Blondi was extremely frustrated. He had been trying to work on a new type of music for weeks now, and he wasn’t really any further than when he had started. Furthermore, he knew that it should be coming together by now, especially since he knew he was going to be seeing his girlfriend Toffy the next day, which was quite a big deal – he hadn’t seen her for well over half a year, which only furthered his frustration; he had wanted to share his music with her when they were together again.
“Dang it! Why won’t this work?” he pounded his fist on his desk at the same time he said the last word, making it reverberate with a low heavy thud. He paused for a moment, hearing the quickly fading bass note his fist made from the desk mix with the tenor of his voice. The realization then hit him like a ton of bricks, taking his breath away.
“Of course! They should alternate fifths apart! That’s what I’ve had wrong!”
He immediately hunched over his computer, correcting what he finally realized was wrong with what little he had already compiled. A small change here, a piece dragged there, and a new harmony alternating, as he had realized, between a third and a fifth apart, creating both a nuance of a haunting melody and an ambiance of a fascinatingly simple, yet highly complex, composition that would redefine the way that music was thought to exist.
A resounding bass mixed in with a matching tone averaging two octaves higher (once again, alternating between a third and fifth from each other in their respective octaves), and a piano starts playing a joyous little ditty that throws in swooping arcs of utter sadness, followed once again by the highs that life can give you (shown through the music, of course). Throw in a few synthetic strings and other orchestra pieces, speed it all up, and…
His alarm went off. He quickly swung his head to look at the time.
“Oh, crap, I’m late for my flight!” He quickly saved the file to his flash drive, grabbed his bags, and ran for the door.
Toffy waited outside the terminal for Blondi’s flight to arrive. She impatiently tapped her foot and looked at the flight board for the hundredth time. It read the time as being 3:45pm, and according to the copy of his ticket he had emailed her, he should have been there at 3:30pm. Her eyes turned to the incoming flights’ arrival times, looking for his flight number; it read as being delayed. Just as she was about to roll her eyes – again – the list changed. Her heart leapt up to her throat, and she smiled.
“He’s here!”
“I sure am, my honey bunches of oats!” She spun around and, without even really looking, tackled him to the ground with a hug. One of his bags of clothes broke their fall.
She suddenly let go and pushed up and off of him, but kept him pinned underneath her.
“Why was your plane late?” she demanded.
He chuckled and blushed a little bit. “Um…because I made it onto the ramp of the plane just before they were about to take off.” he replied a little bit sheepishly. “Uh…may I please get up? I don’t think security would be too appreciative of our shenanigans…”
She grinned and got up off of him completely, then helped him to get up. They then started walking towards the waiting car.
“So why did you almost miss the plane?”
“I was so focused on getting my music finished that I lost track of time – I didn’t even get a chance to listen to the final cut yet.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive, showing it to her. “Luckily, I got it finished and saved just in time!”
“Awesome!” Toffy turned her eyes away from the small flash drive and back into Blondi’s eyes. “You know, I’ve never been to a rave before...have you ever considered hosting one?”
Blondi looked at her knowingly and smiled. “What have you set up already?”
“Oh, just a small little place with a few friends possibly attending…”
“Really, now…” he mused to himself, and then asked her, “How would you like to be the first one to hear my new music?"
She guided her blindfolded boyfriend into the spacious room. “You can take off your blindfold now.”
He did, and was flabbergasted by what he saw. “Holy crap! You rented out an old warehouse? That’s awesome!” he paused. “Where are we?”
“We are about a mile and a half from town, and that’s not the only surprise, either…”
He looked at her, his interest piqued. “What’s the other surprise?”
“Two surprises, actually. One: the warehouse is sound-proof.”
Blondi’s jaw dropped. “No way…how?”
“Apparently, a few years back, there was a group of heavy metal musicians who didn’t want the police to know that they performed here, so they sound-proofed the whole building. Only problem was, they were found out by an over-zealous groupie of another band, and were all arrested. Let’s just say,” she said with a grin, “the second thing was that a certain someone was able to buy the building at public auction for their special someone.”
He picked her up by her waist, spinning her around in a circle before putting her back on her feet. “I love you, you know that, right?”
Toffy blushed. “I do, and I love you too.” she said shyly.
“Now,” Blondi said, the excitement obviously building in his voice, “why don’t I play you some music?”
“Then why don’t we play it through the integrated sound system that is also in place here?”
His eyes went wide, his mouth open in a big ‘O’ shape that quickly turned into a huge smile.
“Lead the way to the input jack, my most gorgeous, wonderful, and, might I add, lucky and-“
“Oh, hush, you…it’s right over there behind the pedestal.”
He went to the pedestal, pulling out his flash drive from his pocket. Upon seeing what was a part of the pedestal, however, nearly floored him as much as the warehouse itself.
“You have a three thousand dollar motherboard here, with a setup that would make most professionals jealous!” he exclaimed, the awe and excitement clearly evident in his voice. “I don’t know how you do it, hun…you’re simply amazing!”
Blondi popped open the flash drive, revealing the metal insert for the USB port, then pushed it in. He searched a moment for the correct file, then asked, “Are you ready?”
Toffy smiled and nodded her head.
“Awesomesauce. Here we…”He looked up at her. “…uh…when did you bring out the glowsticks?”
“Nevermind, just push play and come over here!”
“Oh,” he chuckled. “Okay.”
He pressed play.
Toffy didn’t hear anything for a couple of moments, then came the sound of a piano’s melody. It was a haunting melody, soft and slow, almost weeping in its manner. Then came a lone flute, playing two octaves and a fifth above it, then a bass a moment later, plucking away with its deep, full sound. Then came the strings – the strings that sent a slight chill down both of their spines that didn’t seem to end at their behinds, though neither of them noticed. Rising and falling between fifths and thirds, between complete happiness and utter despair – no feeling was left untouched in their emotions.
At this point, they were both moving to the beats, and neither seemed to notice when colored lights suddenly started flashing with the beats and timing of the music; they both had their eyes closed, concentrating on the music and the emotions it made them feel, and nothing else.
Toffy’s ear twitched and rotated with the music (it being a surround sound-like experience allowing her to hear the music come from everywhere around her, even, seemingly through her), and her heart started beating faster and faster, right alongside the tempo of the bass.
Blondi, at the same time, had started feeling like he should just be jumping as high as he could, bouncing off of the balls of his feet, not even noticing when his feet turned more like animal’s digitigrade feet than a human’s plantigrade feet.
Then, as if a switched had been pulled, a part of the music changed, sounding like a heavenly orchestra was playing completely different parts that meshed together perfectly into a tune that now had both of the young adults nearly bursting with joy for its beauty, all while still having the sort of raving madness that accompanies some rave music. With this so-called switch, fur seemed to just appear with a silent poof, but neither seemed to notice.
The music then twisted once again, churning their hearts even further into the music (now a little bit of a slower tempo and with the whump, whump, whump of the bass notes reverberating through them), their yearning for a finale that would leave them changed forever on a soulful, albeit physical, level.
For the music, whether they knew it or not, was actually on such a deep, emotional level that it was intertwining them with how they truly saw themselves on the inside with what they were on the outside.
The lights, still going to the beating bass and trilling high notes, slowly rotated to the walls, dimming slightly as the music slowed down, then they seemed to dim to nothing as the music did the same.
The two opened their eyes for the first time and saw one another, knowing now what had truly happened.
The two furs went to each other and embraced for several minutes, the tears now finally flowing from their joy.
Toffy pulled away first. “You know, we should tell some of our friends about this…”
Blondi smirked, then kissed her before saying, “We should tell everyone...”
