//------------------------------// // Chapter XI // Story: Blank Slate // by Integral Archer //------------------------------// “There is no excuse for being late,” came the voice over the radio, smoothly, coldly, but remorsefully. “How late was I?” “Forty minutes,” said Velvet Remedy. “Well, I apologize,” continued Cucro. “Out of all days to be late, this one was the worst. But, my little ponies, Cucro hopes that you can forgive him. He knows he can be a incorrigible bastard; he knows that he can be crude; he knows that he can be irritating, inappropriate, obnoxious, and annoying. But he hopes that after what you hear today, you’ll be able to forgive him. “He has worked for the past—man, I can’t even remember—for the past while on something very important to him. Before I get into that, let me say something: Do any of you realize, truly realize, the importance of the radio? The importance of speech? Surely none of you would doubt the importance of literature. And I am here to be so bold as to say that the radio is simply a natural extension of literature. Literature immortalized writing and in so doing extended to others the ideas of a remarkable individual whom they would not and could not have heard of otherwise. Likewise, the radio immortalized the voice. An individual always had the ability to speak, but being heard? Well, that’s a different story. How can one be heard in a world so noisy? The answer, my friends, is the radio. But what do literature and the radio have in common? They’re simply different mediums for the exact same sublime purpose: Speech. Ideas. Communication. The fight against ignorance. “A wonderful purpose, a pure purpose. But, of course, the concrete world throws problems at us when we try to bring this abstract purpose into reality. Allow me to refer back to literature. They took the form of books, paper. How to get ink onto paper? Well, originally, they were simply written. To reproduce an epic novel, monks had to write it manually over the course of years. This is why the act of burning a book became symbolic of ignorance; it equaled the destruction of years of work. But then came the printing press. Then came digitalization. Literature became perfected, and the exchange of ideas in its medium reached far across the earth, open to all, available to all, never to be in short supply again. “Radio, the novel’s much younger cousin, grew at a much slower rate. Originally, the radio only permitted a voice to be transmitted across a few yards’ distance. Abstraction gave us a beautiful potentiality, but reality presented difficulties. And, to be fair, we overcame some of these difficulties. The great inventors before us dedicated their lives to extending their voices through time and space. And, through their tireless work, culminating in the broadcast tower, they did it. Radio can be heard by all. It is open to all, available to all, never to be in short supply again. “Unfortunately, herein we see the discrepancy between radio and books. Books ceased to be written and became typed. They became more readable. Radio, however, never really received its equivalent typed upgrade. The radio is still, this many years later, for lack of a better word, slightly illegible. Static is still a persistent issue. Words sometimes appear slurred together. There are breaks in aud—and . . . ha! You see what I mean? Did you hear that break? That is radio’s typo. It was such an unsolvable problem that instead of working on it any longer, they created a clunky language to hopefully circumvent the inherent probability of a miscommunication with the radio. You know what I mean: ten-four-niner, over! “So why is this day so important? Because today, I, Cucro, become immortalized in history along with the individual that invented the e-book. The transportation of literature ended with the e-book; the transportation of the voice ends with me and what I have. Today, the radio has been perfected.” In the cafeteria, Clover blurted: “Oh, get over yourself, Copper!” Littlepip smiled. There was a silence over the frequency. A cough was heard among the group in the cafeteria. “I hear a distinct lack of applause,” said Cucro. “You talk too much,” said Velvet Remedy. “You have a huge ego and a big mouth, that’s for sure. But what have you done? What have we seen? Nothing. Why don’t you stop talking and actually do something for once? Why are you even here but to talk for yourself? I’m here because they want to listen to me. You’re here because nopony knows how to operate the damn thing and we can’t keep you off.” The entire cafeteria broke into a roaring laughter. It was funny because it was absolutely true, they thought. Their laughter was so loud that they were sure that it and the reason behind it could be heard down that long hallway, through the soundproof door, through the one-way window, and they were sure that the figure who hid behind the one-way window could feel it and knew it. When they stopped laughing, they perked up their ears to listen. They heard nothing. Each one felt as if they were there with Velvet Remedy fighting this ego, telling themselves it was impotent, that they were better because they said nothing, did nothing, and aspired to nothing; and, because of this, they never failed, and that was why they were superior. “Cucro?” said