Symphony of Tears

It was March, 1787. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart sat impatiently. He had a distinguished guest due to arrive an hour ago, and he was both excited and pissed that his anticipation was being extended. He scribbled notes absently on a sheet of parchment, randomly hitting notes on the grand piano in front of him.

His personal 'assistant' walked in and announced,

"Sir, Master Beethoven has sent a messenger to assure you that he is on his way, and apologizes that he had been detained by an emergency. He sends his regards and expects to be with you around five in the afternoon."

"Thank you, Jens. Have a pot of tea brought up to me. It looks to be a long day."

Jens bowed and left. Wolfgang turned again to the piece he was working on. He had worked on it off and on again for years. It was a short opera regarding the myth of Lycaon, King of Arcadia, who attempted to serve up human flesh to Zeus, to test Zeus' divinity. Zeus responded by turning Lycaon into a beast. A wolf. This resounded with Amadeus so much that writing the music to the story frequently brought him to fits of weeping, and he had to stop working on it until another time.

Keep Making Fun of Me

It was two weeks after the party in Bart's basement, and Joe was standing next to a young man in a kippah in Toronto's Bovine Sex Club, listening to Kraftpark, a Kraftwerk cover band.

"This piece is by The Organization. It doesn't have lyrics, so we gave it some, because it's no fun just being a cover band all the time. Can we hear it for creativity?"

The crowd roared.

"All right. Bear with us, this song doesn't have much room for lyrics, so it might sound pretty strange. But it sounds pretty strange anyway. All you big fans, you know what we're talking about! Get ready for Milk Rock!"

Into various points in the melodious cacophony that ensued they moaned and shouted:

Fantastisch,
Elektrische,
Melancholisch,
Irrsinnig,
Romantisch,
Statistische,
Poetisch,
weiß, schmelzende Musik...

Everyone around roared approval except the guy in the kippah, who shouted "Learn German, already!" and a Japanese man next to him who shouted nothing, but frowned, only to smile when the lead singer stepped forward and started chanting a capella "Boku wa ongak' ka, Dentaku katate ni..."

Great Spirits

It was 30 days before Joe's latest visit to Bart, and he was playing Ms. Pac Man on an immaculately preserved cabinet in Cody's basement.

"Cody, who's the Great Spirit, you think?" Joe asked, deftly picking up the fruit for this level.

"You, of course," Cody deftly replied. "Just look at you. You started the game, you give the meaning, you decide the meaning. Well, you, Doug Macrae, John Tylko, and Kevin Curran."

Joe turned and stared at Cody, ruining this attempt at a one-life runthrough up to the first playability-ruining glitch. "You can name the programmers by heart?!"

"Yeah..."

"But you still suck at Ms. Pac Man after all these years?!"

"Love doesn't have to mean skill, you know... I can't claim credit for that thought by the way, Kate told me that."

"Kate?"

"Just an old friend, you wouldn't know her."

Give Up Your Heart

In this Romania not yet reconfigured for modern tourism, is not an easy trek from the roadway to the Scărişoara Ice Cave, but Glenn is a physically fit, and driven, man. Glenn's friend's home is also, naturally, in the part of the cave forbidden to tourists and unreachable without ropes, but in this Romania not yet reconfigured for modern capitalism, restrictions melt under money and other magic, like friendship. Odd and societally odious friendships, shared with his old friend.


Even these have a limit. For the last hundred feet, he spelunks alone, in the dark, relieved when at last he spots the bonfire dominating Jens' cozy cavernous home.

"I always gotta wonder, Jens, the way how you and your Romanian friends refuse to meet... do you hate them, or do they hate you?"


"We hate each other because we are sick. We love each other because we are the only ones we know who are so sick. But you know I hate myself the most, Glenn."


"You know you have a right to live, Jens. You acted on it. Why go halfway? Why live but hate yourself?"


"I know many people had a right to live, Glenn. People I killed."


"And you had a right to mistakes."


"But not to play God."


"You weren't playing God, Jens. You were playing faithful."


"A sick faith."


"There are no others. I wrote words for you, Jens. I might not find music for them soon. When I do I will make a special trip so you can hear it. I wrote:


I am a walking screaming hell
A thing of torture to behold
This vivisection splits my soul
A thing of torture to behold
Where you run to
Won't take too long
I've come to get you
Won't take too long
And death should know we
No hesitating
Give up your heart
It ain't so lonely
Without your heart
And death should know me
My hands are dirty wirh his blood
And i can take you there
I've got a brand new god
And if i lay you there
Under my brand new god
Then i will slay you there
For my brand new god
Where are you running to
It didn't take too long
I've come and gone now
You didn't take too long
And death should know me
My hands are dirty with his blood
And death should know me after all
I prepared you for the second coming of my god

"I hate you, Glenn."

"I love you, Jens."

"I love you, Glenn. JESUS, not like that, you sick fuck." Saying this, Glenn regardless dived onto Jens and hugged him, despite the stench emanating from his tattered jacket. The thunderous embrace was too much for a threadbare patch remaining on the garment, reading "KZ Stutthof"; it fluttered into Jens' shaded kerosene lamp and briefly ignited. Now only the Untersturmführer's SS sign, eagle, and three silver pips remained.

