The Ballroom

The ball is in full swing. The music swells and flows as couples swirl together on complicated patterns. The pianoforte, cornopean, flute and violins make a harmonious sound a they play a mixture of traditional quadrilles and other patterns interspersed with more modern, more scandalous music like waltzes. Even rarer, a Highland reel can be heard, leading to raucous laughter as the eject couples attempt the complicated patterns. Other sounds like the clicking of glasses float around the musicians' music, sometimes complementing but more often competing as lemonade and wine are consumed by those gathered.

Young girls wait nervously with their chaperones, hoping desperately to be chosen to dance, and groups of girls stand in groups giggling and pointing at the eligible young men, choosing which one they prefer over the others. The officers, dressed proudly in their regimentals are the choice of many gathered; indeed, many of the girls had begged their mothers for new dresses in colours that would flatter the richly coloured, carmine uniforms. Every so often, a Scotsman in his brightly coloured kilt draws their eyes with his bare, shapely calves; the most bold of these might dare a quick wink if the chaperones are not looking or, not commonly, pretending not to notice.

The brightly coloured dresses of pink and soft blue and mauve and buttery yellow swirl around the men's dark suits and vivid crimson uniforms. Each gown is adorned with flowers, either silk or, when afforded, natural, and their conflicting perfumes, competing already with the flower water perfumes and bay rum colognes that the men wear create a cloying environs, even in the spaciousness of the grand ballroom. Even on the periphery of the room, colourful flocks of women with their decorative feathers, delicate flowers, and flashing beads and jewels making them look like birds gathered in a menagerie.

Gasps as the matrons gossip, the young girls and couples laugh amongst themselves, young lovers whisper and conspire to find some privacy against their elders' careful eye, and the murmur of general conversation ebb and flows with the music. Through the general cacophany, no one conversation can be clearly heard, but certain words are more easily through the general noise. "Beautiful," "handsome," "dance," "I cannot believe...," "indeed," "after last time...," "how shocking," "quite wonderful, really," "oh, but my dear Mrs-," and "quite so," are amongst the common phrases that can be discerned through the din.

Throughout all of this chaotic elegance and beauty, the attendants of the technology conference sit dumbfounded. Confusion, disbelief, shock, and awe cover the faces of the gathered tech specialists, engineers, and other industry insiders. The keynote speaker, who had only just begun her speech, just stands in shock as the violin concert master stands directly in the middle of her podium as he conducts the musicians that are suddenly surrounding her. Their music is real, vibrant and loud, as it cuts through the air around her.

At the tables that dot the ballroom, the other attendees sit as ghostly couples waltz through them, the cold wind whipping throughing their bodies as the well-dressed dancers complete their prescribed patterns across the floor, unheeding the people whose bodies they dance through. The sudden cold causes many of the people, dressed in thin blouses or button up shirts or even some in tee-shirts, polos or dresses to shiver in the once-overly warm room. Their silence is a direct contrast to the whispers and murmurs that come from the interlopers.

Then, as suddenly as they appeared, they vanish; the sounds, sights, and smells of the dancers and their wall-flowers and their matrons and spinster aunts and jovial fathers and uncles and the old battle-horses and bragarts all vanish leaving the room exactly as it has been before.