Velvet Remedy, breaking the silence after a moment. “Are you still there, or are you crying?” Still no answer. “Hello?” “What? Oh. Oh yes, sorry about that. It’s just I’m . . . you can’t see me, but I have this huge smile on my face. I’m watching you, Ms. Remedy, thinking about what you said, thinking about what’s going to happen next, and convicted in the knowledge that no matter what you think, no matter what Stable 2 thinks, I will be the victor when this is all over.” Velvet Remedy chuckled. “Oh, I can’t wait to hear this explanation.” “Because,” he said, “in a few minutes, I’m going to switch you off from this channel, Stable 2’s built-in one, and onto mine. In a few minutes, you will be singing through my channel. Oh, of course, they will only hear you, and they will probably compliment you and congratulate you after the fact, and I’ll go back to ignoring them, and they will ignore me. But when I hear your voice come through, I won’t be hearing you; I’ll be hearing the last chip being clipped into the motherboard. Because, you see, Ms. Remedy, when one works on something, one must work with the image of the ideal. No other will suffice if one truly cares about his work. I assume that porcelain dish makers design the dish with the image of Celestia Herself eating off of it. But the problem with this is that they will never see that; they work from the ideal, and their creations are great, but there will be a little bit of longing in their hearts, for they know that their work can be suited to much greater things but that they will never see it realized. This is not so with me. When I worked on this, Ms. Remedy, I heard your voice in my ears. I heard what you sounded like when you came through. You are my ideal. So, do you want to know why, no matter what, I will be the victor? Because I will hear your voice, the voice for which I built this, finish my work. Because I will see the ideal consummate my creation. I will share in a feeling unique in the world, a feeling that none have experienced before: the feeling that comes with seeing one’s own creation, which has been made through the best of one’s own ability, being completed by that which it is only suited for.” The frequency was silent for a few seconds. The cafeteria was quiet. Out of nowhere, Clover snickered. “Shut up,” growled Littlepip, under her breath. Clover did not hear her. “A convincing argument,” said Velvet Remedy, “well put and well said. However, it’s all assertions. All’s fine and well, but where’s the proof? Where’s the evidence of your competency? How long are you going to make us wait to see the necessary result of your argument? Do we get to hear it today?” “Yes!” roared the entire cafeteria simultaneously. “Get off, Copper!” “Put her on!” “I want to hear this!” “Stop talking!” “Yes, absolutely,” said Cucro, as if he had heard their cries, “you’re right. I’ve milked this moment long enough. Give me a second. Don’t speak until I tell you to. When you hear her next, Stable 2, she will be on my channel.” During this transition period, the frequency was shut off completely. No static could be heard, no shuffling, no background voices—nothing. In the cafeteria, the slow hum of the refrigerator could be heard. They all jumped with shock when they perceived Silver Dollar emerge from it. He thrust the door behind him with a rude and disrespectful movement, and it slammed to with an equally rude and disrespectful sound. “Call me a bad pony,” he said, “but I really want this not to work. I can’t wait for Copper Chromite to get back so I can say to him: ‘Oh, you egotistic, arrogant bastard! Serves you right! Serves you right! I told you so!’” He refused to admit to himself that his heart was racing with the anticipation of success. Another loud snap was heard, similar to the first they heard when the radio had initially turned on, but slightly quieter. “Right. I’ve switched you to my channel. Your floor, Ms. Remedy. Your honor. Whenever you’re ready.” “Good afternoon, Stable 2!” A gasp, a shout, a scream, a cheer, a cry, an exaltation, all these things combined made up the essence of the vocalizations of every single resident of Stable 2. Whether they were alone in their rooms listening from the radio function on their Pip-Bucks, whether they were at work, whether they were in the lounge, their reactions were the same. The cafeteria served as the epicenter of these emotions, wherein one heard a whirling of cries, some bittersweet, some ecstatic, some melancholy, but mingling with all such that they fused into one recognizable whole, fractured but recognizable in its sentimentality, a mixture of joy, release, and satisfaction; and the result, though not clean and crisp as the pure cry of an individual, was a greater release than the stable had ever seen in its entire history. Velvet Remedy had not merely sounded good; she sounded full. They heard her voice through the speaker not as if the microphone interpreted the sounds and converted them as electrical signals to send down a wire but as if her voice had occupied the speaker itself, as if it had possessed it, as if it had absorbed everything, the microphone, the circuits, the Pip-Bucks’ speakers, the ears of the listener for a single supreme purpose, that of uplifting the listener, smashing through the