In the beginning everything went wrong. Jon and Charlie argued constantly, without moving forward a single step. Bennie became the one to always reconcile them. It happened one late evening, when he arrived unexpectedly at Jon's in the middle of an argument. He sat down calmly in an open armchair, and listened to his band mates raging at each other, occasionally chipping in with some insignificant remark. Somehow the dispute got settled by itself, just by him being there. From that day on, Bennie was constantly sitting in that armchair, always straightening out the glasses perched on his nose.
Two weeks later, Jon took out the last of his money to pay for their latest playbills and the rent.
Hardly anyone came. At the back of the hall, five friends took their seats and clapped. The echo in the hall sounded miserable. Charlie tested a chord, Bennie let rip, and the concert began. Jon played technically correct, but without much inspiration. At the back of his mind he was thinking up an alternative to this mess: while they played Charlie's songs, they could also...
Something was wrong with the way the band was playing. The audience didn't seem to notice, but Jon caught the dissonance the moment it appeared. It took him a second before he realised what it was: Bennie played to a slightly different beat, and everyone else was trying to adjust to him. In a few seconds the character of the music had changed significantly. The rhythm became choking, pulsing with some unpleasant tension. Nick was forced to squeeze more out of his bass, while Jon struggled with theme, and when the theme was over, he felt a taste of salt on his lips. His fingers was trembled. The song ended, and sudden spectators' applause hammered down on the band like thunder. The musicians had never heard anything like it. But the band members had no more power even to be happy.
"We'll be sold out tomorrow," whispered Charlie. He needn't have whispered; the audience wasn't listening, it was too busy applauding.
When the last of the audience disappeared, Jon shoved Bennie against a speaker.
"You remember that beat, don't you?" The pianist's left eyelid was trembling.
"Why?" croaked Bennie.
"Why!" The audience went mad with it. Or you haven't see it?"
"I didn't change it on purpose," admitted Bennie. – "I broke my glasses. With one stick. I was so goddamned nervous when I broke my glasses, I..." Bennie glanced apologetically at his band mates. "Sorry, guys, I hurried things on a bit – my leg was so jumpy."
"Would you like to purchase something, sir?"
"Yes," Jon answered, signing the check. – "I'd like a full Dionysus concert set. Instruments from this list, all the latest models." He stuck out his tongue at the stunned salesman.
The following rehearsal went like a dream. The equipment was set up and tuned in five minutes. Everything was taken into account: the hall's humidity, resonance of the walls, convexity of the ceiling, characteristics of each instrument, distance from the stage to the chairs. The band's instruments responded to the slightest touch; they memorized the physiology of their performers, and so the sound could change with the heartbeats of every musician or with the vocalist's breathing. Jon couldn't stop fawning over his new keyboard, while Charlie petted his guitar as if it was his soul mate. Bennie and Nick almost cried with happiness when they first touched their instruments. Tews was the only one who refused to put away his trusty flute.
"Praise Dionysus!" – Jon said one day when he opened another official invitation. – "What were you saying, Charlie?"
"The Prince Albert Hall?" asked Charlie.
"Exactly." – Jon smiled as Charlie whooped and generally made a fool of himself. He ended up kneeling before an amplifier, raising hands to the logo of the youth in the tabby pelt.
"Evoe, Dionysus!" howled Charlie in ecstasy. -"Let your hand rest on the crowns of these poor musicians."
"Rich musicians." Bennie pushed a new set of glasses up his nose.
Jon stroked the keys on his synthesizer. Exulted chords broke out in the dark hall. Sullen Tews chased the notes with a tune from his flute. Something wild seemed to rush across the stage after the music.
"Don't laugh about gods, Orfi," Tews looked very serious. – "They prefer to be the last to laugh."
"Ladies and gentlemen," the microphone touched Orfi's lips. – "Today's concert will be unusual, indeed. Today, for the very first time, we'll perform my symphony "Euredice". Silence please!"
Jon took his place before his organ, and only then understood that the hall was filled with women. There were old and young, pretty and ugly, thin and fat females; a smell of cosmetics hung in the air, there was a glitter of jewellery, and a rustle of clothes.. The air was charged with a sense of hysteria.
He put his hands on the keyboard and took a deep breath. The organ's indicator panel showed Jon's physical parameters: pulse, blood pressure, temperature, biochemistry. The organ was tuning itself up. Similar statistics blinked on the panels of the other band members, all of the instruments even measuring the audience's condition. Silence ceased and turned sound as the first notes escaped his fingers. The chords rose to penetrate every rift, every fissure in the hall, filling the emptiness with sound. When his solo reached its climax, the pulses of percussions and the rhythms of the guitars joined in. There was a silver ringing as of icicles whistling in the autumn wind, a sound of a lonely pedestrian's steps in the dead of night, children's laughter and pain, the tender whispers of lovers, and the howling of falling bombs – a sad melody of eternal wanderers. This music had it all.
Only Tews' flute kept silent for some reason. The rhythm changed. A troubled note joined into the heavenly pulse, and abruptly it was as if some kind of sickness had infected the symphony. Jon heard a cry behind him, and turned to see Bennie, pale as a sheet. His hands were raised, a look of horror on his face. It took a moment for Orfi to understand what was happening: there were percussion without anyone playing the drums. Bennie's hands were off the panels, but the rhythm didn't disappear. Moreover it grew more powerful. The audience stirred uncomfortably. Shrill voices from the gallery began to moan. The tension in the Hall rose several notches. Charlie seemed one with his guitar. His eyes were closed, spittle flecking his lips, as the strings he plucked growled. Fletcher looked even worse ashis bass howled at the crowed to start moving, dancing.
The women, with their glittering rings and painted faces, scarlet nails, rushed forward in ecstasy. Jon stood up, and listened, enthralled, to his symphony being played out by the Dionysus machines. When the outburst reached its climax, and the furious flock was ready to charge the stage, David Tews ran up to the proscenium and put his old flute to his lips. Human breath and notes rose up to clash with Dionysus's frenzied music, sounding like a frantic swimmer, trying to catch his breath, break the surface of water, and reach life.
Jon broke free from his enthrallment, and rushed towards a grand-piano standing in the wings. He prayed to the heavens that he may join with Tews' flute, before the berserk women could reach them, and tear them apart.
And in the gallery, sitting quietly with his legs crossed, was a curly-haired youth in a tabby pelt, smiling as he watched the chaos unfold.