Teddy Ruxpin’s in the corner. Nuclear winter oozes from his chest. I’ve sealed all the windows in the house from the inside. This music is for us, not the world.

I crank up his volume, but an eighth-gen dub isn’t going to do much, barely better than listening to it on Youtube. I’m just playing it to take the edge off. I’ve got something special planned for Michelle, and I want to ease into it.

She’s lying naked on the couch. She’s singing along with a song at once recognizable yet completely transformed.

“Take your passion,” she slurs, “make it happen.”

She drags her hands across her scars. She wanted a baby once, but scraped it out to make room for the music. Her nose is bleeding, but she lets it drip.

A new song starts, and now there’s a voice bellowing that it blessed the rains down in Africa. The music flows like tar, and it fills the air like the stench from a plague pit. Michelle snaps her jaws, trying to eat the music from the air.

We see all good people turn their heads and we’re told heaven is a place on earth and a ragged voice claims to have an invisible touch. Time feels like a maggot crawling through rotting flesh.

“Hey baby,” I mutter.

Michelle doesn’t answer. She twitches and leaps off the couch, she twirls around…

…and the music crawls to a stop. I hear the unmistakable sound of a tape being eaten. 

Michelle shrieks. She lunges at the doll.

“Don’t worry, “ I say, but she doesn’t listen.

She wrenches the tape door open.

“Get a pencil,” she sobs, “I can fix this!”

She drops the bear and collapses to the cold concrete floor. 

I get off the couch, go to my wife. “It’s okay baby. I have something for you.”

She doesn’t look up. 

I go to my safe in the corner, enter the combination. I pull out the surprise.

I kneel, throw an arm over Michelle, whisper in her ear. She raises her head, looks at me in disbelief.

“What?”

“I got an original. Or as close to an original as you can get.”

“From where?”

“Stavros. He’s been using it for the dubs.”

“Stavros gave you an original. How?”

“He just gave it to me,” I lie. She doesn’t need to know what I did to Stavros.

I help her back to the couch, throw a blanket over her. Then I go to the stereo. I’ve been getting by for so long on fourth and fifth gen copies. They’re nice, but they break. They always break. But now things will be better.

“Play it, “ she whimpers, “play it loud.”

I turn the cassette case over in my hand. There are cartoon characters on the cover and handwritten song titles on the back. When I first heard it, it seemed so funny. But that was just mp3s. They didn’t do anything. When I heard it on tape, that’s what changed everything.

I open the case, slip the cassette tape into the stereo. 

I hesitate. The silence has given me a moment of clarity and all of a sudden, I’m aware I haven’t eaten since yesterday, haven’t bathed in a week, haven’t been to work in a month. Where the hell did Stavros get this? He once said his father worked for the government. Maybe it’s some kind of weapon? Maybe it’s

My wife is crying, and I don’t want to think anymore. I press the play button and the music swallows me whole. My wife howls with joy as darkness spews out of the speakers in all its analog glory. Someone’s moaning that I should take my passion and make it happen.

Michelle runs to the stereo and turns the volume knob all the way to the right. She kisses me like it’s our wedding. An ethereal voice claims money's a gas.

She pulls away and smiles. Then she drops to the floor and slams her head against the cold concrete floor. She does it again. And again. 

I should stop her. I know I should stop her. But she’d never forgive me. So I watch as her skull cracks and the blood pours out of her nose. She shrieks, and she gouges an eye with her thumb before slamming her head into the floor again. A tooth flies out of her mouth and hits me in the face. She’s laughing and now her face looks like fresh roadkill and she keeps pounding and now the only thing I recognize is her hair. She squeals that music is inside of her.

My wife makes a sound like a clogged sewer pipe and collapses. I drop to my knees, shake her. She doesn’t move.

The music throbs and reverberates through the room, and my bones feel like they’re melting. I feel a sharp pain. Blood pours out my ears, and then I’m in a world of silence. I scream, but I can’t hear it. For the first time in years, I’m free.

I could walk away. I could burn the tapes and keep others safe. I could warn people, stop this from happening to anyone else.

But I don’t want to be free. I tear a chunk of my wife’s face off with my teeth, swallow it whole. She tastes like music.

🧸🎵