ceiling, through all those layers of concrete to behold the open air—a sweet, pure, delivering air, the traces of which were in her tones when she had spoken those four words. Her voice had come through like a raw power; it shook the walls of the stable; the stable had bent, under this force, the most powerful force on earth; and they knew that this force was the polar opposite to whatever power held the stable above them, that this delivering force was great enough to heave upward their disheveled and decaying bodies, suffering and abject and downcast, barely clinging onto the last remains of life, that it was strong enough to lift them from the abyss and elevate them back to their rightful places, upon where they would stand, stronger than they had ever stood before, promising and triumphant. The microphone was not a tool for conveying her voice; her voice justified the microphone’s existence. They felt this, and they knew this; though they could not put this into words. They had to content themselves with exclamations such as “Listen to how clear she sounds!” and “It sounds like she’s standing right next to me!” and “If I could only but listen to those four words for the rest of my life, I would want nothing more in the world!” and “Just think of the possibilities!” They understood now why no other voice could have been the first over this new channel. “Stable 2 owes you an apology,” said Velvet Remedy, her words conveying deference, but her tone conveying the gesture of a salute. “I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have doubted you, distrusted you like that. This . . . this is quite impressive.” There was no response. “Are you there?” she said, at length. A deep breath was heard. “Yes, I’m here. It was that smile again. Believe me that this is the only time that I’ve regretted that you can’t see me. I’m going to be honest: I’m overwhelmingly tempted to open my door and show you . . . no, I’ll describe it to you. It’s a wide smile. My cheeks are starting to hurt. I can feel one tooth jutting out farther than it should be—damn, I’m no good at this. My teeth are closed firmly, not tightly, just firmly, set against each other just as they should be, firm, purposeful. Even the tooth that’s kind of out of place seems right; it’s an eccentric, but it’s an appropriate eccentric; taken as a whole, it feels right.” He could be heard to take another deep breath. “And that was a sigh of satisfaction. My smile, the sigh, everything I’m feeling right now is the feeling that comes from completing something I’ve set my mind to and hearing my channel as it should be heard. I hear no imperfections, no inconsistencies, nothing. I’m fully convicted. Ah! That’s how to describe the smile. Picture the smile of pure conviction and satisfaction. That’s it.” And he laughed that laugh of his. And Littlepip knew that the essence of that smile was contained in his laugh. The sound brought to her the image of his smile better than any of his words would have been able to, and she saw it as well as if she were behind that glass window and standing right beside him, right with him. Stable 2 laughed too, but in a completely different manner. “What a joker!” one said in the cafeteria. All laughed except one: Littlepip sat in the booth alone, looking at those who were displaying such appearances of ridicule, and the image of him disappeared from her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to recall it, but it had disappeared. She grasped at the memory of his words, trying to remember. He had said the word conviction. She wasn’t even sure she knew what the word conviction meant. It means being sure, right? It means being satisfied in being sure? What, then, does it look like to be sure? I knew it a second ago, but I can’t see it now! Does everypony else know it? Why does everypony know but me? Why are they laughing in such tones, a laughter so different from his? They’re making fun of him. Is conviction, whatever it is, something to be ridiculed? “Well,” Velvet Remedy said, with a sigh, “go ahead. I won’t complain. I guess you’ve earned it.” “Earned what?” Cucro asked. “I’ve always hated that thing you do, where you open the can so close to the microphone and sip it as loudly as possible. But I guess you’ve earned it now. Go ahead. I won’t complain this time.” “Actually,” Cucro replied, “no. This time, I will not.” The cafeteria gasped with surprise. “I’m proud of you,” said Velvet Remedy. “This is a good first.” “Yes, it is. This is a first. For this first, I want to be completely sober. This is too important.” The sound of the moving of steel was heard, clear as the clinking of glass, to come through the radio. “Sorry!” said a gruff male voice. “Sorry we’re late!” “No we’re not!” said another. “I thought we agreed in advance that we wouldn’t be sorry for this.” “Why are you so late?” said Cucro. “Because we knew you were going to open with a speech nopony wanted to listen to, in addition to being late, so we figured we had some time to spare,” said the second voice. “So much the better,” said Cucro. “That speech took me a long time to write, and you’d have just messed it up! Fillies and gentlecolts of Stable 2, two others have just entered my studio. I’ve got Rambler here—you’ll remember him as the guy who broke the felt on the pool table