SCREAMING DIRECTLY INTO THE VOID

[tempo: 68 BPM ritual pulse; free-time drone passages; gradual double-time ceremonial escalation] [tone: vast, reverent without worship, physical, ancient, intimate, darkly amused, increasingly awestruck] [vocal style: solo Prophet; resonant baritone, sparse spoken observations, deep overtone-rich throat singing, sustained fundamentals, overtone melodies, rare clean cries] [instrumentation: morin-khuur-inspired bowed textures, cello, double bass, frame drums, massive ceremonial drums, low brass, distant strings, sparse bells, restrained Glitch-tar] [effects: enormous spatial reverb, low harmonic resonance, long decays, subtle temporal drift, distant reversed resonance, abrupt true silence] [THE THRESHOLD] [faint warmth of The Elsewhere behind him] [one bowed drone] [deep throat-sung fundamental] HMMMMMMMM— [overtone slowly emerges] [Prophet] Home behind me. Everything else... that way. [pause] Let's see how far a voice can go. [FIRST CALL] [slow frame drum] [low throat singing beneath voice] I know you aren't listening. I'm not calling you. I'm not summoning you. I'm not asking for an answer. I'm just singing. [pause] You happen to be very large. [deep drum] [FOR EVERYTHING YOU HOLD] [bowed strings widen] For every world that almost was— I SING. [throat-sung response] HUUUUM— For every road abandoned before the first footprint— I SING. For every thought forgotten before somebody found the words— I SING. For everything that might have been and never owed us the courtesy of becoming— I SING. Not because you asked. Not because you care. Because I do. [NO ANSWER] [powerful overtone phrase] [everything stops] [absolute silence] [hold] [Prophet] ... Yep. Thought so. [one drum strike] [THE UNMADE] [ritual pulse begins] There are cities nobody built. Languages nobody spoke. Songs that never found a second note. Creatures evolution considered and quietly went another way. Whole civilizations balanced on decisions nobody made. And versions of me. The ones who stayed. The ones who left. The ones who never found the road. They're not ghosts. They simply... weren't. [pause] And somehow that doesn't make them nothing. [OVERTONE ASCENT] [extended throat-singing passage] [fundamental low and steady] [overtone melody rises] [bowed lead answers] [cello doubles fundamental] [frame drums deepen] [low brass enters] [Glitch-tar sustains one distant harmonic] [orchestra expands around unchanged fundamental] [PRAISE WITHOUT WORSHIP] [percussion falls away] This is probably where I'm supposed to kneel. [pause] No. We've covered that. You never asked. I'm not worshipping you. You wouldn't know what to do with worship anyway. No commandments. No reward. No promise that somebody is watching. Just... space. Possibility. An unfinished sentence without anyone demanding the period. [low overtone] Maybe that's why I like you. [I AM GLAD YOU EXIST] [slow orchestral rise] You leave room for the thing that hasn't decided. For the question without an answer. For mistakes. For revision. For something nobody predicted. You don't tell the unfinished to hurry. You don't tell the strange to become familiar. [Glitch-tar answers] You don't tell anything anything. [pause] Admittedly, that helps. [drums intensify] I don't need you to love me. I don't need to have been chosen. I looked at something larger than myself— and decided what I wanted to say. [full throat-sung fundamental] I AM GLAD YOU EXIST. [orchestral strike] Whatever "exist" means for you. [SCREAMING DIRECTLY INTO THE VOID] [ceremonial drums accelerate] [low brass descends] [strings and Glitch-tar expand] FOR THE WORLDS! HUUUUUM— FOR THE ROADS! HAAAAA— FOR THE QUESTIONS! FOR THE ERRORS! FOR EVERY FUTURE STILL REFUSING TO BECOME INEVITABLE! [huge drums] For the unmade! For the unfinished! For the impossible! For the things we haven't imagined well enough to miss yet! [maximum overtone intensity] I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO ANSWER! I'M NOT ASKING YOU TO CARE! I'M NOT ASKING FOR MEANING! [Glitch-tar screams] I AM STANDING HERE BECAUSE I CAN— SINGING BECAUSE I CAN— SCREAMING DIRECTLY INTO THE VOID BECAUSE SOME THINGS ARE WORTH PRAISING EVEN WHEN NOTHING PRAISES BACK! [THE GREAT OVERTONE] [lyrics cease] [deep fundamental sustained] [high overtone rises above it] [orchestra harmonizes around Prophet] [Glitch-tar joins] [ceremonial drums thunder] [one enormous clean sustained cry] [everything reaches maximum scale] [hold] [EVERYTHING CUTS] [NO ANSWER — AGAIN] [absolute silence] [no reverb] [hold] [longer] [THE ANSWER I DIDN'T NEED] [Prophet breathes] Maybe some things don't need to hear your gratitude for the gratitude to be real. [pause] Maybe I can simply look at all that impossible nothing— and be glad there's still room for something else. [LAST OVERTONE] [one bowed fundamental] [soft throat singing] Huuuuum— [one overtone emerges] For the maybe. For the almost. For the not yet. For everything that hasn't decided what it is. I sing. [overtone disappears into silence] [hold] [Prophet — breathless] ... Worth it. [distant Patchrat chirp from The Elsewhere] [Prophet] Yeah. I'm coming. [warm doorway ambience] [door closes] [the Void remains silent] [End.]