This is the oldest story I’ll have put up yet on this website, and it’s likely the oldest one I will put up. I wrote this my second year of college, the first draft of it anyway, when I was both working as a student employee in the Nicholls State University music department and was a new brother of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the fraternity for men of music. I’ve always loved music, and took so many classes that some people thought I was a music major – but ultimately, my love for the written word is stronger. Still, I think a combination of music and words is probably the most powerful thing anyone can create, and I wish I had the talent for composition, because I’ve always wanted to write a musical. I think you’ll see that love in this piece. It was published in the Mosaic a year or two after I graduated, just like Nobody Special, and it took a friend of mine who was still in school to let me know it had been released.

When Ray Morrill started humming one morning during breakfast, his mother didn’t think anything was wrong at first. The little four-year old had always loved music. He would dance whenever she turned on the radio, he’d sway back and forth on his stubby little legs and he’d try to stumble through the words he was still learning to form with his young tongue. He couldn’t even sleep without some soft music playing in his room to chase the monsters away. So when he began humming, his mother didn’t think there was anything strange.

Then she started to really listen. She realized that this was a song she had never heard before. She had never played him this music, nor did she remember ever hearing it on the radio, which was constantly on in their house. She crouched down by her son and said, “Ray, what song is that?”

“Don’t know,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Well, where did you hear it?”

“Always hear it.”

She was taken aback for a second, then asked, “Do you mean it’s a song you hear a lot?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Oh,” she said, relieved.

“Hear it right now.”

Ray Morrill didn’t understand why his mother started crying.

The radio wasn’t on.

Michael Archer was a tall, powerful-looking man with dark hair and warm, blue eyes. He wasn’t at all afraid to be left with this man while Mommy waited in another room. Mommy told him that Michael was a special doctor who would help him get better -- so he guessed he was sick. He didn’t feel sick.

Michael asked him a few questions about his Song, the one he heard all the time. He asked him to sing it for him, so Ray happily “La-la”ed it out loud and clear, sounding more like a human xylophone than an actual singer, banging out each note with his voice. Michael smiled and patted him on the head and called Mommy in.

“Mrs. Morrill,” he said, “There is nothing wrong with your son. This music he hears is probably a good thing. It shows intelligence, imagination -- he could be a great composer some day.”

“But is sounds like a nursery rhyme.”

“He’s only four years old,” Michael pointed out. “As he gets older, it may develop into a great symphony. Don’t suppress this gift, encourage it. Your son may well grow up to be the next Beethoven or Mozart or John Phillips Sousa.”

Ray cooed as his mother scooped him up and cuddled him. She was smiling now. He must not have been sick anymore.

By the time Ray Morrill was fifteen, the Song was changing. The basic tune was the same -- a fast, staccato rhythm with a warm beat -- but the style was very different. It had evolved from the nursery rhyme chimes he had heard in his youth to a loud, raucous march. In his own mind he could hear the oom-pah of the tubas and the racing trumpets, the thunderous tympani and the chorus of trombones.

He was warming up his trumpet for band rehearsal, his mind wandering, and before he knew what was happening he fell into the march, bleating out the melody loud and clear. At the appropriate time, he slowed into the trio section, empty without the clarinets and French horns of his mind to supply the harmony. When he reached the final, racing section of the Song, he unknowingly switched to a fortissimo volume. The music rang out through the room, freezing each member of the band in place. They each lay their instrument down and listened to Ray, oblivious to anything but the Song, unlike anything they had ever heard before.

When the Song was over Ray froze, realizing everybody had heard him. The room was silent for a long moment until a bass drummer finally started to clap. The whole band rapidly followed suit, and Ray turned red with embarrassment.

The band director was standing in the doorway of his office, a grin on his face. Beside him was a tall, dark-haired man with crystal-blue eyes. Ray thought nothing of it. People were always popping in and out of the office -- other band directors, suppliers of music equipment. The other man was smiling at him too. Ray gave an embarrassed grin and returned to warming up on scales.

After band the director called him into his office. Ray quivered, certain that he was in for the reaming of his life for having played so loudly during a warm-up. Friends of his had been slapped in detention for far more minor infractions.

But instead of a scowl, the director wore a warm smile on his face as Ray walked in. The blue-eyed man sat in a chair beside the desk. He, too, was beaming.

“Ray,” the director said, “this is Mike Archer. He’s an old friend of mine, and he wanted to speak to you about that little show you put on earlier.”

Ray relaxed. If the director was making jokes, than he knew things would be okay. He turned his attention to Archer who, up close, at least, looked somewhat familiar to Ray.

“Excuse me,” Ray said, “don’t I know you?”