last month—and he’s on the keyboard.” “Hey!” yelled the first voice. “And on the cello, we have . . . we have . . . sorry, what’s your name again?” “Really!” said the second voice. “You’ve lived here your entire life—and you don’t know my name?” “Oh! Oh!” said Cucro. “Well, excuse me, Captain You-Planet, for not knowing your name. How selfish of me! In case you haven’t noticed, I spend quite a bit of time in this room.” A groan. “Do you seriously not know my name?” A pause. “Remonstrance!” “Remonstrance . . . Remonstrance . . .” said Cucro. “Now why does that sound familiar? Oh, yes! Right! You broke the leg of that chair in the cafeteria. Thanks for that, by the way.” “I’m amazed,” said Remonstrance, “you’ve somehow managed to reduce us solely to one action that we already feel an overwhelming amount of guilt for. Bravo. Thank you.” The irony oozed in almost visible rivulets from her voice. “An electric cello?” said Cucro. “Now that’s somethin’. This is going to be one hell of a performance. And speaking of performance, I really do think—” Cucro paused for a singular moment. After a while, he began again: “Speaking of the performance, I really do think—” Another pause. The grinding of teeth was audible. “As I was saying, speaking of the performance, I really think . . . just a second, my little ponies. I swear I perceive a visitor a-rappin’ at my chamber door; and, before we begin, I must tell this craven interloper ‘nevermore.’ Just give me a sec.” They listened eagerly with anticipation. “I’ll be back,” they heard, “just as soon as I get this—damn—mute button—working. I swear, I can nev—work, fu—you, if I could jus—stay like—that . . .” They heard Copper Chromite wrestling with the mute button. His voice undulated in and out, a periodic swaying, as if it were a wrestling competition where ground was gained for a second only to have it lost again. In one moment Copper Chromite had the mute button in a headlock; in the other, the mute button had pinned Copper Chromite. The shuffling sound perfectly conveyed his struggle. It was humorous, and they laughed, for the sound contained the essence of Copper Chromite’s work. Metal clanked against metal. They could hear beer cans banging against one another. “Come on—piece of—stay ther—stay, damn—you. Com—ah, there we go!” A snicker made its way around the cafeteria when the implication of those last words sank in. “Goddamn it! Who is it? Go away! I’m in the middle of a thing here!” yelled not Cucro but Copper Chromite. The petulant growl of aggravation was unmistakable. “Do you think he knows that the mute button is broken?” said Terra Firma. “No,” said Clover. “He’s so clueless.” “No, I think he knows,” said Silver Dollar. “It’s all staged. His conversations with Velvet Remedy, what he says every day, all of it. He knows damn well what he’s doing.” “But then why isn’t he doing the voice?” asked Terra Firma. She got no answer. “Who the hell is that? I swear, if you make me get up from this chair, I’m going to murder you. . . . Are you serious!” they heard him say—and then more shuffling, like he had slid his chair away from the microphone. This was confirmed when they heard his voice fading away in the distance, saying: “Are you serious! Out of all the times to come, it had to be this one! What does my sign say! What does my sign say! Never, ever disturb me when I’m in the middle of a broadcast, especially not when—oh, hello. Sorry ’bout that.” Another peal of laughter came from the cafeteria. The change of tone had been so abrupt and so extreme—from the lowest, foulest, most potent of rages, from the point of anger where the foam in his mouth had been so thick that it could almost be felt seething through the microphone speakers, to the point of the most servile of humilities, from poison to pleasantry, from seething with wrath to grovelling in submission—that it had been the externalization of how they all felt, what they thought were expected of them: pleasantness on the outside, swearing and vulgarity on the inside. It was so blatant, so unabashed in its mendacity, so poorly affected that it was obvious, even more absurd because they recognized it, and yet they could think of no other way. A comedian draws humor from exposing societal truths, forcing his audience to look at them, forcing them to stop their evasions, to think about them, to examine them until their absurdities are exposed from every possible angle. To such an exposure, laughter is the only possible response. “I bet you anything that it’s his mom,” said Silver Dollar. An indistinct mumbling was heard. Copper Chromite was silent. They strained their ears, but they could not hear who it was, nor what she was saying. When the mumbling stopped, they listened for a witty response. None came. A short silence ensued, but one slightly thicker than the ones that had come before it. At length, they heard him say: “This right now? Come on! I’m in the middle of something here! I’ll do it after.” “Ha!” ejaculated Silver Dollar. “I knew it! It’s his mom!” The mumbling in the studio became slightly louder. “No, I will do it after,” was the reply. A few in the cafeteria chuckled. “There is absolutely no harm in me doing it after,” said Copper Chromite. “What is the harm?” “Alright,” said Clover, talking to the ceiling, “this isn’t funny anymore, Copper. Come on. We want to hear Velvet Remedy now.” As if on cue, Velvet Remedy said: “Copper? What’s going on out there? Do you need some help?” “No, no, stay inside!” yelled Copper Chromite. “Just give me a minute. I have to deal with something. Don’t come out!” And then, much quieter, he said: “Look, I’m not demanding anymore. