True Rhythm

I have never understood rhythm, despite growing up in a musical family. Everything moves in ways that are unpredictable and without order. Music is nothing but a mesh of sounds that blend together into a chaotic mix; others find music pleasing, but I find it wretched and displeasing and senseless, burning my ears whenever I hear it. People say that you can find rhythm anywhere, and for a long time I have searched for it. I listen to cars as they pass, my feet as they hit the pavement, the sounds of chatter and wind and animals, but the noises sound as discordant as music. It feels as though everyone is listening to some radiant, harmonic tune that falls deaf on my ears alone.

The solution, when you are displeased with everyone else’s creations, I figured, is to create something of your own. The day I got my microphone, a small choir group knocked at my door, dressed in black robes and holding pamphlets for a church down the street from my house.

“Good afternoon! Our church is looking for new members to join our choir. Would you be interested, or maybe know someone who would be?” one of the choir members extended a pamphlet towards me. I took it out of politeness.

“I’ll ask around,” I told them, smiling and nodding.

“Great! Would you like to hear one of our songs?” the shortest choir member asked.

I hesitated. I had listened to many genres of music in my search for rhythm, but never had I heard the sounds of a church choir.

Perhaps they’ll have the voices of angels, I thought to myself.

“Sure, I have time for one short song!” I told them. They then began to sing, but it was a hollow, haunting sound, but one that grated on the ears like nails on a chalkboard. It seemed to last for an eternity, their voices going all over the place before bouncing around in my brain and resounding in my temples like a pounding headache. When they had finished, I forced a smile once more.

“Thank you, that was lovely,” I lied. They bid me good-bye and left, shuffling down to the next house. To the right of the door, I noticed a brown package on my porch, the one that held the microphone.

If that’s what angels sound like, I never want to go to heaven, I thought as I closed my front door. My ears still ached from the racket and I felt thankful that I had never gone to church. I set the pamphlet down on the hall table before carrying the box to my room, glancing at the family photos that I had hung on my walls, some of them taken of family members dressed in formal clothing and holding various instruments. In my room I tore the box open and began working on setting up my microphone. I decided to create music to put online, where everyone could hear the one true form of rhythm that I would create. I figured I needed no sort of practice or training, not when those who had been training their whole lives still sounded so horrendous.

Once my microphone was set up, I made my first recording, testing it out by saying a couple of words. It worked, so I decided I was ready to record the first true recording of rhythm. Taking a deep breath, I began to shriek and wail into the microphone, the loud sounds billowing out of my lungs and through my chest, varying in length, and I felt myself getting lost in the odd flow of my voice. I continued my first piece for several hours, until the light outside faded and my throat was rasping in the dark, dry and parched. Finally, I could make no more sound, and I stopped the recording.

Was that-was that flow rhythm? I wondered. I sat down at my desk and played my piece from my computer. What came out from the speakers was the most wonderful sound I had ever heard, a graceful melody that flitted around the room. I felt my eyes fill with tears. I had found it- rhythm! I now understood why everyone was so obsessed with it, why everyone looked for it where they could and felt it in their bodies. The sound of my screeching soothed my sore ears, gently brushing away the damage done by the disharmonious noises of the church choir.

I quickly uploaded my masterpiece online under the name True Rhythm before drinking a glass of water and going to bed, my body catching onto the rhythm of my creation as I danced across the floor, swaying before falling onto my bed and into a deep, satisfied sleep.

That night, I dreamed of a choir of angels, standing on white, fluffy clouds and lifting their noises towards heaven. Those poor, misled angels, who believed that what they were making was rhythm. From below them, a high-pitched wailing came up from the depths, its truth curling through the air and blessing their ears. The black earth far below the clouds began to crack as the wailing grew in strength, but just before it burst I awoke to rays of sun peeking through my curtains and into my eyes.

I arose, still feeling light with happiness, and made my way to my computer. My throat was still sore from the day before, but my ears were more relaxed than they had ever been. I opened my computer, smiling as I imagined the comments I would have from people who had had revelations, but when I opened up to the comments my smile faded.

This is very impressive

What even is this?! Why is this under music?!

This gives me the chills.

