The End of The Song

T listened to the decaying sounds through his ear pieces as the hot moist air tried to push T into the barren ground like the invisible palm of a giant demon squashing a bug. T kept standing, not feeling the oppressive humidity anymore, staring into the bright horizon, at the sun, huge and red and deadly.

They're coming, T thought, not sure about the odds of victory.

It wasn't that they were so powerful. Belief was the source of their might, and the faithful throng had been long gone. They had long ago left this planet after making it unlivable. A few existed, out there, somewhere. They were the unlucky ones, the delusional. They still refuse to believe that they are not the highest life form in the universe. Even though they are kept as pets.

T held up the device, the Song's stuttering staccato sputtering through the wire into the buds in T's ears. T remembered times past, centuries ago, when a device like this was the biggest fad, with its large round control in its face. T then thought about the later fad, and the device shrunk and reformed itself to resemble that portable player. I could just think of it as a ball of light, T thought, but rejected the idea. What T had in mind was as far from light as possible, yet T couldn't think of an alternative.

It's time.

"Wait! Hear me out and reconsider!"

The voice came from behind T. T turned and saw a youth, thin, petite, with curly blonde hair down to the collar of a suit jacket of dingy bronze that was cut slim to its figure. T could not tell its sex from its face, and looking closely saw the faint lines of age upon it. The eyes, though. The eyes were clearly ancient.

"You know as well as I," it started, stepping forward slowly toward T, "that this cosmos operates in cycles. Things are born, they die and turn to ash, and from the ash, more things are born. It spirals like the galaxies, like human DNA, never-ending. This is the low part of the cycle, the death and decay, but from the ashes we can rise up and make things better than they were. We can make them better than they were. We will include you in our pantheon, and with the new faithful and their unquestioning belief, you can be all-powerful, all-commanding. You can help mold a new cosmos, a perfect cosmos."

"I don't wish to be your sculptor," T replied.

It stepped closer, still out of arms reach. "Then be a composer. Compose a new movement. Add it to The Song, and keep adding to it. Make The Song everlasting."

"Blasphemy."

"No. Not if you're one of us. You can sing our praises and--"

"More blasphemy."

It stopped. Anger reddened its pale face. Desperation seeped into that ancient visage. "How dare you. We are the masters of this reality. Our word, the word was law. We directed the human masses to spread our word, first throughout this puny rock, then out into the stars."

"Yes. You used humanity as carriers of your disease. You had them kill their own, deluding them with twisted values so they would slaughter each other and feed your appetite for fear and hate. Worse, you inspired them to spread your virus across this universe, infecting other species, tainting them with fanaticism. I'd hoped the few who were cured would stop this plague, but it's not enough. I've no other choice. The Song must end."

"Why? Just change the tune -"

"Humanity's already done that. It's been changed into a funeral dirge. Few heard The Song but didn't listen to it. They were supposed to add to it, to make a glorious symphony, but instead they twisted it. Now I will end it."

"No!" it screamed and lunged at T. T held the device out toward it, headphones popping out of T's ears and retracting into the morphing machine. In T's hand was now a sheet of paper. It shrieked as it was sucked into the paper, transformed into staffs, clefs and notes.

"You can't stop us!" it sang discordantly. "We must continue!"

"You are alone," T replied. "You are false. You are the song of hate and fear, sung by blinded beings. You are the golden calf. You are the manifestation of diseased minds." T flipped the page into the air, directed it toward the sun. "You are the final note."

T watched the page flutter into the red star as the ages passed. When the sheet incinerated, the sun grew and consumed the earth. The Song, twisted and dissonant, rang out and fed all the stars in the universe, sending them into supernova. Collapsing into black holes, they swallowed each other and grew into a great void that sucked up the debris, then, finding nothing else, consumed itself.

T stood in the nothingness. "I am The Singer," T said, "and I am The Song."

With that, T sang its name, and The New Song began.

THE END

Bio: Don's stories have been published in Rod Serling's Twilight Zone Magazine, Aberations, Midnight Zoo, Cheapjack Pulp, Aphelion, and Armageddon Buffet. He currently has a short story collection, Tales from Walken County, available from many online retailers, which includes "Nature's Way," a piece published in Aphelion way back in issue #100. He makes rhythmic and not-so-rhythmic noises as Mekano 46.

E-mail: Dionisio "Don" Traverso, Jr.

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