The Final Melody

Has a melody ever compelled you to stop dead in your tracks, your very being gripped by an overwhelming sense of dread?

This very phenomena happened to one Jeremiah Peabody, a retired military officer, during a leisurely stroll through Covent Garden on a bright September afternoon in 1922. The uncharacteristically crisp and invigorating air was filled with the unsettling sound of a frankly unremarkable busker and his trumpet, whose erratic notes, inconsistent tone, and amateur technique did more to vex rather than amuse the public on an otherwise beautiful day in London. Seemingly, there was nothing striking about either the worn-out looking Jewish boy in a tattered, greasy coat - originally from the Russian Empire, by the looks of him, a refugee of the Civil War, most likely - or his pitiful attempts to recall the musical education he had to obtain to escape the Pale of Settlement. Indeed, no one in the crowd deigned to pay him any mind, and the sole reaction he drew was an annoyed half-jog that even the most esteemed members of the public involuntarily broke out in to escape the nauseating, grating sound of the poor busker - no one, that is, but Jeremiah Peabody, it must be said. Oh, the dismal tin of an untuned trumpet produced a most extraordinary effect on him!

You, inquisitive reader, might wonder how a humble busker could cause a seasoned army man’s heart to pound, his stomach to turn and twist into knots, and his skin to cover in a cold, clammy sheen of sweat. You see, Jeremiah Peabody had led a long yet rather undistinguished and uneventful life. The second son of the second son of an old, once-wealthy family now fallen into destitution, Jeremiah's youth was characterized by little more than hollow prestige and vain expectations, and he would be the first to admit that life would have been an all around simpler and more pleasant affair without those burdens. The condescending pity of his more fortunate distant relatives and family acquaintances drove Jeremiah mad with jealousy, and he sought to correct his stature in life by procuring a successful military career - the only way of his time and place for a down-on-his-luck aristocrat to improve his fortunes. Alas, even in this he knew only disappointment. He did not get to plunder the riches of India, or find prestige and promotion serving on the Home Isles, or, at the very least, enjoy the mild climate and beauty of South Africa; instead, at the dawn of the 20th century and close to the twilight of his career, he found himself as a middling officer of the 1st Chinese Regiment in British Weihaiwei, a small parcel of Imperial territory in Northern China. By every measure, it appeared as though his career and life were destined to end exactly like they had begun - in bitter disappointment and unfulfilled aspirations.

It was then that fortune smiled down upon him and granted him his long awaited chance. For close to a century now, European powers had exploited and bullied the weak and inept Quing dynasty, and the people of China had had enough. We shall spare you, dear reader, the twists and turns of the infamous Boxer Rebellion, as history now remembers it. Instead, we would simply take you straight to where these sort of things usually end - to the looting and massacres in Beijing that ensued at the end of it all. A city that had hitherto offered limited access to outsiders, guarding the centuries of art, opulence, and wealth of one of history's greatest civilizations from Western eyes, now lay at their mercy, and an untold number of priceless artifacts were plundered by the soldiers and officers of the Eight-Nation Alliance. Here, the mediocre and pathetic figure of Jeremiah Peabody was finally able to distinguish itself. His tireless diligence and unbound enthusiasm in plundering and slaughtering the defenseless populace of Beijing became stuff of hushed, whispered legends. The sheer volume of relics and treasures Peabody managed to plunder rendered him a rich man virtually overnight, and he retired comfortably in London as a respected veteran officer and a gentleman of substantial means, conveniently sparing himself the horrors of the looming Great War. After all, you only get a chance like that once in a lifetime, and Jeremiah was never going to miss it.

One episode in a long and bloody procession of atrocities of those brutal days particularly stood out from the rest. Towards the end of the looting, Jeremiah and his most shameless soldiers stumbled upon the Tangse, the Empresses' shamanic shrine—a place of sacred reverence where the emperors themselves had conducted holy rituals since the Qing dynasty's establishment some three centuries ago. The undeniable historical and cultural significance mattered little to Peabody, however - he knew there were riches there worthy of the emperors, and he felt entitled to them. The shaman charged with custodianship of the Tangse had, naturally, hid all the relics and treasures ahead of time, and only revealed their whereabouts after a prolonged period of unfathomable torture, the details of which we would most certainly spare our readers from. Close to death and with the last vitality seeping out of his body, the shaman found strength in him to make Jeremiah Peabody one dire promise - that there would come a day of reckoning for his deeds, and the last emotions of his wretched life would be sheer horror and icy fear, with the shaman's ominous vow lingering in his mind as his final memory. Jeremiah Peabody, sensing a slight to his gentlemanly honor in this remark, felt the need to hang the shaman for his words, not before cutting his throat open to prolong and magnify the torture. As the shaman dangled from the rope and his final breaths escaped through his gaping neck, they produced the most blood-curdling, hellish melody that unnerved and unsettled even the heartless and callous men present at the scene. The wheezing, labored and desperate sound plunged everyone present into a heavy, brooding silence, forcing the men to contemplate the enormity of their actions. Even Peabody, normally an entirely uninspired and bland soul, was shaken to his core by the haunting sound and the ominous promise it accompanied. Immediately afterward, he and his men attempted to dismiss their momentary, childlike fear with laughter. Yet the dying shaman and his final melody would haunt him for years to come, invading his dreams and completely souring the rich and comfortable life he had dreamed of for so long.

Hence, it would be difficult to conceive the onslaught of emotions and thoughts Jeremiah Peabody experienced on that brilliant September afternoon in London, as the dreaded melody once again found its way into his ears, two decades later, emanating from a poor Jewish busker. Although, we may have a very good guess. He, of course, would not be able to articulate them to you even if he had possessed the literary acumen necessary to paint such a vivid picture, for his heart burst like an overinflated pig’s bladder there and then. It is, of course, in bad taste to speak ill of the dead, but, dare we say, good riddance that it did, for the world lost little with Jeremiah Peabody's passing. Whether it was mere coincidence that the grand and dreadful efforts of humanity produced a melody so eerily similar in a context so distinct for one man’s ears, or whether the shaman had felt that the time was ripe for his vengeance, matters little. For, if the concept of a soul bears any truth, it is certain that on that beautiful day one of them, at long last, found peace in Beijing.