"Do you have... Glenn do you... I'm so selfish but you know it is so hard here..."

"Don't be ashamed you need help not to go crazy. Be proud you're not totally crazy yet. Yes! Yes you'd better believe I brought something. I can't believe didn't do this before. Well I mean it's always hard with climbing the cave, but this is important. I should have done this sooner. OK, this is a Walkman. These are AA batteries, I'll talk about storing them later. These are tapes. The Japanese make great stuff, your war turned out great for them. Or us. Or somebody."

Jens frowned.

"OK here we've got Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, every musician your culture idolized. Yeah, I know, two-edged sword. I think that's OK that it's a two-edged sword. And here we have Chopin, Penderecki --" at this, Jens gave a questioning look -- "yeah not real well known in your day... he's for if you ever feel like torturing yourself with style, then we got some generic Polish Baroque... man, sorry that's all the Poles I got but to be honest with myself here, I don't fucking know much about classical, especially outside the West... damn German tastemakers never gave much room to the Poles and hey anyway I don't know if this shit'll be welcome with you or... oh... look, anyway and then here's our band's stuff. And some brainless pop, listen the hell out of it, forget everything, forget you ever did anything goddammit."

"Glenn. Always remember. All your gifts are good. But most I thank your family for my life."

THE CURIOUS CASE OF GLENN ANZALONE

It was June 17th, 1991, and Glenn Anzalone was doing curls with a 25 pd. dumbell in the lounge of his tour bus. On the table next to him sat a cup of bourbon and a glass of iced green tea. There were three books on the table too,--Werewolf, by Montague Summers, The Secret Writings Of E. A. Poe, and Why The Allies Won, by Richard Overy. Glenn was deep in thought. You could see it in his eyes.

He was en route to the plane that would take him to a series of engagements in Germany and Austria around his new album, Lucifuge. What was to happen in the next three weeks would forever change him, remake him. He had always wanted to tour the former Third Reich. His fascination in W.W.II history and specifically the tragic story of Germany had impressed him so much earlier in his life that he chose Danzig specifically to give tribute.

"The Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia (German: Reichsgau Danzig-Westpreussen), a Nazi German province created on 8 October 1939 from the territory of the annexed Free City of Danzig, the annexed Polish province Greater Pomeranian Voivodship (Polish Corridor), and the Nazi German Regierungsbezirk West Prussia of Gau East Prussia. Before 2 November 1939, the Reichsgau was called Reichsgau West Prussia."--wikipedia

It was just a few kilometers from Danzig that the Nazis built their first concentration camp outside of Germany's borders, Stutthof Concentration Camp.

"Completed on September 2, 1939, it was located in a secluded, wet, and wooded area west of the small town of Sztutowo (German: Stutthof). The town is located in the former territory of the Free City of Danzig, 34 km east of Gdańsk, Poland. Stutthof was the last camp liberated by the Allies, on May 9, 1945. More than 85,000 victims[1] died in the camp out of as many as 110,000 people deported there."--wikipedia

Two days later he landed in Hamburg, and while he made a different (secret) connection, his band got aboard their respective tour bus. Things were going well, and they could afford two right now, and he wanted his space. He had need for secrecy, too. Therefore, his bandmates would think he was aboard the other bus, when in fact he had boarded a small two engine plane bound for Oradea, the capitol city of Bihor County in Romania. There he rented a Range Rover and set out towards one of the peaks in the nearby Apuseni Mountains. He had an appointment with an old friend.

In the Carpathian mountains, there are many folk tales. While Mr. Anzalone had a great appreciation for tales, what he was after was not a myth. It was his destiny.

The Binder on Yitzchak

It was 30 days in the future, and Joe Eawest was bound to something strikingly resembling a hospital bed, but not meant to heal. The room contained one other bed, two chairs, a blindlingly bright overhead light, four walls, and a shaded lamp. On the other bed lay Yitzchak Jasny, whose only relation to Joe, for now, was that they were both scheduled for enhanced interrogation today. Unusually, only the shaded lamp was lit at the moment: Raymond Eawest and his subordinate John Smith periodically vocally agreed, chuckling, that they didn't have to torture themselves to torture their properties. In fact, they were doing so right now as they walked in.

"...But anyway Ray, I just didn't like that last prayer session. I mean I'm not religious anyway --" (at this, Raymond glared sternly) "--of course that's normally not a problem! But I'm not religious anyway, and that was pretty hardcore stuff. Kill your own kid --"

"Prepare to kill him."

"OK, Ray, let him live the rest of his life knowing you were prepared to kill him because of voices in your head. Like that's better."

Raymond's already-cooling attitude towards his colleague now flash-froze. "When the Lord speaks, the good man listens and obeys unquestioningly, even if it means killing his own son... You know, John, there are twenty people below you vying for your position. Maybe I should find one better morally-founded."

