Soul Music

verse.
    That was the trouble with Music With Rocks In. It liked to do things its own way.
    Very slowly, still spinning, the front wheel rose off the ground.

    Absolute darkness filled the universe.
    A voice spake: “Is that you, Cliff?”
    “Yup.”
    “Okay. Is this me: Glod?”
    “Yup. Sounds like you.”
    “Asphalt?”
    “’Sme.”
    “Buddy?”
    “Glod?”
    “And…er…the lady in black?”
    “Yes?”
    “Do you know where we are, Miss?”
    There was no ground under them. But Susan didn’t feel that she was floating. She was simply standing. The fact that it was on nothing was a minor point. She wasn’t falling because there was nowhere to fall to, or from.
    She’d never been interested in geography. But she had a very strong feeling that this place was not locatable on any atlas.
    “I don’t know where our bodies are,” she said, carefully.
    “Oh, good,” said the voice of Glod. “Really? I’m here, but we don’t know where my body is? How about my money?”
    There was the sound of faint footsteps far away in the darkness. They approached, slowly and deliberately. And stopped.
    A voice said: One. One. One, two. One, two.
    Then the footsteps went back into the distance.
    After a while, another voice said: One, two, three, four—
    And the universe came into being.
    It was wrong to call it a big bang. That would just be noise, and all that noise could create is more noise and a cosmos full of random particles.
    Matter exploded into being, apparently as chaos, but in fact as a chord. The ultimate power chord. Everything, all together, streaming out in one huge rush that contained within itself, like reverse fossils, everything that it was going to be.
    And, zigzagging through the expanding cloud, alive, that first wild live music.
    This had shape. It had spin. It had rhythm. It had a beat, and you could dance to it.
    Everything did.
    A voice right inside Susan’s head said: And I will never die .
    She said, aloud: “There’s a bit of you in everything that lives.”
    Yes. I am the heartbeat. The back beat .
    She still couldn’t see the others. The light was streaming past her.
    “But he threw away the guitar.”
    I wanted him to live for me .
    “You wanted him to die for you! In the wreckage of the cart!”
    What is the difference? He would be dead anyway. But to die in music…People will always remember the songs he never had the chance to sing. And they will be the greatest songs of all .
    Live your life in a moment .
    And then live forever. Don’t fade away .
    “Send us back!”
    You never left .
    She blinked. They were still on the road. The air flickered and crackled, and was full of wet snow.
    She looked around into Buddy’s horrified face.
    “We’ve got to get away—”
    He held up a hand. It was transparent.
    Cliff had almost vanished. Glod was trying to grip the handle of the money bag, but his fingers were slipping through it. His face was full of the terror of death or, possibly, of poverty.
    Susan shouted: “He threw you away! That’s not fair! ”

    A piercing blue light was heading up the road. No cart could move that fast. There was a roar like the scream of a camel who has just seen two bricks.
    The light reached the bend, skidded, hit a rock, and leapt into space over the gorge.
    There was just time for a hollow voice to say OH B—
    …before it hit the far wall in one great, spreading circle of flame.
    Bones bounced and rolled down to the riverbed, and were still.

    Susan spun around, scythe ready to swing. But the music was in the air. It had no soul to aim for.
    You could say to the universe this is not fair . And the universe would say: Oh, isn’t it? Sorry.
    You could save people. You could get there in the nick of time. And something could snap its fingers and say, no, it has to be this way. Let me tell you how it has to be. This is how the legend has to go.
    She reached out and tried to take Buddy’s hand. She could feel it, but only as a coldness.
    “Can you hear me?” she shouted, above the triumphant chords.
    He nodded.
    “It’s…it’s like a legend! It has to happen! And I can’t stop it—how can I kill something like music?”
    She ran to the edge of the gorge. The cart was well on fire. They wouldn’t appear in it. They would have been in it.
    “I can’t stop it! It’s not fair! ”
    She pounded at the air with her fists.
    “ Grandfather! ”

    Blue flames flickered fitfully on the rocks of the dry riverbed.
    A small fingerbone rolled