“It’s possible,” Archer admitted. “In my line of work, I meet a lot of people.” He smiled. “Listen, I heard that piece you played earlier, and it was terrific! Where did you learn that?”

“I kind of -- I came up with it myself. It sort of goes through my head.”

“All the time?”

“When I’m not trying to concentrate on something else,” he said. “It just sort of pops in, I can’t control it. I was six or seven years old before I realized that not everyone hears it.”

“That’s incredible,” Archer said. “Have you ever tried writing it down?”

Slowly, Ray took his booksack off his back and set it down on the floor. He fished around in it for a minute and drew out a few sheets of a handwritten musical score. Archer took it, scanned it for a moment, and handed it back. “It’s good,” he said. “Really good. Keep it up, kid, you’ll be big someday.”

Eighteen-year old Ray Morrill’s hands trembled as he placed them on the piano keys. Not for the first time, he wondered how he had gotten himself into this mess. Standing around the piano were the five other young men who had become his brothers in the last few weeks. Ray had come to associate pledging a fraternity, even a professional one like Beta Kappa Alpha, with going through a war. It bonded you to the people you went through it with like no one else. You had no choice about the matter- these people became your friends, your brothers, your support group.

Of course, when B.K.A.’s president announced that he wanted the pledges to surprise him with a new song, one he had never heard before, all of his “supporters” had looked straight to Ray.

B.K.A. was a music fraternity, not one of those mindless social frats Ray had seen on television and low-budget movies. B.K.A. took their music very seriously -- every one of the members was an instrumentalist, a vocalist, a composer or any combination. The pledges knew the only way to assure the president hadn’t heard their song would be to have Ray write an entirely new one. They were all talented musicians, but only Ray could possibly pull this off in the short time they had been given.

The Song had evolved again, from a march to a sort of jazzy, do-whop rhythm. When given his “assignment,” Ray put together verses for it so that they could sing. He wasn’t happy with the lyrics, but he knew that they would have to do for now.

His fingers tapped the keys gingerly, slowly strumming out the melody one time -- the same melody he had heard his entire life, only the style had changed. After the first few notes, on his cue, his brothers began to hum their parts, easing into the semi-nonsense scat syllables he had carefully drawn out.

The music begun, the brothers of B.K.A. stood transfixed as he launched into the melody:

There were more verses about loyalty, brotherhood, sacrifice, and the brothers were mesmerized for them all. Most of them knew, within the first few notes, this would be a song the brotherhood would echo for a very long time.

The Song drew to a close, Ray tapped out a few final notes and the room drifted into silence. The president was practically glowing. “Not bad, fellas,” he said in a tone that betrayed him as being far more impressed than he was trying to let on. “Did you guys write that yourselves?”

“Ray wrote it,” five voices said simultaneously.

“Are you sure you’re just a freshman?” asked a new -- yet familiar -- voice in the crowd.

The president slapped the newcomer on the back. “This is Archer. He’s from another chapter. I invited him down to hear you boys sing.”

Archer was a well-built man with dark hair. He could well have been a football star with his build, but his cool voice marked him as one dedicated to music.

Archer shook Ray’s hand vigorously, and Ray heartily returned the gesture. “I’m glad you liked it, sir,” he said.

“Keep up the good work, Ray. I’m definitely gonna keep an eye on you.”

After the birth of his daughter, the Song Ray Morrill heard in his mind evolved very rapidly. It turned from a brisk rock and roll beat to a softer, more subdued jazz tempo, similar to the Song he had heard in college, but smoother, more flowing. Also, the very first version of the Song, the one Ray had heard in his infancy, returned whenever he cradled her in his arms. The sheet music he had spent so much time pouring over in his youth now sat on his piano, yellowing with age, dusty, untouched. He had learned that it didn’t matter how long it took him to put the music down on paper, he always seemed to remember exactly what it was he wanted to write.

The Song still echoed though his head, and he learned that it was the perfect tone and melody to pacify his daughter into sleep. Now, whenever she awoke in fright or tears, he would sing it to her, a new nursery rhyme of his own creation. The words had changed now, too, to something more suitable to sing to a newborn girl:

“Isn’t that the song you used to sing to me?” his wife asked, coming from up behind and wrapping her arms around his waist. It was true -- when he had met her, the Song had turned into a quiet ballad. Now it was a lullaby. Ray had long since stopped trying to explain where it came from. It was as much a part of him as his body, heart, or soul.

“The same,” he said. “I save it for the people I love most in the world.”

“Flatterer.” Ray kissed his wife and she slipped a piece of paper in his hand.

“What’s this?”

“Your next job interview,” she said. “It’s an elementary school. Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow? Who’ll watch the kid?”

