One afternoon, while the orchestra violins tuned, Chad the oboist turned to Berta, who was polishing her flute with a cloth that had once been a scarf.

“It’s all over,” he said.

“What is?” asked Berta.

“Life. Earth. Thirty years, maybe less. Heat, floods, collapse. Any scientist who’s anybody agrees. But it’s all right. I’ve accepted it. I’ve made peace.”

Berta nodded. “Reality’s a bigger landscape than fear. It includes solutions, power structures, false binaries, and who’s profiting from despair. But sure, thirty years.”

Chad frowned. “You’re not worried?”

Berta looked at her flute, then at Chad, then exhaled slowly into the head-joint of her flute. One very long F# rose into the ceiling rafters and was gone.

“Do you hear the music we’re about to play?” she asked.

“It hasn’t started,” he said.

She smiled. “That’s why you don’t hear it.”