Arthur Grimley would have sold his soul for musical talent, but instead he was plunged into a test of his moral character.
Excerpt
From their hidden lunar base, the True Archons observed the work of the False Archons, who were constructing walls of stone and bars of iron around the saints, hanging black veils around them to obscure their knowledge of the natural beauty which surrounded them, lying just out of their reach. The Archons observed the oppression of humanity as a holographic display within the obelisk, and they shook their heads in dismay. Such a sad state of imprisonment must not be allowed to persist. Barred by the One from direct intervention, the Archons put the seed of a thought into the minds of another race from another star system. This seed, which the Empire had sought to destroy, indeed believed that the minions had successfully destroyed in 73 A.D., lay dormant but still living, indestructible as the living water.
(Note: In the 1960s, archaeological excavations at Masada uncovered a 2,000-year-old seed, and that seed was successfully germinated to become a date plant.)
The Archons dared not seek it themselves or disturb its hiding place, lest the Demiurge snatch it from them and suck out its life, but human hands finally broke the seal, after many centuries, at virtually the same moment – in the context of human history simultaneously – that the Axis of iron fell into defeat at the hands of armies who considered themselves liberators, not conquerors. And yet the Empire was not destroyed, but rather insinuated itself into the very fabric of the societies which had defeated it in war. (Historians would argue that, in order to defeat the Nazis, the Allies were forced to adopt the same ruthless disregard for human life and liberty as their enemies.) It was more than a war for dominion over territory; it was a battle for the soul of humanity.
So as in centuries past, the Empire swallowed its captors. Babylon became Persia, then Persia became Greece, then Greece became Rome, and dictator followed upon dictator through history, demons wearing the robes of authority like the skin of a lamb over the frame of a ravening wolf.
Then one chill December day, in the part of Upper Egypt known as the Grazing Ground of the Geese, poor farmers discovered a jar made of fired clay, and they broke open the lid to find the seed of knowledge resting inside. Since they had no idea what they had found, their thoughts did not alert the minions. For decades the books from that clay jar sat in dusty museums, the domain of scholars of obscure ancient languages. But the instant they had broken the seal, the True Archons had sent an alien craft to lift up the seed and plant it on a distant planet among alien creatures who had no idea what kind of revolutionary knowledge they were about to deposit in the mind of an ordinary human.
By the time the minions began sifting through the sands at Nag Hammadi, it was too late. The seed of gnosis had escaped their clutches.
#
Arthur Grimley sat in the black vinyl engineer’s chair in the sound booth, leaning forward to focus on his work, sometimes scooting the chair a little on the soft sculptured carpet, which tended to catch the casters and stop their motion. With heavy liquid-filled earphones clamped around his ears, he sat listening to the track that the sound engineers had produced from what the studio musicians had played from the score, his score, for the latest low-budget horror flick Bad Moon Rising, another cheap tale of teenagers battling a werewolf. The visuals flashed by on a monitor set into the console while Art checked out the synchronization of sound track to action. Not bad, he thought, scratching a few notes about corrections that needed to be made. The music came in too late when the werewolf grabbed its victim. The scratchy violin strokes should hit the high point a second before the visual to which it corresponded, the close-up of the monster biting its prey, not right on
top of it. In any frightening scene, the slashing music must cause the viewers’ hearts to race before the slasher actually touched the victim, leading the audience emotionally into the act. He knew his craft well, and he was always having to educate the technicians in the fine art of preparing the audience to be frightened out of their wits.
This movie was rather tame, compared to most of the schlock on the big screen. It was more a love story than a murder mystery, with adolescents coming to terms with their emerging sexuality, finding bonds of friendship and love. He kind of liked that.
His talent had taken him to the top in this niche of the film industry. Not bad for a high school dropout with a degree in music from a second-rate correspondence school. His music blended seamlessly with the action, causing the audience to wriggle in their seats with anxious anticipation of the next bloody scene. Grimley’s music never sold as an album. The sappy cliché melodies and discordant fugues worked on the lowest unconscious level of the human brain and never rose to the status of a pleasant or inspiring listening experience. The critics rated it a notch below elevator music.
Sometimes Arthur Grimley thought that he would sell his soul to be able to write real music, not this schlock but the kind of beautiful melodies that orchestras performed in concert halls with an audience of ladies in evening gowns and gentlemen in tuxedos. Perhaps then his in-laws would finally consider him human. The only problem with that scenario was that he wouldn’t earn enough money to maintain the lavish lifestyle that his high society wife demanded. And he’d probably have to give up his condo in town and the woman who lived there, waiting for his frequent visits.
One of the gold-vested interns came in and tried to talk to him, but Art ignored the idiot. Didn’t they know that he couldn’t hear a thing with the headphones on? He saw the young man’s thin lips moving, watched him push a stray lock of straight brown hair out of his eyes, then turned away to focus on his sound track. The intern, a green college student, apparently got the message and dutifully stood by until he finished his work and removed the headphones. Stuffing his notes into his day planner, Art turned to see what he wanted.
“Your wife is on the phone. She says you’re late.”
“I’m always late, so far as Edna is concerned. Tell her I’ll be home in twenty minutes.”
Arthur Grimley never made it home that day. As he walked across the parking lot to his new Mercedes, heat waves rippled up from the concrete, blurring his vision. He thought that he heard footsteps behind him, but before he could turn to look, everything went black. His crumpled, nearly lifeless body was found in an alley behind the sound building on the production lot of Startling Studios and promptly carted off to the emergency room at the nearest hospital. Paramedics found his wallet on the ground, empty of money but still holding his credit cards and driver’s license. When he regained consciousness, he was lying in a hospital bed, dressed in one of those ridiculous cotton gowns that flop open in the back, revealing the patient’s hinder parts. A police detective interviewed him briefly, but he couldn’t remember anything about the mugging. He remembered leaving the building and heading toward his car, but everything after that was a blank until he woke up in the hospital.
Copyright 2008 Tessa B. Dick. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Post a Comment