Emmanuel, Come.

This is an interactive piece. I invite you to play the accompanying audio when signaled and move slowly as you read, allowing the song and its words to impress their gravity throughout this brief anecdote.

---

Dancing and music and voices and strings and lights and tinsel and sparkles and miming and bopping and reds and blues and pinks and purples and greens and golds and silvers and swinging and bounding and flying and laughing and jumping and spinning and wheels and stretching and folding and falling and catching and clutching and posing and throwing and leaping and...

And then...

The first few violin strokes of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.

(Play and continue reading)

It travels across the now-settled theater air and rings familiar into my ears. The second instrumental Christian advent hymnal to appear in this secular Christmas show. The words echo along to the tune in my head, while I set my eyes on this next act. A rope with a cymbal-sized disc at the end descends above one man who stands center stage. He grips it with both arms at a right angle hold, as it lifts him in the air and he displays gentle feats of strength, illuminated by a single soft light. The myriad of sparkling tinsel behind him fades to invisible amongst the surrounding darkness. The simplest of all the Cirque displays that night--just him, and the rope.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel;

A child. Two rows ahead. He's been fussing on and off for the last hour. He begins to cry again--out of boredom, maybe. Or exhaustion. Or confusion at the darkness, loud noise, and the alternating displays of bright light and movement.

A man. One row ahead. He's a father of older children, seated next to him. He's restrained and disguised his frustration at the fussing child's parents, for allowing the noise to drag on through all the excitement. He can't take it anymore. He leans forward and mutters at a fellow father--the father of the crying child. He expresses his opinion and displeasure with one phrase inaudible to the rows behind.

The younger father barks back. "They're kids, what do you want me to do?"

That mourns in lonely exile here,

Until the Son of God appear.

Sputterings of spite bash between them as their words wrestle beyond hushed tones. The air grows with the venom of stubbornness. Anger. Pride. Vengeance.

The young father, embittered, gathers his family to leave. Following swiftly behind the rest of his family, he is the last to go with a child in his arms. He pauses, leaning down to the older father's ear to exercise, in a whisper, his final blow with a cheap and cutting expletive. As quickly as it was dealt, the older father recoils with the same insult, his children still filling the three chairs beside him.

White noise.

My focus reappoints on the man ascending and descending with elegant artistry, uniting the ground and the apparent heavens. The ugly words I just witnessed collide with the reappearing echo of the song.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

A tightening of my throat accompanies a drop of my own rain sweeping down my cheeks.

REJOICE! REJOICE! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

The man arrives at the floor gracefully for a final time and faces the crowd. An increase of light fades back in. The crowd roars. More beings return to the stage. I see them, but I'm not looking at them.

Emmanuel.

We need You.