The Perfect Song

A band you never heard of

once accidentally wrote

the most objectively beautiful

piece of music

humans are capable of hearing.

With Todd on drums

and Mark on bass

and Joel on lead guitar

and Lisa on vocals,

playing in the garage

owned by Todd’s parents,

for just a couple of moments

they achieved perfect

chords, pitch, melody, and harmony.

They had never heard

anything like it before

and were so shocked

that they suddenly stopped,

each person staring open-mouthed

at each other,

tears shining in their eyes.

Joel wiped the back of his hand

across his nose,

surprised to find a streak

of bright red blood.

“Let’s do that again!” Mark cried.

“Wait,” Todd held up a hand.

He wanted to go into the house

to see if his mother had heard,

his mother who thought Todd

was wasting his time with music

and would never be as successful

as his brother Phil, the law student.

If his mother could just hear

the song they played,

she’d finally appreciate his talent,

finally accept him as he was.

He rushed into the kitchen

and found her lying on the floor,

unresponsive,

clear fluid trickling

out of her left ear.

Her eyes were wide with fear,

but she had a smile

of ecstasy on her face.

Lisa, who was also a lifeguard at the Y,

performed CPR and restarted

Todd’s mother’s heart.

After she was rushed to the hospital,

the best doctors could guess

was that she had had some sort of stroke.

With intensive physical therapy,

she learned to walk and speak again,

but personality-wise,

she was never quite the same.

She was much happier, yes,

but she was convinced she was

sixteen years old again

with all her life and every possibility

in front of her.

A few months later,

after the immediate crisis had passed,

Mark, Joel, and Lisa

gently asked Todd if he wanted to play again,

if he wanted to play that song again.

“No,” Todd replied.

“It’s too dangerous.

We can never play that song again.”

They disbanded as a musical group

and, not having much else in common,

didn’t see each other much after that,

except perhaps on Thursday nights

when Vinny’s had 50-cent wing nights.

Todd sold his drum kit

and became an accountant.

He could easily fund his mother’s

continued rehabilitation,

but she once asked him,

“Don’t you find that job kind of boring?

I guess I just wouldn’t want to waste my life

doing something that dull all the time.”

And anyway that’s why you’ve never heard

of that band.