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that. It’s just that . . . it’s just that this is really important to me, and I’ve been looking forward to it, and I really want to do this first.” “Wait, what the hell?” said Silver Dollar. “Shut up!” hissed Clover. “What if I said no? . . . What? No! No! You can’t ask me that! It’s not fair! You can’t possibly expect me to make a decision like that! I don’t think you . . . no, you don’t understand! It’s not that simple! It sounds like nothing to you, but a decision like that is so much more complicated than you could ever possibly understand! Don’t make me make that decision! Just let me do this first! I need to do this first! Please! Please let me do this first!” A plate was dropped in the cafeteria and shattered against the marble like a clap of thunder. None flinched. Silver Dollar’s sardonic scowl had been replaced with a slack-jawed gape. When Copper Chromite spoke next, they could only picture him saying it on his knees, on his belly, prostrate. Through the microphone, his voice ran in torrents, bubbling with sorrow, supplication, pleading. They were not words; they were the desperate gasps for air of a soul taking the form of vocalizations. Each word cut into their ears, for each syllable penetrated deep into their minds, past their rationality, to that base part of the brain that acted on impulse. The effect that hearing Copper Chromite’s words produced on them was equivalent to the feeling of horror one feels when one sees a half-shape in the darkness: “Please! Please! I’ll do anything! Just let me do this first! I know I’m difficult; I know I’m hard to talk to; I know I ask and ask and ask and am rude in response. I know that! I know that, and I’m sorry! Believe me that I know that better than anypony else, and I’m the most sorry for it! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I ask for so much, and I never give anything. It’s wrong! I know it’s wrong! And I’m trying to learn! Really, I am! From now on, I swear, I’ll care nothing for myself. I’ll stop asking for myself. I’ll stop complaining whenever I need to do something. I swear! I swear! I’ll never talk back again! It’s a conscious effort, you know. I have to make a conscious effort to talk back. My obnoxiousness doesn’t come naturally. Naturally, I know what you want and what I want, and I know that what I want is exactly the same as what you want; and, inside, I know that I shouldn’t pretend to be otherwise! I don’t know why I do it. I don’t know why I pretend to be the opposite. I’m sorry! I won’t ever be like that again! But please let me do this first! I’ll never ask for another thing again. I will never ask for another concession ever again if you just let me do this first! Just please let me do this first! I need to do this first! I need to! I need to! I need to . . .” They heard a sharp inhale of air, like a sniffle. Then they heard the muted voice, still going on. The voice had not changed from the first moment it had spoken; it was still drawling with that same cool, calculated tone. The voice stopped. “Yes, I . . . I understand,” said Copper Chromite. It worried them that there had been no pause between when the muffled voice had stopped and when Copper Chromite had responded. They would’ve preferred a cry of protest, some effusion, anything that meant that the incorrigible Copper Chromite still existed in the form that they knew him. To simply say yes, to concede, to submit after such a fervid objection—who would do such a thing? Not Copper Chromite. Not the Copper Chromite they knew. They would’ve preferred the sound of gunshots and screams of pain. They did not want to think about what a life where such a malevolence existed would mean—a life they didn’t want to admit to themselves that each and every one of them was living. The sound of footsteps approaching the microphone marked the end of the encounter. Beer cans shuffling, banging against each other with a clattering that was more like a rage than an adjustment, signaled that he was sitting back down in his chair. “Copper,” said Velvet Remedy, “who was that?” “Sorry, folks,” said Copper Chromite, “but, before . . . before we begin, Cucro has something he needs to say.” A crumpling, like the sound of the crunching of potato chips, was heard. “Cucro needs to say . . .” He sighed. “He needs to say . . .” He swallowed. “I couldn’t be happier that I’ve been given this opportunity to devote my ability to the complete service of the stable. Today, I have learned what joy and virtue can be found in working not for myself but for those around me. Labor means nothing if its only beneficiary is oneself; true nobility comes from working at a loss for one’s brothers. And I’ve lost so much working this job. I’ve lost my time, my youth, my . . . my pride . . . but I’ve brought something that . . . the stable will enjoy for the rest of its years, and that . . . that means more to me than any feeling of personal accomplishment. Thank . . . you, my friends, my neighbors, my . . . family . . . for allowing me this opportunity to . . . to lay down my life in your service. With my help . . . with your help . . . we survive. There . . . is nothing a stallion could desire more. And if . . . if I . . . if I can . . . die at my post while working on a project that will bring you even the least amount of entertainment . . . I can think of . . . no better way . . . no better way for my life to end. And my only hope is that . . . you feel the same way, that you would be willing to sacrifice yourself in a heartbeat for the one who’s known the least to you . . . for the sake of nothing but sacrifice itself. If one wishes to live nobly, that . . . that is the only thing one can wish for. Thank you, Stable 2. