The laser set
A guitarist who plays with his back to the lights, and a room that watches the rays instead of him.
- Where
- A basement club, Leipzig
- When
- What lit it
- Green lasers through haze
- Reading
- 1 minute
He asked for the haze machine to be turned up until the front row could not see him. What they saw was the light: green lines that started behind his shoulders and ended somewhere over the bar.
The club is a cellar that was a coal store once, low enough that the tall ones duck under the pipes. The lasers came from a friend who builds them in a garage, and who stood by the desk all night with his hand over the switch, as if they might get away.
The songs were quiet ones. Every time he changed a chord the lasers moved a few degrees, and the room moved with them, heads tilting to follow a line that was no longer there.
I stand where the light starts. That is the best seat in the house.
Afterwards someone asked him why he hides.
Nobody filmed much. It is hard to film haze; the phones saw a grey fog with a man-shaped hole in it, and put them away again.
At the end the haze machine was turned off first. For a minute the lines hung in what was left of it, thinner and thinner, until there was only a guitarist in a cellar, bowing, a little surprised to be seen.
Photo: Pexels
