skonen_blades

The virus was in the music.

First contact had happened four months ago. We were receiving music from another planet. All of the deep space exploration dishes swiveled over to listen. A small bit of it was played on CNN when the story first broke. Not long after, the whole song was released. It was digitized and after the primary uploads it spread out over every radio, television and internet station on the planet. YouTube users produced homemade music videos to the music. A few experimental artists did their own cover versions.

It cured deafness. It was deemed a miracle by the pope.

It was immensely popular. Alien but catchy. A new rhythm we’d never heard before. An always repeating but never repeating pattern, like the branches of tree. A few notes we didn’t have but an accessible beat and in some places, an almost plaintive sense of purpose. It never quite hit completion. There was something maddening about it but also calming. It made a person’s mind search for what was missing. The scientists were finding that there were notes in the song that were too high and too low for us to hear, like it was designed for aliens with wider sound spectrums. Either that or it was a song designed for every race in the universe to hear no matter what kind of ears they had.

It didn’t have an ending. It had been playing since we first started listening to it. When people covered it, they merely faded the song out after a while. You could do a ten minute version or a two-hour version. A few film makers had released movies where the entire feature-length soundtrack was a snippet of the song. Mathematicians were likening it to pi.

We were all swept up in the craze. Musical aliens! People openly wept with joy on talk show interviews when they were questioned about it. It seemed so benevolent. For the religious, it was concrete proof of God. For the atheists, it was proof that the universe was a friendly place.

It wasn’t something that we noticed right away. I mean, people all over the world hate their jobs, right? People were quitting. A few at first, but then a lot. Soon, people started saying home in droves. Calling in sick or just not showing up. They walked around the streets with smiles on their faces in the sunlight. All turning up the music, smiling, and walking out of their workplaces.

Only the workers necessary to keep humans alive and listening kept going to work. And they did it gladly. For free.

The music caused an intense sense of peace. It affected everyone who heard it. It was also altering people’s bodies. They could get by on water and a few bare nutrients a day. Some people starved but most people just got much thinner. They sat in parks and on rooftops with earbuds humming all smiling and staring. There was no panic. It was a worldwide quelling of stress. Reporters stopped reporting.

Within a year, industry collapsed and communication networks hummed with only the music. Gardens sprang up on every block. People stayed in touch through the internet but after a while, even that went silent. We were all connected through the song.

It was a lullaby that put us all to sleep.

It had caused everyone to sit down where they were and just appreciate the beauty around them.

The immense, black, pointed ships showed up in the sky two days ago. They’re collecting us.

We don’t mind.



tags

(think spanish flamenco sort of tune or maybe french accordion sort of tune)

I get a little sweaty WHEN...I dance.
I get a little sweaty IN...my pants.
My sweat it drips and trickles DOWN...my back.
My sweat it trickles down inTO...my crack.
Dark patches spread upon my jeans
and I am dripping from the seams
And I am hoping it's a dream
And I am praying no one's seen
And that is why I'm scared to DANCE!

I'm up in Nelson right now. I drove up with my cousin Bobby (who's in his fifties. Cousin might give you the wrong idea. I think he's officially a second cousin once removed or something byzantine like that) and we just missed the crazy snow in Vancouver. However, there is lots of snow up here in the mountains so I'm very happy. Much crunching underfoot.

Bobby is an accomplished musician and he brought his five-string banjo and his guitar. A few other accomplished musicians that live next door came down to my mom's place last night and we all sang songs and drank drinks. It was a good time.

I made up a gold rush tune about a good-time guy named Gee Whillikers who met his untimely demise in a mining cave-in and is lamented by his good buddy back at the camp.

Sort of sung to the tune of Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes Benz. Sort of. Or whatever you fancy. Just as long as you sing it like a toothless drunk. : )

(chorus)
Gee Whillikers, Gee Whillikers, I miss you to my core.
I saw you buying shovels down at the general store
You walked into the gold mines, and I saw you no more.
Gee Whillikers, Gee Whillikers, I miss you to my core.

The campground's calm without you, and now it's quiet, too.
Your laughter and your humour, like your soul now has flew
to fields of greener pastures, and all of us who knew
your spirit and your gumption are feeling mighty blue

(repeat chorus)

The first day that I came here, I didn't know a soul
I only wanted riches, I wanted to find gold
My eyes were young and stupid while yours were kind and old
You showed me where to pan and sift and get the cheapest coal

(repeat chorus)

I think that you were fifty, but you looked ninety-five,
I swear to God I thought you were the oldest man alive
You'd made and lost a fortune, and even had two wives
But I could see the life long gone that no one could revive.

(repeat chorus)

You taught me that the gold mine was nearly fit to cave
"just stick to the river" was the advice you gave
You said that all the shorings no engineer could save
That just a touch could bring the miners to their grave

(repeat chorus)

The bosses didn't give a shit, they let mine get worse
Gee Whillikers had been there the day they dug it first
He knew that all they cared about was money in their purse
and soon the mine would take what no gold could remiburse

(repeat chorus)

You took a bunch of shovels down into the that old mine
On Sunday when the miners were sleepin' off their wine
You hammered on the pilings of ancient rotting pine
Until a cave-in took you, our friend for all of time.

(repeat chorus)

Your name was super silly and your eyes were old and red
You gave your life like Jesus while were in our beds
When I heard the cave-in, I knew that you were dead
Gee Whillikers, I wrote a song and this is what it said

(repeat chorus twice, REALLY LOUD)

the end



tags

Now before anyone goes off, I mean this is in an innocent fun way. Picture it being sung with ukeleles and mandolins and accordions. Like a pirate sea-chanty of some sort. Hopefully that'll help the spirit come across.

You'll be the girl with the candy-flavoured snatch.
I'll be the pirate with the diamond eye-patch
We'll sail the seven seas and you'll say I'm quite a catch
but you'll be the girl with the candy-flavoured snatch

You'll be the girl with the boysenberry bush.
I'll be your mechanic with the nicely-shaped tush.
When your beater won't turn over, then I'll get out and push.
And you'll be the girl with the boysenberry bush.

Just picture it being sung loudly by a lot of people in a room together having a whale of a time.

Ah, maybe it's not coming through. Anyway, there you go.



tags