All the microphones were dead that Sunday morning. The sound board remained unresponsive. The emergency sound technicians were on a cruise to the Bahamas and wouldn't be back for a week.
There was no microphone at the ambo. No microphone for the cantor at the lectern. Father's wireless was silent. And the boom mics for the choir were useless.
People sang. People spoke. People listened. And they listened hard because they needed to.
Having read somewhere that sung speech carried better than spoken, the celebrant sang the Mass. And the congregation responded in kind. Even the reader, while not being sure of the intonation patterns, chanted a reading that was no longer a laundry list or a dramatic interpretation. It was the deliberate conveying of a text.
Choir members stopped jostling with each other for positions relative to the microphones. While it was sad that the organ didn't work, well, the keyboard and the guitars had died as well. This week the congregation could hear themselves singing.
And the recessional was omitted, so that everyone left after the dismissal and closing procession of the clergy.
Then I woke up.