The developers wanted to know why the building was suddenly behind schedule. The foreman got nervous. Things had come unstuck. As the roaring machinery made its way deeper and deeper into it, the yielding building wouldn't budge it's solid stone as it had done so readily before. A bigger machine was bought in. The noise got louder, but the building wanted purposeful silence. It ate the teeth of the pitifully weak contraption and spat them out onto the dirt. The stone had set. Besides that, and not to worry because a bigger, louder, uglier machine could always be found, the building appeared to have started singing.
The foreman held his safety hat to his chest as though bearing the news of the death of a loved one to the chief developer. He didn't normally go straight to the big man, but he felt it had to come from him. The buildings started singing opera mate and the lads don't know what to do. The developer of course being the big man knew exactly what to do. The builders hesitantly crept their way into the dark abyss. Without the noisy machines, it seemed pretty damn weird down here and not even their flashlights eliminated their paranoia. They all knew, despite the big man's insistance (and you don't bloody see him crawling around in here do you?) that there was no aria singing woman trapped amongst the ancient rubble. The builders knew that this was no earthly sound. It was no human voice, a ghost maybe but no opera singer had made this her new home. For that was what it was. An aria of the most angelic realm. A wordless aria that seemed however, to be repeating the same phrase again and again and again.
For blokes, builders are a suspicious mob and after a quick swing round of the flashlights, it was firmly reiterated by all that there was no living person trapped in the darkness. The developer insisted work continue. The men walked off the job, not the type to mess with the ghosts of ancient buildings. It's not right they said, down at the pub. That building's got something to say, it's got some kind of business to finish. You can't just plaster over the top of that and expect the thing to take it. Johnno mused that there must be some kind of union rule against being made to gut singing buildings and they all agreed. After the conversation died down and the thirst resumed. Davo was dobbed in to buy the next round. The world is a beautiful place.
The developer called the mayor, but got a city planner. The insultingly young man laughed and said they'd get someone to come and have a look around when they could. The developer hung up on him and sat alone in his on site fibro office. He couldn't hear anything, but it's hard to hear something so close to silence when you've never known it before. He rested his head against the back of his chair.
The city grew quiet as it got darker and then he had to hear it. He'd heard it all along but blamed it on one of the street level drills. He heard it softly but he knew what it was. Despite being the big man he couldn't move. Was he terrified or enraptured? He didn't know. He'd never been enraptured before. He barely stood still most of the time. He couldn't move and the singing got louder, but not deafening like machinery, like a breathtaking moment when the ecstasy of the sound becomes too much to contain and the sweetest voice he had ever heard was like liquid gold running through his veins.
Despite himself and his fear and his enrapturement and his panic he ran into the darkest place the building knew and looked hopelessly for the source of the sound. It seemed to be seeping through the crumbling walls, or coming up from the rubble below him, pouring down from the leaking pipes above his head. An efficient man, he departed the darkness determined to find the source. That very night he organised industrial spotlighting to be brought in to illuminate, to strip bare the secrets of the invisible blackness. The sun rising the next morning was barely noticed for the searing spotlights that invaded the very core of the softly singing structure.
But do you think he could find the source?
His logical mind ran somersaults as he called on opera singers, composers, architects, surveyors, expert builders, excavators to aid his search…
Each left the dark depths transformed, unable to find an answer and certainly not looking for one. As they walked out onto street level they experienced a new born clarity in their lives and a lightness about their being as though they may just take off and fly at any moment. All the rest just fell away. The earth under their feet ate it up and singing became sweeter, darker, deeper, resonating even more truly in their bones. The experts advised the developer to sit, to sit and to listen and then they moved off slowly, floating just above the ground.
He stopped the machines and drills and the lights. The ghosts of student nurses and young artists and Haverely began to make the building their home, moving along floors that no longer existed and looking at the curious faces through gaping holes in walls that used to be windows. The developer looked in and saw the blackness reflected back at him.
After that. After that the loud machinery was left at a loss, after that the lights were carried away again, their large heads hanging, having failed to entice out the mystery. After that the city got wind of it and the crowds started to arrive. The developer took off his shoes and ran his pasty white feet through the sand and the rubble. He had been looking for something solid in the mystery. How can you ask an invisible voice to reveal itself? He conceded and took off his tie, placed it next to his shoes and socks and sat down, barefoot and tie-less by the mouth of the darkness. And he listened. He recognised the tune but he could not tell if it was from a different time and place, or if this song now, sung by that voice, that indefinable, unrescuable voice, was recognition of each moment that passed. So that in every instant he remembered just as he had heard it, so deeply entrenched in the music of the moment, every mesmerising moment, that he constantly reminded himself of it, remembered, recognised almost as if it was a new tune he had never heard before.
Is this true bliss? he thought. To be so consumed by exactly the place you exist in any given moment that the past and the future are erased, and time becomes a concept belonging to some far off galaxy that has no place right now, right here. In any case, with or without a history or a plan, he was lost to the world in the sweet fresh singing that set to bankrupt his business. The rest of the world, those that had not heard this aria - they still ran on time, running along that straight and narrow line. They still ran on gas and oxygen and had to eat to stay alive. They had not sat on the rim of a mystery.