Wow, that voice is strong. This should be under something else though, lol

Just sent this to my friend as a prank XD

Interesting…

I read the comments, disappointed. These people were delusional, their minds twisted by everything around them. Only I could hear the truth, only I could hear the rhythm.

More, I thought, I need to make more, so that they can hear it, so that their eyes and ears can be opened.

I swallowed, painfully, and set up my microphone to record. My stomach rumbled, and I decided to leave it as background noise, to harmonize with my melodies. Pressing “record”, I began to sing again, high-pitched and screechy, ignoring the taste of blood seeping into my mouth from my throat. This recording was shorter, lasting only an hour, but I felt a sense of confidence as I uploaded it. I drank water and ate breakfast as I waited for the comments to flood in, for people to take notice of the critical missing piece that I had found. My voice, and my voice alone, held a rhythm that no other voice on the planet did.

When I returned to the comments, there were very few, and they were similar to the comments on my first piece. My hands balled into frustrated fists and I grit my teeth.

How dare they. How dare they fail to see my creation for what it is.

I needed a different way, a way that would get my rhythm to a wider audience, a performance that could touch many at once.

The church choir.

My mouth broke into a smile again once I arrived at the thought. I picked up the pamphlet from the hall table. The next mass was tomorrow, Sunday, at 10:00 a.m., and I would be there.

I went to bed that night with a smile on my face, a smile that sprouted from the knowledge that I would be sharing the truth with the world. 

When I awoke this morning, the smile was still there, affixed to my face. I got dressed in my most formal attire, a white button-up shirt tucked into a sleek pair of black pants with a pair of glossy black shoes on my feet. I walked confidently, pamphlet in hand, down the street to the church, where I joined the other people entering the building for mass. Walking down the row of seats, I approached the choir group. They all smiled when they saw me, recognizing my face and the pamphlet I was holding.

“Good morning, I’m here to join the choir group,” I told them.

“Great!” one of the choir members beamed. “You can stay after mass for our practice session!”

“Okay,” I said. “Can I join you for today’s mass?”

“No, we’ll have to see where to place you today,” another choir member responded. My smile froze on my face. They had to decide where to place me based on their blinded ideas of rhythm, and I knew that I had no place in their inferior system.

“I insist on joining you today. I have a very important piece I’d like to share,” I told them patiently.

“I’m sorry, but these songs need to be practiced beforehand, and we would need to hear your piece first,” one of the choir members gave me an apologetic look.

The corner of my mouth twitched.

“Alright, then,” I said calmly before turning and taking a seat at the end of the front row, right in front of the choir.

I waited for mass to begin and now I sit, biding my time. It was never that I didn’t understand rhythm, but rather that the world around me didn’t. But now I do, and I know that I must share it with the world.

After the priest has spoken, the choir begins to sing. I resist the urge to cover my ears through the entire song, and when they have finished the priest asks everyone to pray.

As everyone bows their heads I stand and make my way to the microphone, startling the choir members when I take it from the stand and walk forward.

“Today I will show you all true rhythm,” I say, a wide smile on my face. The priest stands, confused, and I can hear the choir group shuffling forward to take the microphone from me. Before they have the chance, I begin to share my rhythm, my shrieks echoing off of the walls and the high, arched ceiling. I can feel my voice swelling as clouds move and sunbeams stream through the windows and fill the church with light, and I know that my voice is the true voice of angels until I look to the audience, expecting wide eyes and swaying but instead seeing people with hands over their ears. I stop and everything clicks as the choir members gently pull my arms back and take the microphone from my hands. My smile grows even wider until I’m sure I’ll soon pull the skin off of my bones.

“I don’t have the voice of angels,” I yell, my voice breaking. Someone begins to pull me off of the platform. I yank my arm away and run to stand at the very front of the platform, on a stage before my audience. The audience is a mixture of confusion and surprise and sadness, a combination as chaotic as what they call “rhythm.” I spread my arms open wide towards them.

“I offer the one true rhythm, the rhythm of demons!” I cry, looking upwards as my eyes fill with tears of joy, for I have finally shared what needed to be shared. More hands reach for me, trying to pull me away from my reverie, but I remain there, looking upwards for demons whether they be in the blue sky filled with sunlight or trapped in a gray ceiling above me.

“I understand it,” I say, so softly that I’m afraid my audience can’t hear, “I understand rhythm!”