“You can get a babysitter. It’ll only be for a few hours. Then, if you get the job, we can look into some sort of full-time day care.” She kissed him again. “Come on, this is what you’ve always wanted to do.”

“I’ve always wanted to compose,” he corrected.

“And teach,” she reminded him. “Besides, the only thing you’ve ever tried to compose is that one song. And you never even try to get that published!”

“It’s not finished yet,” he insisted. “There’s still more to write -- more story to tell.”

“Story? What do you mean?”

“I -- Geez, I don’t know.” Ray grew very quiet as he lay his daughter down for her nap. “The Song keeps getting bigger, more complex. I haven’t heard it all yet.”

She took his hand in hers. “Just try for the job. For me.”

“Okay,” he said, with a quick kiss. “For you. And for her.”

Still sleeping, his daughter smiled.

Ray came scrambling into the school the next morning carrying, among other things, his resume, a briefcase, and a four-month old baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket. The principal gave him a skeptical glare as he bounded into the office.

“I’m sorry sir. I meant to leave her at home, but the babysitter canceled on me and my wife was at work already so I --”

“Calm down, Mr. Morrill, I understand. These things happen. Maybe it would be better if we did this some other time.”

“No!” Ray knew perfectly well that when a prospective employer put things off until “some other time” they more than likely never happened. “Please, sir, she’ll be perfectly behaved -- she never cries or --”

At that moment, the school janitor walked by the door pushing a floor waxer. The annoying grind snapped the baby from her sleep and she began to wail at the top of her lungs. Ray allowed himself to groan for an instant before he tried rocking her back to sleep.

The secretary poked her head in the door. “Telephone for you sir.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it in the other room. Where it’s quieter.”

Alone in the principal’s office, a situation Ray had never found himself in even in school, he began to gently rock the baby in his arms, humming the Song in its lullaby form. As the chorus chimed her eyes slowly fluttered, finally claimed by sleep.

When Ray looked up, the principal was standing in the doorway, agape. Through the door, the entire office had frozen, staring in at the music he had made.

The principal stepped in, closing the door behind him. “Now,” he said, coughing, “If I can see your resume...”

On his way out, Ray looked over at the janitor, pushing the waxer along the hall. He was a large man, with dark hair and blue eyes. The initials M.A. were stenciled on his shirt. Ray just watched in amazement as the M.A. tipped his hat and walked away.

The card on the bunch of flowers read, “Congratulations, Daddy!” Smiling, Ray Morrill tucked it into his pocket, nice and close to his heart.

After years of working on the Song -- the Song, he still had no name for it -- Ray had finally put it aside to compose other works, other songs which had become quite well known and popular among bands and choirs, both in schools and professional, all over the country. Tonight, after a lifetime of waiting, he was being honored with a revue of his work in Carnegie Hall.

He still heard the Song -- as loud and as clear as always. These days it was in the form of a piano concerto, with choir softly singing in the background. For the first time the Song had grown to include human voices (which technically made it a real "song" for the first time). He could hear their notes, their rhythms, but the actual words still eluded him.

He opened up the program from his balcony seat and felt his wife squeeze his arm. Scanning the names of the performers, he fell upon the conductor’s picture. He was a dark-haired man with a pleasant face, and no wrinkles -- a timeless face. Ray wondered how old he was.

The name under the photograph was “Maestro Michael Archer.” It seemed to Ray he had heard that name somewhere before.

The Song had evolved into a great symphony.

Ray could make out every vibrant chord, every trumpet melody. He could feel the vibrations of the strings and the lightning beat of the snare. The Song coursed through his veins like blood, echoing in his chest and invigorating his limbs.

He could no longer move his hands well enough to direct.

The hospital had been very good to his family, letting them walk in and out of his room at all hours to visit him in these final days. The doctors had all tried to dance around the subject when he was around, but Ray wasn’t stupid. He could tell the end was rapidly approaching.

“Bring me the Song,” he whispered.

“Mr. Morrill, you need to rest.”

“There’ll be plenty of time to rest -- soon. Song’s not finished. Have to do it now.”

The nurse looked at the doctor, who reluctantly nodded. She wheeled a lap-desk over his bed, took out a large sheaf of sheet music, and placed a pencil in his hand. The old man began frantically scribbling, the notes flowing from his mind to the page. The mechanics of his hand, writing with the pencil, all became a mere formality. He could see the fully composed sheet before him, he could hear the completed symphony echoing in his head.

When his family walked in, he was still composing. The Song was nearing its end. At long last, only a few bars remained.

“Ray?”

“I’m almost done. I’m finally almost done,” he told his wife.

“Daddy?”

“I’ll be with you in a moment, sweetheart. Just a few more measures.”

