There has always been a mysterious power to music.
We've known this for eons, and science has only recently been able to back up this power that we've always felt deep in our souls.
Dog's heart rates slow when they listen to Reggae. Sharks are attracted to heavy metal music when it's played through loudspeakers on the ocean floor. There's a Dubstep song that drives mosquitos away.
I once saw a video of an elderly ballerina, sitting like a corpse under the spell of dementia, suddenly spring into motion at the sound of a classical piece, her frail form once again transcending all mortal things, the motion of poetry and beauty, animated by orchestral strains which could bring, for a moment, the dead back to life.
Such is the power of music.
Music is everything, life and art and memory. But does it have a more sinister power than this? In the nineties, the T.V. preachers warned us of the dark magic hidden in our rock songs, the subliminal strains of Hotel California, the devil-worship metal bands, Led Zeppelin. How many times have we heard a song described as mesmerizing, enchanting? These are Voodoo words, words that call to the power hidden in these spells of sound.
Music is life, and wonder, and soul; and it is danger.
I was only ten when I first heard the Turning Song.
*****
Working in the record store helps.
It wasn't easy for me to find work when I got out of the hospital. The shop owner was desperate for help on the weekends, and he was so stoned during my interview that I think it was at least a week before he realized he had actually hired me.
I didn't mind; the pay was shit but the work was easy, and moreover and above all that was the one benefit I really needed.
The music.
All day, whether I worked an eight-hour or ten-hour shift, piped through the speakers and bouncing off the vinyl-tiled walls of the shop was the music. Nu-metal, punk rock, ska and synth and new wave; I didn't really care what it was, it was loud enough to drown out what was inside me and that was all that mattered.
Say what you will about how technology is ruining everything, stealing our humanity, and I'll probably agree with you, but music streaming platforms have got to be the best inventions we've ever come up with. Wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, access to every song and artist I could ever want. And when I tell you I couldn't live without it, that I wouldn't be able to function in this world without the constant sound to drown everything out, I'm really not exaggerating. There's a reason I spent so much time in that hospital.
It had been a slow day at the store, and as I shut off the lights and the speakers, I let the silence and stillness wash over me. True silence. That was so rare these days. I shut my eyes, relishing it; these breaks in the music and noise, these beats of quiet - what I wouldn't give for a full day of such rest.
A metallic clatter of coins as my boss broke a roll of pennies into the cash drawer. Oh, well. Silence never lasted very long for the living.
"You heading out, Jackie?" He asks as I sling my bag over my shoulder.
"Yeah,"
"I'll see you tomorrow, then. Have a good night."
"I'll see ya."
I put my earbuds back in my ears, pulling up a random playlist on my phone. John Fogarty's voice filled my ears, soothing my anxiety before it had a chance to settle in my veins.
I cranked the volume as I descended into the subway station. Crowds make me nervous. Once I boarded and the doors closed shut behind me, I found a seat near the back and closed my eyes for most of the ride home.
I wish I could be normal.
What I wouldn't give for a day of being just like everyone else, of having the ability to take the whole world in, to not have to cocoon myself this way. The subway sways to a stop, the doors slide open, shut again. More people crowd around me. I feel my teeth clench, the muscles in my neck tensing like well-trained soldiers standing at attention. People, crowds - that's where the danger lies.
My playlist shifts to bluesy-jazz and I try to get lost in it, the warm smoky notes of song caressing my soul.
I wasn't always this way. Or maybe, the world wasn't always this way. Maybe it was. Those with ears to hear; that's a line from the Bible, isn't it? I wish it wasn't me. I wish I'd never heard it.
The car chimes to a stop and I stand before it halts fully. This is my stop, and soon I'll be home, I'll be safe, I'll be able to hole myself away behind my dull apartment walls for a while and not have to see the judgmental faces of people who could never understand why I have to be this way, why I have to pump this noise into my ears or else go mad -
The world could never understand.
I step off the platform, duck my head as I make my way up the subway stairs, back onto streets that are now slick with rain and nighttime. Cars speed past me, whizzing, honking. I don't pay them any mind. Sometimes I think it would a mercy, if I stepped too close one of these days, into the rush of those impersonal and blinding headlights. But those things never work out quite the way you think they should.
I'm almost to my apartment, but I stop and glance behind.
Something is wrong.
I felt it as soon as I left the store, this sense that I wasn't quite alone. It was nothing concrete, just a prickle on the back of my neck, that sixth-sense that I believe rabbits must have when they sense something, somewhere, watching them. The feeling of being hunted.
I shiver, glance all around, and even risk removing my earbuds to give myself a better feel of my surroundings. Nothing is out of the ordinary.
I'm getting paranoid. I need a drink. I replace my earbuds and crank up the volume. Just a few more minutes until I'm back in my apartment. I'll be home soon.
But I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched.