Dopecentury XXXVII --- Sonic Titan
This short fiction is part of Dopecentury, an experimental project where I attempt to channel the aural aesthetics of Dopesmoker into written text. (Dopesmoker is the legendary stoner-doom metal masterpiece by the band Sleep, of which it is said: “the monotony rarely becomes tedious.”) My plan is to listen to the single hour-long track of Dopesmoker while writing each of these “Dopecentury” entries. And repeat that 100 times. See the Dopecentury project page for more details.
A thin whistle, high in the air; coming down from somewhere high up above the homes and small shops and the factories with their filaments of black smoke; the little buildings that cling all along the sides of the stream that crackles its way down the valley between the steep sides of the mountains.
Villagers come out from the dark doors of the little buildings and shade their eyes and look up at the gash of sky that stands clear between the mountaintops above; the whistle comes down from somewhere above the mountains; somewhere well up into the atmosphere; had the whistle come and gone, nobody would have been curious enough to go outside, but it continues on and on, streaming through the sky above, passing from the low end of the valley, over their heads, and continuing on far away above the high end of the valley off among the highest peaks of the range.
Something like twenty minutes passes; the onlookers in the small streets are shrugging their shoulders and some are heading back into their shops when others with somewhat keener hearing notice a low rumble that comes in staccato waves that also seem to emanate from somewhere out past the low end of the valley; the rumble is felt more than heard, passing through the ground below, picked up through the leather soles of the villager’s shoes; mixing in with the ever-present babbling sound of the stream running through the valley.
“If you made me guess, I would say that low sound below originates from the same place as that whistle above.”
“Perhaps. But what could it possibly be?”
“Could be some new machine the low-landers are operating.”
“Would have to be louder than any machine I’ve ever known before.”
As the minutes pass it becomes apparent that the both the whistle above and the rumble below are increasing in intensity; the whistle grows loud enough that small children are putting fingers in their ears; and the rumble is causing ripples in standing puddles in the potholes of the street.
The rumbling low-frequencies grow louder, so they are now heard conveyed through the air as well as the ground; the rumbles come at a steady rate, indeed like a machine, like piles being driven, like the bootfalls of a giant; now loud enough that the vibrations can be seen in the buildings; cracks in the foundations and in the mortar arise and creep.
“We must put a stop this before the village is wrecked!” a group of elders gather, and decide to proceed down the valley to investigate; moving slowly down and farther into the sonic field.
More minutes pass, and the sound only grows louder; a clanging sound joins in, piercing right up the middle of the valley; a double-beat that comes between each rumble; the clanging quickly grows in intensity to match the volume of the whistle above and the rumble below, but while those sounds seem to pass over and under the village, the clanging strikes right through the middle; the villagers feel the clanging striking their chests, their bones; glass in the windows cracks and falls from the frames.
The villagers panic, but with no action to take, they cling to their children (fingers driven deeper into small ears) and each other; far off down the road to the low-lands, the small dots that were the group of elders could be seen to be returning; clearly driven back by the sound increasing to painful levels.
Another sound rises and joins the clanging sound ringing up the valley; a loud cracking and creaking that strike the village all of a sudden, like a wall of water flooding through; the cracking is like trees blowing over in a storm, except it goes on and on continuously, while being pierced through by the double-beat of the clanging sound; and it is good that the villagers had all come outside because when the wave of the cracking sound arrives, it strikes down most of the walls of the buildings, the cacophony of their collapse stirred in to the other noises streaming up the valley.
The elders return, and shout to the villagers:
“There is no facing the onslaught from the low end of the valley!
“The village is lost!
“Move up the valley; we’ll seek shelter among the mountain passes!”
The ground itself heaves up from the sonic energy channeling through the valley; in places the stream explodes over its banks and is forced to carve a new path; the villagers stuff wads in their ears and trudge upward, past the angry, growling stream and the buildings that continue to collapse around them; fires flame and catch, birds drop from the sky; the atmosphere splits as though it has been cloven open by an edged tool of a cosmic scale.
The volume increases, and the sound becomes unmanageable; more than the whistle or the rumble or the clanging, it’s the cracking sound that breaks the will of the villagers; it never ceases and never weakens in intensity; it grinds at the soul.
The villagers start running up the road to the high end of the valley, to the potential safety of the mountain passes; the peaks on either side of the valley crumble and fall, and the dropping earth rips through the treeline and tears up more earth; the volume rises, and the mountains of the valley fall in on themselves; earth falls and fills the valley burying all in it until it is a valley no more.
The sound continues on, and then streams away off into the mountains, the high whistle being the last least thing flying away high up through the atmosphere.