The idea for this story came to me as I was writing a review of a Vienna Choir Boys concert that I had recently attended. On the way to the concert, I had narrowly missed being hit by a semi-trailer truck. This story, therefore, is how I would have attended the concert had that actually happened.

Choir of Angels

The Vienna Choir Boys perform this evening. I've had my ticket for over a month, ever since the first hour of the first day that tickets went on sale. Since then not a moment has passed that I haven't fantasized about the concert. This evening I am driving straight from work to the concert hall, not taking time to go home first, not even stopping for a bite of supper. Rain makes the freeway traffic especially hazardous. All four lanes in each direction are bumper to bumper, and traffic is moving faster than the posted speed limit.

A car zips past me, darts recklessly from one lane to another, and cuts in front of a trailer-tractor truck. Suddenly, as though a monster had been let loose, the orange-and-black van swerves to miss the car, and jack-knives across several lanes.

Everything before my windshield turns to slow motion. I see a molasses-like kaleidoscopic blur and hear a drawn-out wrinkling sound, like an empty can being gradually crushed, as cars and lighter trucks all around me pile slowly into each other. It crosses my mind that, come hell or high water, nothing and nobody can keep me from the Vienna Choir Boys concert.

Standing at the outer door of the concert hall, I tell myself that what happened on the way to the concert doesn't matter. Had I remained at the scene, I could never have made it to the concert in time. As it is, I'm arriving just as the doors open, allowing me to enter with the rush of other patrons, all flowing together as water through a sluice gate.

In the confusion I can't find my ticket. Fortunately the usher, distracted, lets me slip past unnoticed. I don't need to be guided to my seat anyway, since I know exactly where it is. I had to move heaven and earth to get this seat, but it's the best one in the house, in the very center of the first row.

As I pass through the inner door of the concert hall, I reach for a program, but it slips through my hands. No matter. I can't read it in such dim light, and I'm too excited to do so anyway. In my collection at home I have every Vienna Choir Boys recording available for the past ten years, so I know by heart most of the selections the boys will sing.

My neck may stiffen as I stare up at the stage, but it will be worth it. Here, nothing will escape me. I hope to observe every nuance of facial expression, every blink of sparkling eye, every smile. I expect that the glorious, angelic music will wash over me, refresh me, provide cool ambrosia for my thirsty soul.

As the time approaches for the concert to begin, a sudden hush, then a heavy silence falls on the audience. I hear a soft whir of light feet as twenty-four Austrian choir boys, ranging in age from nine to fourteen, in sailor suits, file onto the stage. Their Kapellmeister follows, a young man wearing a black tuxedo with tails. He bows before sitting down at the piano.

I stand up when the audience bursts into applause and a woman squeezes into my seat as if it were unoccupied. With nowhere to sit, I am standing as the choir boys begin to sing. No matter—the sublime sound seems to pull me into it. I feel that the power of the music has lifted me entirely off my feet and into realms that are not of this world. The harmonies are so lovely that it is almost more than I can bear. I momentarily lose track of where I am or what I'm doing. I have to struggle to maintain consciousness, to keep from fainting dead away.

How I managed to get up on the stage without the audience or Kapellmeister spotting me, I don't know. At the moment I am hiding behind two choir boys. Although they pretend not to notice, they must be aware of me, since I am practically breathing down their necks.

Gliding behind the alto and treble rows of the choir, I marvel at the individual timbres in the harmonious mix of voices, as though the music were making visible the rainbow concealed in white light. The sound sparkles through my soul, restoring my spirit.

I turn to gaze at the altos standing on the raised platform behind me. What professionals these boys are! They take no notice of me, maintaining constant eye contact with their Kapellmeister, whose face beams with the love he obviously feels for each and every one of them.

Slipping past the altos and back to the row of trebles, I move beside a small boy with light blue eyes. The boy is about ten, with a high, piping voice that enthralls me. I compress myself and sense that I have somehow merged into his sailor suit and become him. I have the odd feeling that he and I are so much the same that his blood flows through my veins, his heart beats in my chest, his eyes that stare with undivided attention at the Kapellmeister are my eyes, and the hands clasped so urgently behind his back are my hands. Strangest of all, I feel that the gloriously pure sound emanating from this boy's vocal chords is coming as much from me as from him.

Through the remainder of the concert I move among and through the choir boys. Concealing myself from the audience as I slip into one and out the other, acquiring an altogether different perspective on the choir and the music from anything I had previously thought or imagined.

I discover that I am part and parcel of every boy in the choir, every note that is sung is my note and part of me, just as the music of the twenty-four boys echoes the complicated harmony of my soul. At the end of the concert, when at the signal of the Kapellmeister the choir boys take their final bow of the evening, I bow also, for I feel that this has been as much my concert as theirs.

For an instant I am back to the terrible wreckage of trucks and automobiles on the freeway, standing beside a twisted car the same make and color as my own. I hear an emergency medical attendant say to a highway patrolman, as though referring to me, "This one's gone." Thinking that no remark could be more absurd or beside the point than this, I smile at the medical attendant's foolishness. "Not so much gone as on the go," I say.

Reflecting that I have important things to do and "miles to go before I sleep," I find myself standing outside the concert hall in the crisp night air surrounded by a crowd of sleepy choir boys. Stepping after them into the tour bus, I see that every seat is occupied, but I manage to slide in beside the ten-year-old with the piping voice. As the bus pulls away from the curb, I reflect that no concert I have ever attended has turned out as well as this one.

Experiencing the greatest bliss of my life, I begin to understand the unexpected possibilities that have suddenly awakened within me. I reflect that now can be always, that the glorious music of these boys can be mine forever. I realize that I can join these angels for the remainder of their concert tour, and even return with them to their famous school at the Augarten Palace in Vienna. I feel as if I had died and gone to heaven.