Soul Music - The Music

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 heart beat. 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 for ever. Don't fade away.

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Soul Music - p245-246