Top-Sellers Banquet

On the ridge there's a camera
And a DP framing the shot
Of a hillside at twilight
And a country club on top
In the foreground there's a paved road lit
By the black cars splitting the night
Tunneled headlights burned in the darkness
Move the camera to the banquet hall

Where they all arrive in turn
Give their coats to a man at the door
They come for a dinner planned
In their honor all here top-sellers for the year on the list
On the far side by a glass wall
At a table the executives sit
They watch people coming in on a pilgrimage
There's a slow pan pull the camera back

Let it linger hanging over the room
Let the viewer feel the heat of the light on the screen coming through

And they're all in awe of it here standing with the pyramid tip above
Shift the focus on each entering guest like some television wedding event
They come in to the hall and almost kneel on the ground in suits and jewels and diamond ball gowns
Praise Jesus for the gospel of more for the kingdom of eternal reward and the camera tilts

An announcement made, a welcome, thanks, your seats, please and we'll start
It's good to see or to meet you to celebrate the year that we've had
They'll serve dinner soon, enjoy your drinks, the ensemble starts to play
Move the camera now from the hallway out, shoot the dancers from in back of the line

One by one going into the room keep the camera close follow behind
Floating weightless between tables we change focus crossing paths
All their guests hold their phones out, no one notices the flash all around
Pass through glass and showed the hillside glowing white right before there was sound

And a hush fell all around in the room gone pitch black
But for the glow of their phones in their hands
And they wondered had the power gone out
Why they couldn't hear anything in the dark that surrounded them
Not a sound made and nothing came out when they opened up their mouths
You could sense how they felt in the expressions revealed by the screens

It was a dancer they discovered first between tables in the hall near the center
Frozen in her pose mid-jump suspended in the air
In the corner all the players in their chairs with their bows mid-stroke
And the servers too, scattered like a statuary in a garden or a tomb
Motionless each of them, except for the guests and the executives still seated at their table at the front end of the room

Then from the ceiling came a tunnel of light settled downward on the dancer in the air
Still floating with her legs outstretched in a leap above them
They saw her fingers moving first then her eyes blinking softly in the brightness
And the guests stood dumbstruck watching in awe her return as if unthawing back to life
Floated slowly, going weightlessly up through the chandeliers above
Through the roofbeams then out, disappearing through the ceiling in the night

And another one fell downward on a dancer by the hall door
And another one fell downward on a cellist in his chair
And another on a server, and another on a valet
On another dancer, and another, and they all begin rising skyward
And the camera starts to rise skyward with them
Where its lens fixed downward at the room shows guests in horror pull out their hair
And the head table in the center carries on
Eating and drinking and talking as if entirely unfazed
And the camera rises through the ceiling
And the shot widens as it climbs
And we see in all directions long beams everywhere to the ground
Where bodies inside smile at music only they can hear
At a thousand voices singing in their ears
At the warmth of the light on their skin
And on the ground people weep
Gnash their teeth, burn their belongings
And we see everything around rising upward
Until the camera goes grey in the clouds
Until the camera goes grey in the clouds
Until the camera goes black
Until the film cuts
Until it ends without credits
And there's nobody left to see