets a charge out of the applause. Feels he deserves it.»

«It’s really just one of the reasons he loves his job, though. He’s already hearing the music.»

The audience settled after the applause and then the featured cellist arrived on stage to a fresh round of applause. He shook hands with the conductor. The chamber orchestra checked their tuning and all eyes turned to the conductor. The music began.

For a few minutes, Jaime and Keira were swept away by the pleasure and emotion experienced by the audience, and the sheer joy with which the musicians played.

«It’s like they are all connected to the conductor. Even the soloist is watching for the conductor’s cue. He does it all with the tip of his baton and they all understand exactly what he wants!» Keira said.

«Look at how many people are following the baton, too, » Jaime answered. «It’s one of the reasons I love coming to concerts. Everyone is of one mind.»

«It’s magical!»

The first concerto finished with no further deliberate thoughts passing between the two. They were happy—content to be among the listeners in the auditorium. And happy to be touching each other, physically and mentally.

During the second concerto, they began to reach out to touch those around them. Their first attempt was almost too much, as the entire audience flooded their senses. They clamped down, gripping each other’s hand more tightly. They quickly looked around to see if they had disturbed anyone else, but there was no sign of anything but the enjoyment of the music.

«Too much, too fast, » Keira said.

«Let’s see if we can limit the range. Maybe ten feet around us.»

«I’m not sure how to do that. You lead.»

Jaime closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. Then he began to slowly open himself to those around him. Keira closed her eyes and followed in her mind.

The man next to Jaime was nodding at the edge of sleep and his wife kept nudging him so he wouldn’t snore. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy the music, but it relaxed him so that he wanted to sleep. Poor guy.

Behind them, a woman was envisioning her upcoming wedding to the tune that was being played. Of course, she didn’t want that exact music at her wedding. She wanted something a little more upbeat and music that didn’t demand the wedding party pay attention to it instead of her. Keira giggled a little in her mind.

They catalogued all the people within five seats of them, side-to-side and front-to-back. When they were finished, they were exhausted, having read upwards of a hundred people in the packed orchestra hall. They shut down their contact and let the music take them where it would, like most of those they’d peeked in on.

After the second concerto, there was an intermission as the stage was reset for the full orchestra. Jaime and Keira stayed in their seats, observing the people around them as some stood to stretch and others quickly made their way to the lobby bar or restrooms.

«People try to be so sophisticated at a concert, » Jaime said.

«With varying degrees of success.»

«The guy next to me really loves the concert. He can’t help it that the music always puts him to sleep.»

«It might be the best rest he ever gets. What about the man in the center front who is so preoccupied with his business that he can’t rest at all?» Keira asked.

«He’s really stressed out. He wants to talk business with the man accompanying him with their wives, but knows he has to endure the entire concert before he can hope to get him alone. Do you really think his business will fold if he doesn’t get the guy’s support?»

«I don’t think he’ll need to worry about it for long. The only thing on the other guy’s mind is how much he’ll have to pay to get a piece of the action.»

«He’ll be relieved.»

«I thought we’d hear a lot more um ... fantasy stuff ... sex talk, » Keira ventured.

«It’s a different kind of crowd than the movie, » Jaime surmised. «Older. More attentive to the music than to each other. The music just supplies all the emotion they need while they are in the auditorium.»

«Well, here comes the orchestra. People are coming back to their seats. Do they tune like this every time?»

«Maybe it’s partly just to loosen their fingers while they call the audience back to their seats. The noise from the instruments reminds me of the noise of the audience, now there’s no music.»

The two extended their consciousness to others in the audience as they filled the auditorium again. With no music to focus their thoughts, it was far more of a cacophony in their heads, but the two soon filtered out certain individuals.

«When the music stops, the minds return to the chaos of daily life, » Jaime said.

«Did you catch that?» Keira asked excitedly. «There’s someone, on the far left back. She’s wishing the music would start so all the noise in her head would stop. She’s interested in listening in on one person who is sitting three rows ahead of her.»

«I hear her. She wants everyone else to be quiet, but doesn’t have any filters on what she broadcasts herself. Like I was.»

«The man she’s interested in isn’t a love interest. He’s more of a competitor in business.»

«He uses the concert as a place to think out his strategy and ... an invention that he’s anticipating patenting.»

«She’s going to tell someone all about it. Oh my! She’s a corporate spy! She targets certain people to read their minds and then sells the plans to competitors.»

The conductor returned to the stage to applause and the two teens tried to focus their attention on the first bars of Brahms’ Symphony Number 2. It didn’t take long for the audience to settle and let the music wash away all other thoughts. As the music played, those who had other things on their minds—obsessions—came into clearer focus for Keira and Jaime.

«She’d be a terrible international spy, » Jaime said. «Everything she hears from his mind, she leaks out of hers. She has no concept of other people like her. Should we tell her?»

«I don’t think she believes she’s actually reading his mind. She thinks she’s just really good at reading people’s body language and developing stories about what they are planning. She found out a long time ago that she could sell that information, so she calls herself a professional people watcher.»

About six minutes into the first movement, the timpani rumbled and the little girl with her mother squealed in delight. It was mostly internal, but her mother quickly hushed her. She was bouncing in her seat. Jaime and Keira filtered out the surrounding mental interference and focused on the orchestra. There was another good timpani part before the end of the first movement and they tuned in on the little girl just to share her joy in the big drums.

«The blonde with the golden flute and the sparkly black dress is in love with the conductor, » Jaime suggested. They both focused on her as the second movement started.

«She has all the music memorized and automatically turns the page of her score, but she never takes her eyes off the conductor, » Keira added.

«Is it love like we have?» Jaime asked. «Or is it some connection the music makes between them? It excites her.»

«And him, but he’s got so many bits to attend to. He can’t be so single-minded in his attention as she is.»

«Maybe she just loves the music and he is the embodiment of it.»

«It’s really hard to read the musicians. The music controls them and fills their minds. We can feel her adoration, but we can’t really hear any words, » Keira said.

«Would you be quiet? I just want to listen to the music.»

Jaime and Keira instantly clamped down on all their senses, blocking out the thoughts of anyone else in the auditorium and shielding their thoughts against being read. The mental voice had come from the first row of the balcony and was gone as quickly as it had interjected itself.

Jaime could feel Keira shaking and infused their touch with all his calming energy. Discovering one person in the auditorium who was listening to the thoughts of another had been an exciting moment. But being reprimanded by another listener for making such a psychic racket had shocked them nearly as much as the voice Jaime had heard Thursday night had shocked him.

There was nothing malevolent about this new voice, though. He was irritated, but he might not have even recognized they were communicating with each other. In their intense discussion of the flutist’s love for the conductor, they had allowed their thoughts to leak out. They were supposed to be practicing not letting that happen.

In the third movement, they got their fill of the flutist’s solos and the little girl got all the timpani she could desire. It was an uplifting and dynamic finale. They joined in the applause of the audience and realized when their hands left each other, the intensity of the audience input was muted. The drop in mental volume was almost like muting the television during advertisements.

They linked arms and tried not to speak to each other until they were well away from the concert hall.

«Do you think he identified who we are?» Keira asked when they were on the streetcar headed to Jaime’s house.