The Fredösphere

Sam heard the music before he reached the cavern.

His guide was a bearded old man the other natives called MusicLover.  As they descended the gently sloping tunnel, Sam wondered if he could have found the place on his own, lead by the sound of the ever-shifting harmonies.

"A guy could go crazy, listening to this stuff," Sam said, and then regretted breaking the silence.  If the guide was irritated, however, he made no sign.  Perhaps the guide's job was to rescue tourists from madness caused by the music.  Sam amused himself with a head movie:  the music lulling him into a trance, the guide binding him and dragging him back to the surface, and Sam begging to return, like Odysseus by the island of the Sirens.

They entered the cavern of music.  Colored lights played about the ceiling.  Reflections from rippling water of the pool below, along with glints from bejeweled surfaces of stalactites, completed the symphony of light.  I'll bet the visuals are manufactured for the sake of the tourists, Same told himself.

The two men quieted themselves and let the music take hold.  Sam knew something of music theory, enough to know the chords were founded in the overtone series.  Except when they weren't; the "wrong" notes seemed just frequent enough to create a pleasing amount of tension.  They have a sense of dissonance and resolution like we do, Sam thought.  And yet there was something in the timing... or was it the use of competing bass lines?  Or maybe the cadences that always deceived?  ...that marked the music as utterly alien.  Whatever it was, the evidence was unmistakable:  these chords were willful.

"Do you understand them?" asked Sam.

MusicLover didn't seem to mind the interruption.  A hint of vanity tainted the solemn expression on his face.

"A bit.  The life of a chord is so transient, and so commingled with that of other chords, that even I can't tell precisely what they mean.  But I think they're having an argument."

"About what?"

"About you.  They're trying to decide if you're sentient."

"How can I prove myself?  Hum a few bars of something?"

Sam laughed.  His guide did not.

"Try 'My Country 'Tis of Thee.'  They always like that one."

Labels: FictionOpeners