For Elise

A trifle

AI-generated image, edited by the author

I stood at the edge of the stage and took my bow, as I had done many times before. Theater an der Wien had been my home almost as long as Vienna herself. The smoky exhalations of the audience perfumed the cavernous space with expectation and judgment.

Audience: A useful abstraction of a thousand messy lives — a single organism that emits applause for me and my work. Though I could no longer hear it, I…