(c) Shawn Bird 2009  No copies permitted without permission.

        The first time I saw Ben Butler in this lifetime, I was fourteen.  I was in grade ten. He was in grade twelve.   I had just settled on the floor in the band room to do my math homework like the dweeb I was, waiting for Christie to finish her thirty minutes of flute practice time.  It was Friday after school, and we were going to go shopping and see a movie when she was done.  She’d just started playing her scales when I’d heard a rolling laughter as he walked into the room, still chuckling over something someone had just said to him in the hall.  

“Hey Ben,” said Mr Johnson, “I switched you to room three today.  The keyboard is out for repairs in room two, so I let the flute in there.  Can you just use the piano today?”

        “Sure thing! Thanks Mr. J!” he’d called across to the teacher, walking right into the practice room without a second look, actually not even really a first look, at me, my binder and text book spread out on the grey carpet just left of his practice room door.  Glancing up from my books, I had just enough of a glimpse of him to register an average height, average looking guy with light brown hair in a blue plaid shirt as he stepped into the small practice room I was leaning against.  Nothing extraordinary at all.  Nothing worth noticing in the least.  Just another band geek to pass in the halls.  

Until the music started.  

I have wondered often since that moment, had Ben Butler been playing oboe or tuba that day, whether my world would have just continued in the same orbit it had been on for the previous fourteen years?  Maybe my life would have remained my own if it was trombone or sousaphone or any number of nice, nerdy, safe band instruments that he was practising.  Surely a xylophone could not have reprogrammed my body?  Then again, if Ben was the one playing there was no way to know my visceral response.  With my luck, even a piccolo would have destroyed my equilibrium and changed my life.  Ben Butler seemed to play me, more than any instrument.  Freaky thought.  Scarily true, as it turned out.

He had played one rapid set of scales up and down and then my happy little high school world inextricably changed forever.  My back against the wall of his practice room was absorbing the waves of sound as his fingers flew up and down the keys of the old upright piano.  I could suddenly visualize… what?... Everything.  Expansiveness.  Eternity.  I felt myself being pulled away from the world of math (okay- not a hard thing to do) into a swirling vortex of sound.  The music was somehow weaving a story, and it was as if a movie started playing in my head.  I saw silhouettes of a couple running along a beach, talking in a car, rolling down a hillside, dining at a restaurant….  I began to get dizzy from the racing images, my head rolling with the swirling music.  I remember wondering vaguely if the chicken burger I’d had in the cafeteria at lunch might have been off since my whole body seemed to be shivering and convulsing.  I was drowning in music.

        “Grace?  Grace! Are you okay?”

        Christie’s concerned voice pulled me back to the world.  I blinked at the bright lights and sudden change in my vision.  “I…  Yeah...  I…”  I couldn’t seem to form words.  I just looked up at her blankly, feeling suspiciously like someone had pulled me out of a lake, like I was fighting for air or life.

        Christie looked behind her and called out across the room, “Mr J!  Something’s wrong with Grace!”

        I groaned.  Nothing was wrong with me.  Well, I didn’t think anything was wrong with me, but then again, I wasn’t exactly feeling like my body and brain were cohabitating, either.  What was happening to me?

        Mr. Johnson hurried over looking alarmed.  “What’s wrong?  What happened to her?”

        Christie shook her head, “I don’t know.  I finished my practice time and when I came out of the room, there she was looking like, like…” words seemed to fail her, “…like this!” she finished, sweeping her hand toward me in a rather overly-dramatic motion.  I remember thinking, Come on Christie- do I really look that bad?

        Mr. J seemed quite undecided about what he should do about this strange quivering creature at his feet, but at that moment I realised that the music from Ben’s piano had stopped.  Silence.  As if released, I inhaled deeply and instantly I felt my head clearing.

        I smiled up at them with an apologetic smile and found I had my voice again.  “I’m okay, I just had a dizzy spell.  It must have been something I ate.”  My mind clicked in alarm: Christie had finished her practice time?  Where had I been for half an hour?!  I looked at my math.  I’d written two questions on the page.  The second one wasn’t finished.  

        Neither Christie nor Mr J looked particularly convinced that I was really okay.  They seemed to be deliberating about their next course of action when Ben opened the door of the practice room.

        “Is everything all right?  What’s going on?”  He looked at them and then down to me.  When he registered me, he did a double take and his eyes narrowed slightly.  

What was that about?  I looked up into his shockingly blue eyes and felt the world spin again.

        “Grace isn’t well,” said Christie.  Her doubt at my claim of being okay was apparent.

        “Here Grace,” said Ben with a smile, reaching his hand out to me, “can you stand up?”  He said my name with familiarity, comfortably.  He was reaching out like we’d been friends for years.

        I looked at the hand and back to his face in confusion.  His eyes seemed outwardly as concerned as Christie and Mr J, but then behind the concern I saw something else. Was that a twinkle of amusement there?  His mouth twitched just a little and I saw he was fighting a smirk.  Damn him.  He was amused!  Who was he to laugh at me?! I looked away thinking his hand was the last one I’d ever use to help me stand, and attempted to heave myself up on my own.  Damn musicians!  My mother was right, nothing but trouble!  I wobbled and both Mr J and Christie moved as if to catch me if I fell.  Before they could grab me I felt a firm grip on my elbows as Ben said, “Whoa there, dearie.  Gotcha!  Stand up slowly.”  Mr. J and Christie relaxed their posture and Mr. J unstacked a sturdy blue band chair and set it near me.

“Sit down Grace, and put your head between your legs.”

Ben gently guided me down onto the chair; as he settled me down he was between me and the others, and leaning in ever so slightly he whispered softly into my right ear so that only I could hear, “I’m sorry, Grace.”

        Sorry?  Sorry for what?  Sorry for offering his hand? Sorry for being amused at my expense?  Sorry for my obvious mortification? Sorry for drowning me in music?  My head was between my knees, (I was sure to be making a stunning first impression on him with my butt in the air like this) but I tilted my head and met his eyes again.  He was squatting beside me, watching me carefully.  What was going on here?

        His eyes were clear and calm this time, but genuinely troubled.  There was no amusement lurking in their depths any more, but there was definitely a concern well out of proportion to what I thought he should show a dizzy girl he didn’t even know.  As that thought passed through my mind, I saw something else flicker behind his eyes.

        Someone he didn’t even know?  

        But he did know me, didn’t he?

I knew him.

        How did I know him?  

Why did I know him?

Because at that moment had the craziest sensation that I did know Ben Butler, and that I'd known him forever.  Why?  I looked into his eyes again searching for some explanation.  Instantly I was drowning once more, this time not in the music, but in the clear blue of his eyes, and suddenly the awareness was right there.  I recognised him from…….. where?  Just as I was within reach of the knowledge, everything went black.