[This post I titled for one of my favourite mangas seems to be fetching my blog a lot of misdirected hits. I apologize if that happened to you, but now that you're here, you may as well read it ;]
Darren was sick.
He was sick of all the noise.
Floating around in the name of music. Vilifying the very word.
He was sick, of ‘artists’ without a shred of talent belting out ‘songs’ without the slightest creativity.
Sick of the audience who let alone endure, but loved this torture and deified the guitarists and vocalists, called them Gods and ‘Rock Stars’.
So the audience filled their ears with mediocrity and the artists, their coffers.
Darren was sick of it all.
He was sick of his family, who didn’t recognize his genius. Called him a fool for trying to make a career out of music. Perhaps it was such parents that dragged down music from what it used to be. Those who were musically bent- those who had talent- were turned into bankers and engineers. And the ones who weren’t any good at anything were the ones who defined the music of a generation.
Darren was sick.
And now, as he sat in a corner of his room on the first floor, he decided to treat himself.
_
Officer Mahone kicked open the door. He was greeted by a horrific stench and an even more horrific sight: The body was lying with the head falling awkwardly from the edge of a pillow. The electric guitar was still plugged into the amplifier and a needle still plugged into the left arm of the corpse.
Officer Mahone took a long look at the corpse. There were no signs of struggle. All the other instruments in the room- the bass, the acoustic, the drums, the harmonica and keyboard were all in what seemed their usual resting places. Near the corpse lay a near-empty packet, with a trail of an off-whitish powder leaving the packet where it had been ripped open, and ending at a small piece of paper. Mahone picked it up. It contained only seven words. It said:
The Death Note. It’s on the piano.
_
Darren decided to treat himself. He tied the tourniquet tight on his arm till it was throbbing and ready. He heated the silver spoon and in a moment, he was in ecstasy. All his worries behind him- he was floating on a cloud where no one could bother him. For a short while.
He was wondering why this feeling wouldn’t last forever. This light-mindedness, this euphoria. Until he heard the doorknob click and his bassist Cliff walked in.
Cliff, apart from being incredible with the bass, was a very creative composer and an important member of the band and a friend. He greeted Darren with their usual fist-thump and growling, but noticed a reduced vigour in Darren.
“What’s the matter, bro?” he said, “I see you’ve already gotten high without me, man. Yet you seem low. What’s up?”
“Cliff, I’m just so fed up of all this mediocrity- floating around in the name of music, you know? Beat some drums, pluck some strings and there you have it- a No.1 chartbuster. Makes me want to throw up, seriously. People don’t know what music is. How soothing, how powerful, just how transcendental it can be. And let’s face it, our music’s doing nothing to change that. It’s too damn frustrating.”
“We’re not that bad, you know-”
“Not that bad? Are you kidding me? We suck man! We suck and I’m sick of it. You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna crank up our music a few notches and show the world what music really is. I wanna come up with that one song- that one song that is the most beautiful song anyone’s ever heard. I don’t know how but I’m gonna do it.”
“Hey,” Cliff said, “This might sound downright crazy but I’d read somewhere that when you’re dying- just before you die- you can hear the most beautiful melody ever. I don’t know how far it’s true, but it’s supposed to be magical, divine, out-of-this-world. But that’s the problem. You only hear it when you’re going out of this world. So no one knows how it goes and no soul’s ever recorded it. No puns-”
“We’ll do it.” Darren said, unmoving.
“Are you crazy?! How?”
“I know exactly how,” Darren said calmly. “But first we need to call up Steve and Rick. Tell them to get here pronto. In the meanwhile I’ll write down some lyrics to go with the tune.”
_
Officer Mahone spent a considerable amount of time trying to open the battery housing of the keyboard looking for a suicide note. He didn’t notice a piano on the ground floor when he came up, so a suicide note, if there was one, had to be somewhere near the corpse.
Officer Mahone found another packet filled with the powder where the battery usually is and another piece of paper. Some lines were scribbled on it.
It was written in stanzas and looked like the lyrics to a song. Mahone started to read it and a shudder ran through his spine.
The band had gathered,
The Pain had spread,
They were to perform
The Song of the Dead.
“So you’re adding a new dimension to the term ‘Death Metal’ huh Darren?!”
Steve was sitting at his seat behind the drums and Rick was tuning up the acoustic.
“Cliff told us what you were trying to do and we had to come over man! So how’re planning to do this thing?”
“Well,” said Darren, “From what Cliff has to say, the song can be heard only when you’re on the brink of death. When you’re neither fully dead nor wholly alive either. Neither here, nor there. The living dead. So I figured, what if we brought ourselves into that condition? Would we then be able to hear it?”
He suddenly overturned the keyboard.
And as surprisingly quickly, he opened the battery housing and out tumbled a packet of the white junk. He carelessly tore one open and said, “And this, my friends, is how we get there.”
A Song they would hear
At the end of their lives;
They prayed to the Lord
And sharpened their knives.
“No way man!” This was Rick. “No way am I risking ODing for a stupid stunt like this one.”
“Stupid, huh?” Darren said, “Why don’t you admit you’re chicken? In fact, why don’t you walk away from here right now, and join another mediocre band that plays f-ing mediocre songs and mints a lot of money? Why don’t you join them and see how much satisfaction you get out of that? Conforming to other people’s definition of excellence. Never once questioning it, never once trying to surpass it. How much longer will you let others decide what you should do to be called excellent? Why can’t you extract yourself from the purview of the worldly definition of excellence? Why can’t you- why shouldn’t you define excellence yourself? Why?” Darren was shaking.
