Blue (4 page)

The music broke into sporadic, booming bass sounds, layered under trickling synthetic effects. Large, gray screens rose up from the floor of the stage, creating a huge wall around the back that angled out at the sides. Inali took the stage, and the auditorium erupted into applause and loud cheers. With the next boom of the bass, an explosion of stars appeared on the screens behind Inali, shattering into pieces as they hit the edges of the screens. Inali let out a loud laugh through the wireless microphone attached to his face, as he stretched his arms out and raised them above his neck.

“Good morning, beautiful people!” Inali yelled as the suspenseful music climaxed into a rhythmic techno beat behind his voice. The crowd laughed at his greeting and cheered louder. Inali laughed again for a few seconds, and the music and cheering faded a bit as he began to speak.

“Good morning, good morning. I wanted to thank all of you for being here, on this beautiful, beautiful morning, to come together to become empowered and energized in our lives, on this wonderful day that we have been given. We have much to celebrate today, and many things to talk about. But as always, let us open our service with a minute of silence to reflect on the positive things that have happened in our lives in the last week, and summon our Power to send out blessings to everyone who is making this service possible this morning. Close your eyes with me and reflect,” Inali said, stretching his arms out again, pulling his chin to his chest and shaking his head. The auditorium grew silent.

At the end of the minute the silence was broken, as always, with the first few notes of the South African anthem fading in. Inali took his place at the center of the stage as the anthem’s introduction began to play.

“Folks, please stand with me and let us join together as we sing
Die Stem,
” Inali said reflectively, as a light appeared to the west side of the stage, revealing a young lady with a microphone.

Die Stem van Sud Afrika,
translated
“The Call of South Africa,
” had been considered the national anthem of South Africa alongside
Nkosi Sikelel,
ever since apartheid officially ended a little over a year ago in 1994. The name of practicing “Blue” was actually pulled from the first lines of
Die Stem
though, so the commissioners usually championed the singing of
Die Stem
over the other well-known anthem.

The introduction ended, and the woman on the stage began to deeply and passionately sing out the lyrics as the auditorium filled with voices singing along:

Ringing out from our Blue heavens,

from our deep seas breaking ‘round,

Over everlasting mountains,

Where the echoing crags resound,

From our plains where creaking wagons

Cut their trails into the earth

Calls the spirit of our country

Of the land that gave us birth.

Anytha sang along to the first verse, and slowly let her lips lose the song as the verses went on. She began to look around her at the congregants in the rows, singing passionately of their country and their dedication to its prosperity. She looked upon the unwavering faces of her parents, who sang as loudly as possible beside her. She looked upon the faces of all the people around her and met no sets of eyes. Not one eye in the auditorium was focused anywhere but on the flag. She seemed to be the only pair of wandering eyes in the entire auditorium.

As the anthem ended, the spotlight landed on Commissioner Inali in the middle of the stage. And his soliloquy began.

“I want everyone to close their eyes and breathe with me. Go ahead, nobody is going to be looking at you,” Inali said, causing a short chuckle to ripple through the seats.

“Now, I want you to think of the most powerful experience that you have ever had. I want you to turn your eyes into your head and search for the most emotion you have ever felt. A time when tears fell, and either darkness or light overtook you. For some of you, it might be a near-death experience. For some of you, it may have been a miracle. For some of you, it may have been the birth of a child, or falling in love. For some of you, it may have been landing your dream job. Find the moment when Power overtook you. Find the moment that you felt the most powerful. Recall that moment, and recall what you felt,” Inali said in a rhythmic, steady, pulsing tone, and then paused for a few seconds to let the congregation catch up.

“Recall what your hands were doing. Recall how your muscles reacted. Recall how your face decided to react. Remember the stance you found yourself in. Remember the setting. Remember the smells. Remember what you heard. Dig into your mind and taste that moment again. Taste it,” Inali demanded.