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to . . . to . . . to die for you.” He said he was Cucro, but the voice was Copper Chromite, undisguised, stripped naked before his audience. Something singular had happened when he had said the word pride. Before he had said that word, his voice carried the tone of a condemned prisoner who refuses the blindfold and stares his executioners straight in the eye with a smile of insolent, defiant contempt, for he knows that he will be leaving them with a sight that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. But at the word pride, his voice had markedly dropped in intonation and assuredness, and it had assumed the tone of a mother pleading for the life of her infant from the same executioners. At that word, they had heard him lose his foothold; they had heard his ultimate attempt to grab onto, desperately, any abutting rock of confidence he could find. But as the words drew on, his voice grew runnier and each word seemed to be covered in entrails, as if they had passed through his abdomen like knives. That word had chipped and creased a hard classic record. And the record had skipped notes, had strained the voice it carried—and had never reached the end of its song. “Copper . . .” said Velvet Remedy. “Who . . . what was—” “Well, are you going to start or not?” roared Copper Chromite. “I don’t have all damn day.” A hissing sound, followed by a sharp crack, followed by a bubbling gurgle, brought those who were listening and who were still confused the full realization of the state of the radio room: Copper Chromite had just opened a beer can. Littlepip closed her eyes as the she heard the sound of the instruments being set up. There was one song that she had in mind. It was her favorite song. It was called “Unconquered.” It wasn’t one of Velvet Remedy’s more popular songs, nor very well-known, but it was still her favorite. While most of Velvet Remedy’s songs—indeed, the most popular ones—dealt with day-to-day events and trivialities, while most, though recognizable musically, were forgettable lyrically, the song that Littlepip was thinking of was nothing like the others. It had no synthesized sounds. The primary accompaniment was a piano. It was the perfect synthesis of instruments and vocals: one did not support the other; one did not dominate the other. This song, unlike the others, was not one that could be put in the background; the haunting drawl of the piano and the lyrics which grew more potent as the song progressed demanded that the listener devote his full attention to it. The lyrics were bitter, cool, overwhelmingly forceful since they were overwhelmingly relevant; each word seemed to cut into the ear, penetrate to the brain, crawl under the skin, leaving behind one message: You cannot ignore me. The lyrics were bitter, but they were only bitter because they were grounded to the earth, which so often coughs up bitterness, only bitter because they were true. But, also drawing from the earth, the lyrics gave potentiality. They represented not only what the earth was but also what it could and ought to be. The song was a struggle; the piano swayed up, then down, now sharp, now flat, now major, now minor; and if one listened to it improperly, that conflict and struggle would sound utterly despairing. But if one listened to it properly, if one devoted his full attention to it, did not fight against the lyrics, did not try to ignore them, thought about them, dwelled on them as he slept, he would realize that the song was more rewarding and more hopeful than any of her other songs. And Littlepip clenched her teeth together. Only one thought went through her mind: Please, please don’t sing that song. Sing any song but that one. Oh God, anything but that song! The first chord of the song was unmistakable. When Littlepip heard it through the speakers, she turned white. Terra Firma laid her head down on its side on the table, sighing as she did so. Clover anxiously turned the knobs of her Pip-Buck. Silver Dollar had disappeared. The rest stared at the speaker on the ceiling, dread evident in each one of their expressions. The piano was not a piano; it was a keyboard pretending to be a piano. The physical quality of the sound was impeccable; they could hear every strained noise it made, every uncanny utterance it gave forth. Every single note they heard was the same note as it was in the original recording yet sounding nothing like it. That note was an A; a tuner would say it was an A; but this new A