ANDREA VÉLEZ-DAVIS
Special to The Leader
As I approach the red brick building where only some of the most talented people go, I stare at the oldest building of the Fredonia Normal School campus that marked the beginning of the music program in 1941. It is famously known as Mason Hall. I feel overwhelmed as my feet reach the first few steps of the white door entrance of the music majors’ home.
A shiver goes down my spine, and I take a deep breath when walking up the first five steps in front of the door. “Thump, thump, thump. Be careful! Don’t trip on the last step right in front of the white windowed door,” I think to myself before my right-hand reaches for the cold handle on the front entrance to their world.
Entering through the doors, I’m greeted by what looks like a never-ending hallway, and piercing eyes that know I don’t belong. The people here seem to form an alliance to protect themselves from the unknown. Moving forward, everything in the hall seems kind of dated like the cream-colored and brownish tiled walls.
Door after door, I continue walking down the corridor. “One inhale, two exhale,” I whisper to myself as I hear the women in the choir harmonizing as the humming and buzzing of the beverage dispenser in Café Mason constantly pulsates.
“Three exhale, four inhale, five-stop,” I say to myself when I approach the doorway of Mason Hall’s Student Lounge.
This square room, with high ceilings and tall windows, serves as a safe space for students every day. One girl sits alone at a table enjoying a sandwich while two girls sit next to each other across the room working on assignments. They chatter away speaking a language I barely know, an alien to their world. “Am I right? Doesn’t this piece start on a G?” she harmonizes to herself as her strawberry blonde and curly-haired friend looks at her and says, “No, I think you’re right. The original piece starts on a G.”
The day goes on, and the seemingly quiet room, decorated with bulletin boards and recital flyers, five cushioned seats and four tables, becomes a lot more than exactly that. A rush of students hurries in. It’s 2:50 p.m. — ten minutes after a class has been adjourned. Loud voices and multiple conversations all happening at once engulf the room. Laughs and stories are shared. Yet, I sit in the far corner of the room merely observing everything going on. I am an outsider, watching them from the other side of the glass. Not one person looks in my direction, and I wonder what it’s like for those who are a part of the inner circle.
Little by little, the room goes back to silence. An ear-piercing sensation after all the commotion experienced only moments prior. “Do any of you have plug-in headphones? My Bluetooth ones just died,” says Reese, a young, dirty blonde-haired man I recognize from our college choir class from two years prior. His friends look around and shrug their shoulders in nonverbal response. I pause and think, “Should I lend him mine?” I reach into my blue backpack and pull out the black pouch that holds my Sony editing headphones. I walk over to Reese who’s sitting on the other side of the room. My heart is pounding. I offer my headphones to Reese. They all stare. “Oh, thank you,” Reese looks at me with surprised eyes, as I attempt to make a crack in the glass that separates our two worlds. I turn around and walk back to the corner where I originally came from.
The sounds of trumpets and other musical instruments being played can be heard in the distance. The few students left in the room talk amongst themselves when a familiar face approaches me. A pale skin, dark-haired male, wearing gray sweatpants and a bright blue long sleeve shirt breaks the invisible barrier between our two worlds and asks, “What are you doing in Mason?” I respond with “I’m working on a story. An outsider’s perspective of the exclusive bubble that is Mason Hall.” They look at me with an intrigued look. “I’ll let you in on a secret, I don’t even spend time in here anymore because it’s full of petty vocalists,” he says.
Before I can respond, he leaves the lounge, disappearing into the never-ending corridor, and I sit in the far end corner of the room, allowing the gap in the imperceptible bubble to close again, wondering if any of them feel just as much an outsider as I do.