Rhythm. You never think about it until you're out of it. You're going along fine and dandy, the back and forth, so very good, then there's this...dissonance. A clang in the middle of a perfectly good harmony. Sometimes it's just a small singularity, a skipped beat, a missed note. Easy enough to pick right back up and keep going along.

But what if the dissonance is something bigger? A complete drop of the entire percussion section, perhaps? Sticks clattering here, cymbals crashing there, drum shells hitting the floor, their skins ripping loudly. And if it was your fault? If you were the one to create the discord? If you were the one that leapt into the orchestra pit and brought destruction into all that beauty, all that synchronicity?

How do you put it to rights? Sure, you pick everything up, everyone up, apologizing as you go. Nodding your head, not looking anyone in the eye. But then what? The dents in the cymbals are easily seen. And there's absolutely no repairing that drum head; it'll have to be replaced. The sheet music is even in disarray, one page open here, another page open there. Some sheets are even on the floor, the musicians' shoeprints marring them as they stumbled out of the way of the cacophony.

So what do you do? What you can, of course. You repair. You replace. You invite the musicians back in, entice them with the choice of another song, another performance, a different tune.

And then you sit your ass down and you wait. You hope. You close your eyes and listen for that first note, that first beat, that first hint of what you lost beginning again.