Anytha sat, leaning forward with her arms holding onto her seat as if she were sitting on a wire. With her eyes closed, she turned her thoughts over and over again trying to pick out a moment that she felt particularly empowered, but couldn’t muster much more than daydreams. She always felt that when she tried to focus on one thing, it only led her mind to grow branches and leaves from the nothingness in the bottom of her thoughts. She pressed her eyes together, as if the strain would let memories return to her, but nothing came except for the curvy, blossoming lines of nature.

She racked her mind for the moment in her life that she felt the most empowered, and could think of nothing but a sweet moment that she experienced on a weekend trip her family took to Tugela Falls the previous spring. She tried to savor the moment again, as Inali was instructing them to do. She remembered the smile that crept across her face, and the wonder that flooded her mind as she stared out over the edge of South Africa’s largest waterfall. She remembered the roar of the water rushing over the side of the cliff, sounding like a thousand engines muffled by a flood. She remembered the smell of the mountain spring, and the mist that would wander up from the falls to the shelf where she stood, gazing over the edge in utter disbelief. Yes, this was where she felt the most empowered in her entire life—in awe of the world that she lived in.

Anytha felt the smile flood across her face again at the memory of this moment, and it was as if she could almost feel the moisture in the air around her for a moment. The muscles in her eyes relaxed from their squinting, exploring nature, and her chest felt that it was being emptied slowly of all its air. Even remembering that moment slowly took her breath away.

Since Inali’s instructions, music had begun to play from the speakers stacked around the room. A bubbling, trickling, contemplative piece, with crescendos and decrescendos that flowed like the sound of the falls over the side of the cliff. Anytha felt her mind drift back into the room, and she opened her eyes to see everyone else, still with their eyes closed and heads bowed.

She always seemed to come back into the room, into her mind, before everyone else did in their meditative portion of the camp meetings. Her eyes reverted to the screens behind Inali that had filled with shifting videos of children dancing in a field of wildflowers, toddlers blowing bubbles, and a young couple wrapped in each other’s warm embrace on the side of a flower-lined brick bridge. The videos were played on the screens during meditation, for any newcomers that might feel uncomfortable meditating for an extended period of time—or obviously, for young women that couldn’t seem to stay inside of their own minds for as long as was required. Anytha enjoyed watching the happy folks on the screens for a moment before everyone else came back into the room from inside of their minds. She wondered if her mother or father even knew that the videos ever played.

The video faded into a swirling stream of stretching lines, and the lights rotated around to spotlight Inali again in the center of the stage. The music faded into silence, and Inali broke the moment with a soft voice.

“Thank you for freeing your minds with me. Let’s now turn our attention to the drama team as they use their powerful talent. They will inspire us and make us aware of types of scenarios we are trying to prevent in the coming months, with the support of new laws in our precious nation.”

Large screens came down from the ceiling to the left and right of the stage, as all the lights in the auditorium faded down to blackness. The room was completely dark, and the screens from the ceiling and around the stage sharply turned to black and white static, like on an old, broken TV screen. Synthetic, dark, lingering music began to build up from what seemed like the floor, and the spotlights turned on quickly, focusing on one corner of the stage.

The light revealed a woman, frozen in the corner of the stage, wearing an all-white bodysuit covering her from head to foot and a flowy white skirt tied around her waist. As the music played a repetitive booming pair of bass notes, she spun around quickly and reached down to pick up a board with the word “CITIZEN” blazoned on the side in red ink. She spun back and dramatically placed it back down on the floor and froze, leaning toward the other side of the stage. The spotlight turned off abruptly, as the room went dark with the same loud, booming bass sounds. A light appeared on the other corner of the stage, exposing a man wearing an all-black bodysuit from head to toe. He was seated on a bench with his elbows on his knees and his head down, hands clasped behind his head. He shook his head back and forth dramatically, as if he was crying, and then sharply sat up and looked upward. The spotlight shut off, and the screens flashed “1970” in bright white letters. Fireworks exploded from the front of the stage as the music hit a low, lingering bass note. Slowly, the screen flashed “1971,” then “1972,” then “1973,” and steadily increased in number. Every new number on the screen was accompanied by what sounded like synthetic cannon fire.

