A swelling ripple appeared just below the top soil of the land and the resulting wake that thundered across the ground punted the dirt high into the air. The elephants stood on their hind legs with their trunks outstretched to the sky in a quiet expectancy. The crowd murmured nervously as the lights softened. Words that seemed lost in time were trickling back into the atmosphere as the ringmaster stepped forward to conclude the introduction. “So without further ado, may I introduce to you Ellegoria!” The cannons fired and a sound like the swell of a tide filled the air. Ellegoria stepped out of the smoke like a goddess and drew a breath that seemed to capture the earth’s entire supply of oxygen. The crowd sat motionless with their eyes, and indeed their souls, fixed on the goddess before them. She exhaled with a mighty wind that consumed the tent. Butterflies appeared from the depths of her breath and soared like eagles to the tops of the trapeze. There, they entered back into the cocoons from which they had surfaced transformed years before. The swell of sound grew louder for a number of moments as the universe hovered, frozen in eternity. Forms slowly became visible inside the cocoons. Hands began clawing their way out of the silky nests. In a parade of short minutes, mere men stood free of the cocoons from which they had emerged, armed with instruments and the cunning use of words to free mankind from the grips of the device that bound it since its birth. The crowd erupted and horns sounded. A chant of, “woot, woot,” filled the grounds. The band stepped away from their cocoons, shouldered their instruments, and the music began. . .