The Music Of The Spheres

Today, I shall attempt the impossible.

A blog entry in an hour.

Yes, not content with creating strange new worlds and life forms that even Captain Kirk would have steered clear of, I now crave a little simplicity. The most basic of things, and the hardest to achieve.

So, without so much as a flourish, but hopefully with a nice picture, I just wanted to relate something that happened last night. I'm even going to abandon my usual first person present narration to save time. Yes, writing in the past tense is much easier.

And I promise, no internal voices. No men in sacks. And no bears.

In the wee hours of this morning, I awoke from a deep sleep. There was music. I checked the clock, and was puzzled. I live in a semi-detached house* and occasionally hear the neighbours. But they have kids, and so after early evening I rarely hear a peep out of them.

[* perhaps this is a British term. My house is half of a larger building. I share an internal wall with the neighbours. Sorry, I've no idea what your equivalent term is, but you get the picture.]

I dismissed the tune as a hangover from my dream, expecting it to clear in a few moments. I flipped over and tried to get back to sleep. But still, the music. A steady slow beat, some rhythm on top, and a faint, dreamy melody.

I sat up in bed, still half awake at best. Where the hell was it coming from? I realised it must have been pretty loud, because I wear very efficient earplugs in bed; I live on a busy road and it can get lively with traffic and partygoers heading home at the weekend. Also, the window was closed, and a fairly noisy fan was on.

I tried to fish my earplugs out, but they were far too deep in my ear to snag, and I was in no mood for a middle-of-the-night search for tweezers. I got out of bed and looked out of the window. Nothing in the street. I even opened the window and craned my neck round to look at the neighbour's place. Dark and dead. Up and down the street, no evidence of a party presented itself.

I shut the window and went back to bed.

The music was fainter now, but I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned in bed, and eventually ended up with my hand on my chest. Suddenly, I realised my heartbeat was in time with the beat of the music. A curious coincidence? After a minute or so, I was still beating in perfect time.

An odd idea gripped me, some vague memory of a physics lesson at school. Something to do with beats occurring when two different frequencies were played against each other? I got out of bed, and switched the fan off. The rhythm ceased immediately, and after a few seconds the melody died.

Just the steady beat of my heart remained.

It all fell into place. The entrenched earplugs had amplified the sound of my heart to provide the bass. The interference thrumming from the fan caused the rhythm on top of it. And hearing something resembling music, my sleepy brain unconsciously added a simple melody on top.

Organic and mechanical sounds, and a bit of help from my subconscious mind as it attempted to impose order on chaos.

Something emergent.

Music from thin air.

I found a bit of paper and scribbled Music of the Spheres on it. A contented sleep quickly followed.

And that's as simple a way as I can tell the tale.


Indigo

This blog entry took fifty three minutes, in case you were wondering.
This blog entry is protected by copyright © Indigo Roth, 2009