instead of introduction
Luciani lived on a planet where no music was ever
heard. The planet was called Sinux HZ, and coming into a music store, you could
not just walk up to an instrument like a violin or a clarinet in order to buy
it and then practice at home. In fact, there were no music stores on Luciani's
planet.
And there were no concerts ever performed. Mozart was
unheard of. Beethoven was an empty sound. Bach was more obscure than a Biblical
myth. There were no small clubs where rock bands could build up their fanbase.
On Sinux HZ, rock music did not exist. And nor did record shops or even artists
who could sell their latest albums on vinyl or else in any other format
imaginable.
Music was never taught at schools and neither children
nor adults had any concept of notes or basic chord structures. It would
actually be true to say that people on Luciani's planet could not recognise
music if you played it to them and explained that what they were hearing was,
indeed, music.
The Emperor of the planet, Jeremy 17th, issued a
decree that banned the usage of the word 'music'. Which was a sound law since
none of the inhabitants of Sinux HZ had a remote idea what the word 'music'
even meant. The law that banned playing music was also quite reasonable as
people on Luciani's planet could not tell a string from a bow.
Sinux HZ was a planet of science. Gravity was the law.
Perpetual motion machine was the law. Cure against cancer was the law. Living
forever was the law. In fact, Luciani was one of the most prominent doctors on
planet Sinux HZ and came up with a pill that allowed you to grey back, so to
speak, i.e. make your hair black again. Or brown. Or green. Or whatever it was
originally.
Travelling was also banned by Jeremy 17th, on the
grounds that a different planet could be the source of a deadly virus that
could provide the much sought-after access to the advanced technologies of Sinux
HZ.
However, it once so happened that Luciani was working
on teleportation in his garage (teleportation was his hobby – hobbies on Sinux
HZ ranged from black holes to microbiology), and after a couple of
manipulations that were a little less than precise, he turned up on planet
Falcon TG.
It was a strange planet, that's the least you could
say about it. The people were no different and even their clothes looked
similar to those worn by the inhabitants of Sinux HZ, but most of it seemed
wrong to Luciani. For instance, he wandered into an open door of some
restaurant, and a girl talked to him in a rather fanciful manner and even
invited to have a drink.
Later, it was dark and they came out into the street
to walk to her place under the glowing light of street lamps and night time
cafes. The girl's name was Nadine. She said she liked him. In fact, the only
thing that worried Nadine about Luciani was that he looked a little restless
and was always deep in his thoughts. 'I'm sorry, Nadine', he explained, 'but
I've still not figured out the law of how to get back to Sinux HZ. I don't
understand why it's taking me so long'.
Nadine offered him to stay at her place and maybe try
to figure it out a little later, maybe in the morning. And at some point inside
Nadine's house, something stranger still started to happen. Something like the
noise, but not quite the noise. Something like the harmony, but not quite the
harmony.
'How? How?' Luciani was pacing her bedroom,
restlessly. 'Sounds? You what, you combine sounds and you get this? And that is
the whole of the law?'
'No', said Nadine. Then she walked up to Luciani and kissed
him lightly, on the lips. 'Now this',
she said, with a half-smile, 'this is the whole of the law'.