The music in his head and the scribbling on the page reached the last fermata simultaneously. It was still playing when he wrote the symbol at the end, looked up at his family -- his wife and daughter, her husband, only a member of the family for a few months but already like a son to him -- and he smiled.

“I love you all,” he said.

And for the first and last time in Ray Morill’s life, the music stopped.

He wasn’t afraid. Not of the temporary dark passage or the bright tunnel he fell through, forcing him to close his eyes to the brilliance.

When he stopped moving, Ray’s eyes fluttered open into a great hall. There was an enormous orchestra before him, complete with every instrument Ray had ever seen or even imagined and many he hadn’t – brass and woodwind, string and percussion. In a balcony over the melodic percussion section, a choir stood in stark white robes, books in their hands. In the front was a director wearing a tuxedo and tails. His hair was pure white and his baton swiftly drifted through the air. The orchestra was playing a calm etude.

A man stood over him, hand outstretched. “Hello, Ray,” said Michael Archer. His blue eyes now flashed with quiet radiance and his dark hair fell over his forehead in a boyish curl.

Ray’s eyes grew wide. “Michael. I remember now. You were there -- you’ve always been there -- every time something important happened, every chance I’ve gotten, you encouraged me. You made those chances possible.” Michael just smiled and nodded. “Who are you?” Ray asked.

“A recruiter,” Michael said. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Ray. And now, finally, you’re ready.”

“For what?”

“To direct,” said Michael. He produced a baton from thin air and placed it in Ray’s hand. The pain, the arthritis, the aches he had suffered for the last several months vanished, and he felt as young as he had that first day he had played the tune for his fraternity, at least an eternity ago.

“To direct what?” asked Ray.

“Everything.”

Michael turned to the great assembly of musicians before them, his hands raised over them as though he was parting the Red Sea. “This is the Great Orchestra. As it plays, it controls the course of the world. Every song and triumphant melody symbolizes an achievement on Earth. But each missed chord or sour note also equals a defeat. That is why, when the director takes a one-day break each generation, the man who takes up the baton must have been proven worthy.”

Ray slowly took the baton. “I’m worthy?”

“Of course. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

The director stepped down and waved Ray to the podium. The music was all original, music Ray had never heard before, never conceived of before. It was all beautiful.

The first tune on his stand was a slow orchestral work. Ray directed it calmly and flawlessly. Next was a choral spiritual with a jazzy, gospel tune that Ray enjoyed immensely. Third came a smart march -- it reminded Ray of a Sousa melody. His arms flailed with verve and energy, and the orchestra danced along with nary a mistake.

The fourth and final piece appeared on the stand. Unlike the other three, this one was titled and credited.

“‘Concert of the Ages,’ by Ray Morrill.”

A tear welled in Ray’s eye as he lifted the baton. He waved his hand to the percussion section and a single marimba tapped out the melody one time. It sounded just like a nursery rhyme.

He raised his arms and brought them down. The orchestra screamed in triumph.

The Song rang out like a march, with the trumpets playing the melody. They pounded along, the music soaring through Ray’s head.

After several minutes, the trumpets passed the melody to the trombones and the saxophones. A slower, jazz riff echoed throughout the orchestra. Ray instructed the trombones to repeat their harmony while the saxophone player improvised. It wasn’t something Ray had written, nor was it like anything he had ever heard before. But it fit perfectly.

The electric guitars signaled the rock and roll section. They played the melody one time, then the choir came in with the words Ray had finally, happily, decided upon:

They began to hum as the Song shifted into the love ballad he had heard for his wife. As the music played for her, he cried openly. When the orchestra quickly reprised the nursery rhyme section for his daughter, they became tears of joy.

The Song headed into the final stage, the great symphony. Every instrument played, every voice rang out in joy. Despite himself, Ray found that he was singing along. The music filled him, was him -- this was the Song, not only of his life, but of all life.

He had not written the title himself, but it truly was the Concert of the Ages

He raised his arms as the orchestra hit the last fermata.

He held it for as long as he could

And the orchestra fell silent.

She picked up the score for the first time on the day her orchestra began to rehearse it. Despite herself, she felt the music in her heart, her arms tingling at the prospect of directing the piece. Her eyes closed and she trembled for a moment, cradling the music in her hands. When her eyes opened, she saw that some of the flute players in the front of the orchestra were watching her, concerned looks in their eyes.

“My grandfather wrote this piece,” she said, answering their unspoken question. “He spent his entire life working on it, finishing only a few minutes before he died. It was like, with his work over, he was finally ready to go home. Have you ever heard it?”

They shook their heads to indicate they hadn’t, and she scowled in disapproval.

“Well then,” she said, “You’ve missed a lot.”