FEATUR E STORY
They all looked in wonder at the moon. by Member Louis A Coutts
I am not sure if other people have an experience that frequently visits me. Someone says something or I read something and suddenly a train of thought locomotes itself through my brain and I end up in a space that has absolutely nothing to do with what the person said or what I read. And so it was that recently, in my insomniacal state I was gazing out of my bedroom window and contemplating the spectacle of a full moon which seemed to be peering at me with all its immense luminosity. At that very point, a message appeared on my phone. It was from my son in Japan, and it contained a picture of the very moon that was holding me in its spell. Underneath the photo, my son quoted Neil Diamond “And they all looked in wonder at the moon”. And that is when my thought train took off. I was suddenly in Columbus circle opposite to the entrance of Central Park in New York on a hot humid evening. The humidity was so intense that it seemed to form an invisible amphitheatre populated by an audience enchanted by the music of a young man with a guitar playing all the wonderful songs of Paul Simon. “Sounds of silence”, “Mrs Robinson”, “Bridge over troubled waters”, “slip sliding away”, “I am a Rock”, “Homeward bound”, “Scarborough Fair” and I can’t remember what else. Song after song, sung beautifully by this lone guy with his guitar. The sounds of the music echoed off the pressing atmosphere and remained trapped in our magical invisible theatre.
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Several hundred of people were captivated by to this magic and no one uttered a sound as though this huge City no longer existed. The audience, like me, was mesmerised by this talented young man who completely mastered the purity and simplicity of the music of Paul Simon. At times I had the feeling that I was alone in the audience, standing on the warm bitumen and that this guy was playing and singing only for me. He created such an exquisite sense of intimacy with his audience. Sadly, he finally finished what seemed to be an endless repertoire and the crowd, after dutifully expressing their gratitude with dollar notes, faded away into the night of this enigmatic city. But having so beautifully disturbed my night, the train kept going and I found myself beyond the moon and alone in the universe somewhere in the galaxy of Andromeda, about two million light years from earth. I wished I was Neil Diamond or Paul Simon or even John Denver so I could translate into music this feeling of dumbfounding awe in the presence of billions of galaxies like our own milky way and trillions of stars like our sun as they crushed the boundaries of our universe at speeds which some calculate to be close to the speed of light. Out here in the universe, unhindered by human interference or malevolence I felt that I was seeing reality for the first time. This was nature performing its celestial acts according to ancient and immutable laws. The magnitude and enormity of these nuclear power houses defied any