“Yes,” Rick protested, “But I don’t want to lose my life doing it..”
“What is life?” Darren asked, “But an illusion? An illusion in which everyone is expected to do the same things over and over again. Achieve the same objectives. Get educated, get a job, get married, have children, die. I mean, why? Why be born if your life doesn’t change a thing about this world?
Why be caught in this web- a web in which once you’re trapped, you HAVE to go through a certain sequence of events without the slightest deviation. An illusion, in which you are never your own master, but a mere servant of your emotions and needs- your hunger, your greed, your feeling of wanting to be loved and cared for. But most of all, the fake contentment you subject yourself to when you know you’ve reached your limit, and can go no further or do no better.
“It is this illusion which limits us, which we must break, so we truly know what we are capable of. To forget life as we know it and do something that transcends the earthly definitions of excellence.
“You are free to leave, Ricky. But know that an honourable death is far better than a dishonourable life.”
And Rick knew, whether he willed it or not, that he would be with Darren all the way.
Steel entered skin,
And blood began to run,
And slowly but surely,
The Death Note had begun.
Darren’s frenzy had started.
“Okay, everybody distinguish the sounds and try playing it by ear! Cliff, you’re getting the bass wrong. You’re not hearing it clear enough. You need more stuff in your blood man! Quick, push the plunger deeper! We need to try and memorize the tune while we can hear it! And we’ll stop injecting when we’re near the end, alright and we’ll snap right out of it. Into consciousness!”
The players were in pain,
Their heads went round and round.
But the deeper went the knives,
The sweeter was the Sound.
Darren was playing the guitar like no man had ever played it. The bass and the rhythm guitars accompanied him beautifully. The beat on the drums resonated within the body and touched the very core of existence. The tune itself was such. It was trying to wrench out life, like a tree is uprooted, from the body. For the soul was too pure, too delicate to be allowed to rest in the body. To deteriorate further in this vile world. The tune was drawing the veil separating mortal life from a higher existence, a higher consciousness.
The tune was beautiful and overwhelming. Darren was trying his very best to keep up with it. Suddenly his body felt an enormous twitch like someone had tried to yank him with a hook. He closed his eyes, his skin became white and it looked like a light was emanating from his body. The veins near his temples were on the verge of exploding. And in this condition, Darren assumed full control of his Energy and took the song to an amazing solo. His fingers glided, floated over the fretboard, and created heavenly sounds, at such a frantic pace, the other three could only look on in amazement. Darren played like a person possessed. Like he was the instrument, for the song to gush out, and not the guitar.
The Song entered their souls,
The knives went deeper still;
The Song was going to die
So it went in for the Kill.
The solo was about to end and everything was fading to black; when Darren finally heard it. It was indescribable. His hands were shaking violently. He had to tell somebody. He managed to clutch a piece of paper and wrote down seven words on it. He had barely managed to write down the last word when the pen slipped out of his trembling fingers, and made for the floor below.
_
The song seemed incomplete.
Mahone read it over and instinctively knew a stanza was missing- One last verse. Where it all ends. Poetic Justice meted out. But what bothered him more was the mention of the Death Note again. Did it mean a note existed? If yes, where was it? Many more questions intrigued him. Surely the boy’s mother could help him with those?
He went downstairs where the mother was being consoled and condoled by a gathering of neighbours.
“Mrs. Dyskin, prima facie your son died of an overdose of a prohibited psychoactive substance. Did he not portray any signs that he may been a regular user?”
Mrs. Dyskin looked too shocked to respond.
“Ma’am, I found a note in his room saying the death note was on the piano. Would you know which piano he may be alluding to?”
“No, Officer. We have no piano here.”
“It’s quite likely the substance caused him to hallucinate about a piano. I also found lyrics to a song he’d written. I’d like to know more about it. Could you help me with the names and contact numbers of his band-mates?”
“But he didn’t have a band, Officer. Darren liked his solitude. In fact, he never even brought home any friends from college either.”
“But he has so many instruments, and no band?”
“No band, Officer. Darren had learnt to play all those instruments on his own. He was very possessive about them. He never even allowed me to touch them. He would be up in his room playing music all night. I’ve sometimes had a difficult time convincing him to go to his classes.” Mrs. Dyskin sobbed.
“A few weeks back, I had decided to stop pestering him. To let him pursue what his passion was. I had had dreams for him as a kid. But of late, I’d only dreamt of my son playing his music onstage, in front of a large crowd..like he always wanted to..” Mrs. Dyskin broke down in a storm of tears.
The sound of her wailing stayed with Officer Mahone as he drove away in his car.
_
The pen fell to the ground. It made a tick-tick-tick sound. But Darren couldn’t hear it. He could only hear the Death Note. The Song of the Dead. The Music that was beyond the scope of human excellence. Music that made Time stand still and everything else seem worthless. Money, power, looks- they were all so useless in that one Moment. When the Song played, and the Illusion broke, and the Curtain parted.
Now as the final strains of the Song played out, Darren felt light.
This euphoria- he knew- would last forever.
He had had an inkling long ago. The Death Note was on the piano.
