Narrator: Ollie F. | Manchester, England
I did sound for an amateur theatre group. During rehearsals you got used to hearing people underneath the stage, fetching props or trying to fix something with a hammer.
One evening the cast had gone and I was playing a recording through the speakers. Somebody below me began applauding. Three or four people, by the sound of it. Very polite applause.
I stopped the recording. The applause continued, then died away one pair of hands at a time.
The access hatch was open. I shone my phone down and saw the backs of several heads just beyond the light. They were sitting in a row, facing the low brick wall underneath the front of the stage. One head tilted towards me.
I shut the hatch. I didn’t ask who they were. That’s what embarrasses me: I was quite happy to bolt a group of strangers under a stage rather than risk another look.
The building manager checked the space with me the next morning. It was full of timber braces, loose cables and paint tins. There wasn’t room to sit upright where I’d seen them.