seemed to laugh. They remembered the old recording; they remembered that recording’s A; that old A, in a single utterance, carried so much weight and meaning. The new A laughed with the meaningless laughter of an adolescent, laughed with derision, laughed at how seriously the old A took itself. It screamed, a piercing, whining scream: Ignore me! Who cares? The original recording had no cello. The electric cello filled in for the violin. There were not many violinists in Stable 2, much less any who could play it without making it sound whiny. A cello made a much richer sound than a violin, deeper, more grave and somber, an appropriate instrument for such a grave song. But the electric cello had none of that. The whole notes vacillated; the half notes were unsteady; the termination of quarter notes sounded more like a failure in the audio rather than a proper end. But the audio system was perfect; it was simply playing back the notes of the cello. The physical construction of the cello was perfect; it was simply conveying the musician’s intent. “I don’t know,” whispered Terra Firma. “I think I like the original better, especially with the acoustic instruments. Perhaps Velvet Remedy—” She cut herself short when Velvet Remedy’s voice came on. It was clear as it had been when she had first spoken over the channel. They could hear every note that came out of her mouth as if she were right beside them. The channel carried her voice with its merciless precision. When she sang higher, it did not shriek; when she went lower, it did not bellow. Lyrics that had been somewhat muffled in the original did not hesitate this time. Everything Velvet Remedy put into the song came through, and her listeners understood that, and they heard what she meant. There was no possible disagreement on that accord. It was an absolute representation of reality. Yet they heard absolutely nothing. There was nothing wrong with the electrical instruments. There was nothing wrong with the channel. On the contrary, the channel was perfect. It carried the sound not as it interpreted it but carried the sound itself. It was a mere vessel for what was actually taking place. And what was taking place was emptiness. The piano was not laughing; it was twisting in the death rattle, merely for a moment imitating a laugh. The cello was not screeching nonsense; it had nothing to screech about. The statement Velvet Remedy conveyed through lyrics was told through the exact same words. But the words landed on their ears as a meaningless assortment of sounds; they were words in a language that they recognized, words that were familiar to them, but they heard no meaning in the words. The listeners did not taste the bitter earth in the lyrics, as they did in the original; they did not taste sourness—they tasted nothing. Velvet Remedy sounded as a perfect parakeet with a sublime voice. And though her imitation was flawless, the words had nothing behind them. Behind the voice, there was nothing. Behind the keyboard, there was nothing. Nothing but air was supporting the cello. Copper Chromite’s channel was so acute that it enabled them to hear the vastness of empty space in every tone that blurted from the speaker. But, just once, for a brief moment, on the highest note on the song, there was something: a cry of pain. It had disappeared almost as fast as it had materialized, and none were sure that they had actually heard it. But they closed their eyes and imagined Velvet Remedy in the recording room: They saw a white, stiff corpse, standing as if suspended by strings, moving its mouth in a rehearsed manner to lyrics about life, in line with the accompaniment whose instruments whined as if they were the tenors of a graveyard choir. When she had come to the highest note, they had seen a surge: a brief flash of color had come to her face, an instantaneous moment of animation—and when the soul had departed as fast as it had come, it left behind it the frozen shape of a silent scream. The difficulty of the last chord of the song led some to believe that the song was the hardest technical piece for the piano due to that existence of that chord alone. One’s mind lingered well after the song was finished and another song had taken its place on that chord. It was impossible to contort one’s mind to even begin to conceive of the skill that it would have taken to do something so seemingly impossible. For the original recording, it had taken one hundred attempts to get it right; Velvet Remedy had refused to use electronic editing software to splice in a perfect rendering of that chord. On the one hundredth attempt, the pianist had thumped his chest afterward, and he had said that he could not have played it better. But Velvet Remedy had complained, saying that the chord had been held too long, and she had insisted that they try again. The pianist disagreed. Upon compiling the recording into an audio editing program, it appeared that Velvet Remedy had been right—the pianist had held the note for almost a sixty-fourth beat longer than it had needed to be. The pianist refused to play it again, and the song was distributed. None but Velvet Remedy cringed at the end of every playing of that recording. The listeners thought nothing of the chord when they heard it now. It didn’t even occur to them that Rambler