Anytha watched intently as the numbers rose on the screens. When the screen read “1976,” the spotlights flashed on, revealing a crowd of people dressed in black bodysuits, lying in the center of the stage covered in little red cloths that Anytha knew were meant to symbolize blood. The screen behind the stage became bludgeoned with bullet holes as what sounded like gunshots rang through the speakers. Anytha immediately knew it was supposed to symbolize the Soweto Massacre that she had learned about in history class. Right as she made this connection, the lights shut off again abruptly, and the screens began to tick the years away again.

As the years on the screen increased, so did the intensity of the music. Sporadically as the numbers rose, the spotlights would turn on revealing a dramatic depiction of some terrible event that had happened in South Africa’s history in that year. As the numbers rose, the speed between the years began to increase, and the pulse of the cannon turned into a simple rhythmic and steady sound.

The screens reached “1994,” and then flashed a picture of the inside of the auditorium, as tiny yellow, flickering lights began to spark up on the floor beside each row of seats, starting from the back of the room and slowly making their way toward the stage. They seemed to get brighter as they danced like candlelight beside the rows. Anytha looked down to the floor beside her to see their section float by like a passing candle. When the lights hit the stage, an explosion that seemed much too big for indoor safety erupted from the edges, and the spotlights revealed seven actors on the stage dressed in all the different colors of the South African flag. Each of them was holding a sign with a letter painted on it in bright colors, spelling out the word “FREEDOM,” symbolizing the ending of Apartheid.

The crowd exploded in cheers, either for freedom itself, or for the shear impressiveness of the show being put on. As the actors with the signs danced to the upbeat music, the lights faded and there was a loud screeching sound, like one of a microphone feeding back. The lights on the stage faded down, and the light on the side of the stage illuminated the man dressed in black.

“Are WE really free?” he screamed in a thundering, desperate voice into his microphone, as the spotlight turned off, and the lights on the stage rose again.

The actors holding the signs had raised them far above their heads and lowered them down in unison, bending their knees a little and bending over at the waist and lowering their heads. From behind them seven actors in black bodysuits jumped and flipped over their hunched bodies in one swoop, snatching their signs out of their hands and flipping them around. They revealed the word “CITIZEN,” as the music boomed a final time and the lights went dark.

The crowd roared at the production as Inali took the stage again, clapping his hands and letting out whistles of praise to the drama team.

“Thank you, drama team, you have succeeded at providing us with a moving experience once again. Your talents are greatly appreciated. Give it up for our talented drama team, everyone!” Inali yelled, clapping his hands again as the crowd roared.

“Thank you, thank you, drama team, for giving such a great picture to us of one of the laws that we have diligently fought for in the past year. For those of you who don’t know the good news, the South African Citizenship Act was signed last week, and all races now have the same level of citizenship as South African citizens! The Law is Preeminent! Let us rejoice in this victory! We earned it!” Inali said, smiling and pointing out across the applauding audience.

“Now, I know that the Citizenship Act was taking up many of your service hours in the last year, and I wanted to issue a new focal point for some of you in our congregation who feel the pull on your heart to devote your energy and power to this cause. Many of you know that there have been talks in recent years regarding the legalization of the choice of termination of pregnancy. We, as the Practice of Blue, have decided to support the Choice initiative, and we need people to sign up to take on this cause and dedicate service hours to seeing it pass. It is only a matter of time until South Africa will catch up with the other modernized countries of the world, so we don’t expect the gestation period of this law to be much longer than another year or so. Are you one that will stand up for the right of women everywhere, to have control over their own bodies and no longer have to take harmful, desperate measures to continue following her dreams? If you think that you are, please raise your hand and a decree will come by to give you an information packet,” Inali explained.