The Voice.(Kevin Hughes) Twenty thousand people grew quiet. The Superstar on Stage stopped singing. The Band behind her…one of the best collections of Musicians anywhere outside only the best Recording Studio…kept playing. They heard what she heard. What the Crowd heard. They wanted to hear more…so they played on.

A small ring opened around a slender young man, less than six feet tall. He was the epicenter of everyone’s attention. His eyes were closed. A strand of shoulder length hair blew carelessly across is face. He was relaxed with his head tilted up.

The sound poured out.

She put her microphone back in its stand. She sat on the front row of Monitors. Like the rest of the Crowd, she closed her eyes and listened. The band played on, eyes wide and wet, Music had always moved them…always. This…this was different. Notes were so filled with emotion that the voice or timbre couldn’t be nailed down. Was it Soul? Country? R&B? Jazz? Opera? You couldn’t pin it down to any genre…they were mere labels…this needed no category other than Beautiful.

Notes that floated like dust motes made a gentle trill at the top of tones Sopranos became famous for singing just once…he was doing it again and again. Notes would soar to the edge of even the most sensitive of ears, then drop. Tumbling down to crash through baritones into the Bass. Always with perfect control and each note packed with the history of all the singers who had come before…and made that song their own.

And still the sound poured out.

The Documentary Crew, here to Film the Superstar on Tour, no longer had a single camera on her. Like everyone else, they had been drawn to the small empty circle around one young man. Once they were focused, and the sound crew got even closer to the slender young man with a face full of grace, the Camera Crew closed their eyes. They had no need to focus their eyes on him, they needed to focus on the sounds they were hearing. And they did.

People with perfect pitch, at first, or the Musicians with refined relative pitch, started to look for flaws. Flats, sharps, interrupted keys, there was none of that. Not one note that wasn’t sung exactly the way it should have been in a perfect world. Within minutes, even the most cynical pedantic Voice Coach or Professional Singer, was swept away with the music. No longer a critic, or wanting to critique. Merely a person privileged to hear what was sung, and the way it was sung.

Hands reached for hands. On stage, the Band had finally quit playing. He had gone beyond their abilities. The simply drifted from their instruments to the front of the stage to join the Superstar sitting on the front monitors. Like the crowd, they unconsciously found a way to hold hands, or place a hand on a shoulder, or lean against one another. No one could stand alone under the power of that voice.

More sound poured out.

Hearts and ears gave way to souls freed from the limits of what ever held them back. Quiet sobs, murmurs of prayers, even whispered exclamations of:”Oh, my God, or Sweet Jesus” acted in perfect harmony to the now swaying crowd. Twenty thousand people with their eyes closed, mimicked the Superstar and her band, and the forty or so techies on the MainStage…eyes closed, tears streaming, and the need for Human touch to brace one the constant onslaught of Angelic Song.

And still the sound grew.

And then. Silence. The silence at the end of a miracle.

The young man opened his eyes. He looked across the crowd to the Superstar who had just opened her eyes. He smiled at her. She smiled back…saluting him with her microphone. He nodded back a shy glimpse of pride in his manner…and thanked her. The Crowd parted as the young man walked out of the Stadium. Everyone let him go. He was to valuable to touch. He just faded through the throngs of people and drifted out into the night.

The Band went back to reclaim their instruments and pack them away. The Superstar handed her mic to a techie, with still drying tears on her eyes. Like all the rest of the Stage Personnel and the band, she had no words. She was grateful. Thankful. She had heard him sing. It would change her forever. Just like it did for everyone else. She felt both humble and proud. The sound of his voice still echoing in her mind, her soul was still soaring.

The Documentary Crew only made one copy of what they managed to get on tape. They gave that to the Superstar. They never released the Master. No one who was there would need it, no one who wasn’t would believe it. Rumor has it that they were offered millions to release it to the Public. They never did. She played her tape every once in a while. After her Divorce. After her Daughter’s bout in rehab. In both cases, their souls were rendered whole again. She would never marry again- until she met a humble carpenter who came to fix her stairs.. Her daughter stayed sober the rest of her life. Such was the power of that performance.

Somewhere, out in the middle of nowhere. A not so young, but still slender man, stood on the side of a hill …and sang. Sheep, deer, foxes, bears, and the myriad of small furry and feathered creatures in that valley crept closer to hear the sound. Animals that at any other time would be prey…or predator…stayed neutral in order to draw closer to the sound.

Night came as his voice stilled, the creatures of the Forest melded back into the woods. The wolves bowed in the direction of the sheep, turned and melted away. The sheep didn’t even bleat as they began the walk down the hill. Behind them, the slender old man used his walking stick to help navigate the rocky path.

The quiet was nature’s applause. Once the slender old man was out of sight, the creatures of the night began to make their own noise…a bit more muted, and those creatures that had eyes…had wide moist eyes still. For they had heard him sing.

Later, all the animals, birds, and things that lived would settle down as a blanket of memory let them be glad they heard him sing.

They had heard the Voice.

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