John sighed. "OK, OK, let's just drop it. So, whatta we got here? A Yitzchak Jasný and a Joe Souther. Awwwrighty, who's on first?! I hate to push your patience, Ray, but you mind if I superstitiously leave this one to Lady Luck?"

Ray grew livid, but truth be told, there was no replacement for John -- he was the best in his field. He hoped John never realized that. "Do it."

"Heads. Yitzchak's up." He turned to the boy. "Don't worry kid, we won't start for another half an hour. And yes, we'll be right here discussing our questions... go ahead and prepare some lies if you want. It really doesn't matter."

Raymond dropped Yitzchak's binder on the table, open to page 23, where he had thumb-bookmarked it. "Alright, skipping the opening, what we have here is a geek, punk, organizer, did the G20 in 2010... can't forget to wipe his memory after this of course, discreditation would be difficult if he began to gossip. What we want are his contacts, his plans, his contacts' plans, and of course anything he knows on my son."

"You're weird, Ray."

Verse The Fifty-Fourth

It was thirty minutes before the present, and Katryn Norse was absent-mindedly humming Danzig's Mother and then, not knowing any better, singing We Are 138, thinking he had immortalized it on his own.

Joe was singing the fifty-fourth verse.

"This here is verse nummer vier-und-fünfzig
And it hypnotizes you, makes you think of Danzig
Even if you've never heard of him before
Suddenly you'll be a hummin' Danzig's whore
And it doesn't matter if you're drunk or sober
Oh when I whistle Dixie baby you'll roll over!

You see...
You just ain't allowed to hear what I'm now gonna say
And yet I feel the nee-eed to sing it anyway:
Oh baby I'm just a boy who's come unstuck in time
Tomorrow to childhood, I turn on a dime
Some people say that I'm just crazy or ly'n'
(Sotto voce: Like you. Bitch. And your dumb husband too. You're lucky I like you guys or I'd... I'd... sing nasty things about you. Or something.)
That I know very well I stick in one timeline. Like them. Like you. Like suuu-perglue.

Buuuuut...
I just can't explain the things that I feel
In the end I don't care if it's crazy or real
Maybe it's just a movie with a rickety reel
Maybe it's like a slant rhyme, running off bull
You wouldn't snicker behind my back
If you felt what I felt in that dream parking lot
And if your subconscious mind while hearing these lines
Says "he's not too consistent with reason or rhyme"
That's cuz you didn't hear what I ate and felt
In death's giant dream par-king, lot!"

"Hey Joe, I dozed off there a moment, just when I was getting into it!" Katryn tittered calculatedly. "What are we up to?"

"Oh, I just did the Fifty-Fifth Verse. Here, let me play it again."

I'm Bart Norse, who the hell are you?

It was twenty-two years earlier, and Joe was not dreaming. Bartholomew Norse was eating a bowl of microwave popcorn and glaring at him.

"It doesn't matter whether or not you agree with the premise in order for you to like it. I mean, ultimately it's a time travel movie for the entire family, I don't think Gilliam was trying to expand upon Einstein's work in quantum mechanics when he made it. You should ask yourself if you can stop thinking long enough to relax and passively enjoy a movie once in a while, Joe. Gosh!", said Bartholomew.

"I know," replied Joe, and sat the paused Beta remote control down on the coffee table, "it's just that long term exposure to midgets gives me the creeps, and the fireman could not be that dude from the desert in the other time, it's just not feasible. The whole plot is full of holes."

Bart snorted. "Yeah, dummy. Wormholes. It's called Time Bandits for a reason. Are you gonna play it?"

"I was wondering if you'd rather play a quick game of Scrabble instead?" Joe actually turned off the television and sat on the floor opposite the couch, already pulling out the game beneath.

"I really need to practice."

"Oh, all right. Practice what, anyway?"

"I am studying what words another person plays vs. what I play. You see, I am making a list of special words. I am writing the list for my idea."

The Parking Lot

Joe was dreaming. Or perhaps dead. He did not know what date it was.

It was a simple dream. That is why he didn't understand that it was a dream at first. Slowly, he realiZed, the parking lot was just too large.

He had come into consciousness walking *about 20 min. ago, and carrying in his right hand a mini mag flashlight.

It was the dead of night. I mean, pitch black outside, and the only light emanating from anywhere was the streetlights. Except they were not on a street. He was walking. And he was looking at his feet. He knew that time was being off somehow.

He stopped for a moment and just stood. Slowly his eyes became acclimated and his sense of dread grew. He saw ahead of him an enormous parking lot, as far as his limited sight could afford. But. He did not see any cars parked anywhere, or stores or mall or any structures at all, save the occasional cart-corral or waste bin. He began walking again, and his gait quickened. He had a sort of bad feeling about this parking lot. He jogged for a few minutes and stopped again. He knew. There were numbers on the parking spaces, but they were in a totally nonsensical order, as far as he could figure. His mind was reminded of code-breaking and also of sudoku. He began running as fast as he could and looking semi-periferally at the numbers. Would he awake?

If only he could find a vehicle.