The curtain falls

Darkness ensues

The audience waits

Entranced

Holding breaths

Until the magic begins

The story unfolds

Holding enraptured

The captives

As they follow every word

Action

Song

Trying to memorize everything

For the future

To be able to express how they felt

What they saw

The experience of it all

Except for one lonely man

Sitting in the balcony

So high up that all he sees are the tops of heads

He understands that something

Great is happening below

But he cannot appreciate it

Because he cannot see

He hears the words, the music

But it bears no meaning without sight

When the show is over

When the man is asked about the play

He understands that he missed

A key point

That he takes from the experience

A limited perspective

But to him, it is everything

And so he talks as an expert

Who has witnessed an inferior production

As someone with knowledge in the arts

And disparages the quality of the show

The value for his money

And yearns for the way it used to be

When theater was great.