It began to be a little bit of a problem. As word spread, and how it did, like a secret to ears that were hungry to hear it, more and more people became ineffective, lost to it, absorbed, released, reborn by it's side. The building site became a shrine to those that came to listen and those that chanced upon it. The road, a main artery out of town, had to be closed for all the beautiful bodies that spread across it with blankets and picnics. They came out of curiosity but could not leave, their souls infected by the singing that shifted their vision and kept them stuck to the spot. And the sun set and the sun came up and no one left, not even the developer. He had not left in days. He didn't return calls or, have meetings or try and convince anyone that everything was running according to plan. There was no plan. And today the investors were coming. Coming to take their money away. Coming to ruin the fool that had got them involved in this scheme. They were clever men and they knew about the singing. They knew not to come too close or they might be infected and lose their sharp suited edges.
For blokes, builders are a suspicious mob and after a quick swing round of the flashlights, it was firmly reiterated by all that there was no living person trapped in the darkness. The developer insisted work continue. The men walked off the job, not the type to mess with the ghosts of ancient buildings. It's not right they said, down at the pub. That building's got something to say, it's got some kind of business to finish. You can't just plaster over the top of that and expect the thing to take it. Johnno mused that there must be some kind of union rule against being made to gut singing buildings and they all agreed. After the conversation died down and the thirst resumed. Davo was dobbed in to buy the next round. The world is a beautiful place.
The developer called the mayor, but got a city planner. The insultingly young man laughed and said they'd get someone to come and have a look around when they could. The developer hung up on him and sat alone in his on site fibro office. He couldn't hear anything, but it's hard to hear something so close to silence when you've never known it before. He rested his head against the back of his chair.
The city grew quiet as it got darker and then he had to hear it. He'd heard it all along but blamed it on one of the street level drills. He heard it softly but he knew what it was. Despite being the big man he couldn't move. Was he terrified or enraptured? He didn't know. He'd never been enraptured before. He barely stood still most of the time. He couldn't move and the singing got louder, but not deafening like machinery, like a breathtaking moment when the ecstasy of the sound becomes too much to contain and the sweetest voice he had ever heard was like liquid gold running through his veins.
Despite himself and his fear and his enrapturement and his panic he ran into the darkest place the building knew and looked hopelessly for the source of the sound. It seemed to be seeping through the crumbling walls, or coming up from the rubble below him, pouring down from the leaking pipes above his head. An efficient man, he departed the darkness determined to find the source. That very night he organised industrial spotlighting to be brought in to illuminate, to strip bare the secrets of the invisible blackness. The sun rising the next morning was barely noticed for the searing spotlights that invaded the very core of the softly singing structure.
But do you think he could find the source?
His logical mind ran somersaults as he called on opera singers, composers, architects, surveyors, expert builders, excavators to aid his search…
Each left the dark depths transformed, unable to find an answer and certainly not looking for one. As they walked out onto street level they experienced a new born clarity in their lives and a lightness about their being as though they may just take off and fly at any moment. All the rest just fell away. The earth under their feet ate it up and singing became sweeter, darker, deeper, resonating even more truly in their bones. The experts advised the developer to sit, to sit and to listen and then they moved off slowly, floating just above the ground.
He stopped the machines and drills and the lights. The ghosts of student nurses and young artists and Haverely began to make the building their home, moving along floors that no longer existed and looking at the curious faces through gaping holes in walls that used to be windows. The developer looked in and saw the blackness reflected back at him.
After that. After that the loud machinery was left at a loss, after that the lights were carried away again, their large heads hanging, having failed to entice out the mystery. After that the city got wind of it and the crowds started to arrive. The developer took off his shoes and ran his pasty white feet through the sand and the rubble. He had been looking for something solid in the mystery. How can you ask an invisible voice to reveal itself? He conceded and took off his tie, placed it next to his shoes and socks and sat down, barefoot and tie-less by the mouth of the darkness. And he listened. He recognised the tune but he could not tell if it was from a different time and place, or if this song now, sung by that voice, that indefinable, unrescuable voice, was recognition of each moment that passed. So that in every instant he remembered just as he had heard it, so deeply entrenched in the music of the moment, every mesmerising moment, that he constantly reminded himself of it, remembered, recognised almost as if it was a new tune he had never heard before.
Is this true bliss? he thought. To be so consumed by exactly the place you exist in any given moment that the past and the future are erased, and time becomes a concept belonging to some far off galaxy that has no place right now, right here. In any case, with or without a history or a plan, he was lost to the world in the sweet fresh singing that set to bankrupt his business. The rest of the world, those that had not heard this aria - they still ran on time, running along that straight and narrow line. They still ran on gas and oxygen and had to eat to stay alive. They had not sat on the rim of a mystery.
It began to be a little bit of a problem. As word spread, and how it did, like a secret to ears that were hungry to hear it, more and more people became ineffective, lost to it, absorbed, released, reborn by it's side. The building site became a shrine to those that came to listen and those that chanced upon it. The road, a main artery out of town, had to be closed for all the beautiful bodies that spread across it with blankets and picnics. They came out of curiosity but could not leave, their souls infected by the singing that shifted their vision and kept them stuck to the spot. And the sun set and the sun came up and no one left, not even the developer. He had not left in days. He didn't return calls or, have meetings or try and convince anyone that everything was running according to plan. There was no plan. And today the investors were coming. Coming to take their money away. Coming to ruin the fool that had got them involved in this scheme. They were clever men and they knew about the singing. They knew not to come too close or they might be infected and lose their sharp suited edges.
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