Behind the Scenes

Business as usual, but only for he

A late night conversation had gotten it in the minds of Carole and Tuesday that it was simply unfair that they were making poor Roddy do everything to set up when all they do was go on stage afterwards and get all the applause. Although he was initially hesitant, the girls insisted until he eventually had to agree. Perhaps, he had to reason to himself, it would be good to have another pair of hands or two to hand him things would save him time having to fetch things every few minutes so, so things would hopefully end earlier than expected.

Well, they arrived at the time he had told them, but the lad was not waiting outside.

Not all too phased, the two made their way inside, relieved to find that it was unlocked.
The first thing that was obvious was that the hall was bathed in shadows, only half the lights currently turned on making it seem a little bit more gloomy than a music hall had any right to be. Secondly, and far more importantly was that Roddy was, in fact, in the room, toe tips against the wall, looking up at a light in complete silence, a roll of brightly coloured tape in one hand.
This was, as anyone would expect it to be, very bizarre and brought about significantly more questions than it answered.

"What are you doing?" Carole asked, this not only coming from a place of genuine curiosity but also as a way of announcing that they had arrived.

The lad's response came at first with a hand gesture that suggested /give me a second/, crouching down as he tore a scrap of the tape away from the roll with his teeth, the pre-existing marks suggesting this was not the first time, and left it on the floor as a red spot.
"Measuring. Standing with a straight back, the line between where your feet meet and whatever you're trying to mark would be at the same point, give or take a couple of milimetres." As he said this, he gestured between the light be was still standing beneath and the mark he had made on the floor, and a sweeping motion to indicate the other near identical dots under the other wall lights. "They asked me to mark out the lights for when the seating gets set up."

"Have you been here very long?" queried Tuesday, quite sure they had arrived on time.

He simply responded to this with a shrug, the slightest hint of awkwardness in his smile.
"They asked if I could come by before we set up to get that done first."

"We could have come by then, it's not like we were doing anything important." the keyboardist stated, wandering off to examine the space they were to perform in on the following evening. In the presently empty space, her footfalls echoed just a little, suggesting good acoustics when the space was filled with bodies and the seating that was to come.

"You didn't have to be here all by yourself." added the guitarist, her eyes wandering between the other two in the room with no real end location in mind.

"It's alright, really," Roddy returned, his hands raised in a gesture that appeared visually equal parts reassuring and surrendering in its delivery, "It was easier to do alone, you would have have just been standing around doing a whole lot of nothing," he paused, glancing into the gloom, his attention directed towards a shape that was large and difficult to make out in the darkness, "But now you guys are here, could you give me a hand with putting up the lights."

When both of the girls agreed to this, he ran off to switch the house lights on so they would be able to see what on earth it was they were doing. It never did anyone much good to bump in without actually being able to see what was being done. It was not long before the room was illuminated. The light, while expected, still managed to make the paler skinned girl wince, having glanced up at where the lights were.
When Roddy emerged from whatever hidden nook the music hall held for the main power-board, he made his way over to the shape that he had previously given his attention. The shape was, the lights revealed, a large elevated platform. It was silver in colour and looked remarkably like an oversized step ladder, complete with steps in one side and some flimsy looking support beams on the other.