had practiced that chord for the past two months in preparation for this day; that he had slept with headphones on every night for the past two months, listening to that chord on repeat edited down to its appropriate length. When the time came, he hit the keys with the perfect amount of stress, held them down exactly as long as he needed to, and lifted them with the motion exactly as the piece demanded. He had played it as precisely as a machine. He had played it with as much discipline as a machine. He had played it with as much joy as a machine, with as much gravity, emotion, and mind as a machine. It might as well have been played by a robot. The last note did not have enough time to fade away when the sound of the stamping of feet came over the speaker. The loud pops of jacks being yanked from their holes sounded like the pull of heartstrings. Then, a loud bang reverberated the recording room—the slamming of a door. Then, silence. They knew the recording room was now deserted. A minute later, there was a familiar hissing and cracking sound. Copper Chromite had opened another beer can. “Pop music,” Copper Chromite was heard to grumble, almost inaudibly, after a moment’s silence. “Damn pop music. I’m sick of pop music.” Not one in the cafeteria breathed a word. Nervous looks were exchanged between all. Such harsh words against music that they had grown up with, music that they all had listened to with delight ever since they had been children, songs that had the amazing ability to retain their meanings despite the frequency with which they were played—yet, not a single word they disagreed with. Copper Chromite’s ten words echoed in their skulls, latching onto an idea in their heads; yet, it was an incomplete idea, one that possessed the emotion of an indivisible, supreme idea, but one that was not realized, for they did not possess the sagacity and the eloquence with which to put it together. The result was that each one looked at each other with sorrowful eyes, a pathetic sense of forlorn audible in every breath, visible in every quiet nod of the head. The result was that one dared not to speak in the presence of Copper Chromite’s proclamation. At length, a shuffling was heard in the studio. A loud rustle, as if somepony were exhaling deeply on something, came through the speaker; then, a few clicks, a few quiet rustlings, and finally, the ingenuous voice of Copper Chromite, not the affected, evasive accent of Cucro, was heard to say: “This next piece . . . this next piece is an oldie. This was made when they were not fortunate enough to have such equipment as I do now. This was my grandfather’s favorite piece. He used to play it all the time when I was little and when he was tasked with foalsitting me. I hated it; I always complained; but”—and here, Copper Chromite gave a sad, mournful laugh—“but he would always give me a smack under the chin and tell me that, when I turned his age, that nostalgia is the only thing you have, and that he would be damned if some smart aleck, snot-nosed brat would try to sully that. When I got older, when he started telling me stories about the war, he told me that the song I’m about to play next was the song that kept him and his buddies together while they were so far down under the water, in the midst of depth charges, reports of destroyed cities and of pillaged lands. That story was always my favorite; it was the only one that didn’t leave a sinking feeling in my chest.” There was another pause. Littlepip could only hear the beat of her heart in the depths of her ears. Copper Chromite swallowed. “This . . . this is for you, grandpa.” A crackling noise came over the radio. Then, the sound of a joyous brass section came through. Though the horns sounded like they were either being played in a metal tube or underwater, none noticed. None commented. A few closed their eyes and swayed their heads to the beat. “I actually really like this song,” said Clover, sighing sadly. The brass section played for about thirty seconds before the first verse started; and a young, tender female voice came through, the voice of some long-dead cultural icon, the object of desire of every sailor in the Royal Equestrian Navy; but her voice carried none of those dainty tones that were so common in the voices of the pop stars that they had all known. Though she sang with a wistful gayety, her voice was proud, sure, defiant even. And despite the subpar quality of the recording, it in no way detracted from the sure lyrics, nor from the intonation of the voice singing them: They knock me down; I fall to the ground But they don’t know it’s just a feign I grit my teeth and pull up my coat As I say “No!” and stand again It spoke of a simple time: the time when justice prevailed. It spoke of a time where evil existed, but a time where that evil was impotent, laughable, puny in comparison to those who recognized it when they saw it. They knew that it was a simple time long past. But they knew that simple did not mean unrighteous or improper—from the song, they knew it meant exactly the contrary. And the image of a terrified group of huddled submariners in the midst of a depth charge attack bursting into laughter and performing the motions of the feminine dance that went to this song brought a smile to the stable dweller’s face.