What a Wonderful World
November 6, 2001
Another full house at Caritas. Lorne was glad it was closing time. For the past two months, the nightclub had been packed every night, full of people anxious about the future. He'd seen their moods shift from stunned incomprehension to despair, and now he felt a growing anger building within them. He feared it; humans were prone to turning against anyone strange or different when they gave their anger free reign. And who, in all this world, was stranger or more different than Lorne? He wasn't even from this world.
Of course, this world did have its advantages, he mused, as he locked up and headed for the Hyperion Hotel. One of them was the Sony Walkman, a marvelous device that would have been proclaimed magical anywhere else. But to these people, it was mere technology – personal electronics, a consumer fad. Didn't they even know how lucky they were to have so much music instantly at their disposal?
He was listening to Concrete Blonde, playing a track that had resonated with him since the moment he'd heard it:
I went tripping down the street early this morning
And the psychic lady pointed at me
She said, "Come on in!" and I gave her my money
I said "Tell me, tell me what you see"
And she said she saw the angels dancing with me
Dancing to the beat of my feat down the street
She said she saw the angels dancing with me
To keep on, keep on, keep on
Lorne marveled at how fearless their lead singer was, at how she was unafraid to lay her soul bare on every single song. Glorious! If only these people were in better touch with their souls, he thought… Well, that was his own peculiar mission in this strange world.
Four A.M. at the Hyperion, and the staff of Angel Investigations was still awake. Of course, Angel preferred the night shift, for obvious reasons, and the rest of them inevitably followed, burning the midnight oil in the course of their business. They were gathered around a television set, something they had done a lot since the day two months previous when their illusions of safety had come crashing down along with those buildings in New York. Strange how even people who knew the truth about the hidden underworld could still harbor such fragile illusions of safety. But humans, even long-dead ones like Angel, were masters of self-deception.
"Hi fans," he called out cheerfully. "What's the news?"
"Interesting story out of Sunnydale," Wesley said, glancing up at him. "They're treating it as a joke, of course – another improbable occurrence in California's weirdest city…"
"Oh? What's come crawling up out of the Hellmouth this time?" Lorne asked.
"You'll love this," Gunn said. "The whole town is singing."
"What? Singing?" Lorne tried to keep his voice steady.
"It started yesterday," Cordelia said. "People all over Sunnydale are suddenly bursting into song, strangers are joining together doing entire Broadway production numbers on the fly. Makes me glad I left."
Me too, Lorne thought. I've heard Cordy sing. "Are we going to do anything about it?" he asked aloud.
Angel shook his head slowly. "We have our hands full here," he said. "Figuring out what's up with Darla's pregnancy. Buffy can handle this one."
"Right," Lorne said uncertainly. "Look, Angel, I don't mean to bail on you, but I really need to go check this one out."
"Got to go join in the fun?" Gunn asked with a grin. "Yeah, I can see why you'd want to be in the middle of that."
"Um, I don't suppose you'd let me borrow your car?" Lorne asked uncertainly.
"I'm going to need it," Angel said.
Wesley coughed, and said, "You could borrow my motorcycle."
"What? You have a bike?" Gunn asked.
"I don't use it much any more, but I still have it," Wesley continued. "It's parked out back."
"Wesley, you're a real pal," Lorne said. "Look, I've got to get moving on this – I don't suppose you'd have a helmet that will fit over my horns, do you?"
"We'll work something out," Wesley assured him.
It turned out to be simple – Gunn took a knife and carved two slots in the foam lining of Wesley's helmet, allowing it to slip down over the demon's head without getting hung up on his horns. "You'd better take my old leather jacket, too," Wesley said, grinning. "Not that I don't like your suit, but it's not exactly standard biker attire."
"Beautiful!" Lorne shouted. "Thanks a million, Wes."
Motoring up Interstate Five as the sun rose, Lorne had the Walkman's earphones on under the helmet, blasting Steppenwolf at full volume:
Get your motor running
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
"Born to be wild!" he sang at the top of his lungs as he took the exit for Sunnydale.
It was worse than he thought.
These people aren't singing, he thought to himself, watching a trio of sanitation workers do a song-and-dance routine. Not from their own hearts, anyway. Something is… compelling them.
And he feared he knew exactly what it was.
The pain of all those souls being ripped open and exposed to the world against their will was almost too much to bear. It washed over Lorne like a tidal wave on a beach that left behind stranded fish, flopping their lives away helplessly on the sand. "Make it stop!" he screamed. "This isn't how it's supposed to be done!"
Stop! In the name of love…
But it wouldn't stop.
It was long past sundown when Lorne finally located the source of the mischief – a local nightclub called the Bronze. By that time, he was barely able to stand upright. Sunnydale was tearing its collective heart out, and he could feel every heartbeat…
He spotted a reddish-brown demon wearing a blue suit by the club's back door, and he screamed, "Hold it right there!"
The demon turned, and looked at Lorne with a merry gleam in his eyes. "Well, well, what have we here?" he crooned. "A Pylean! I haven't seen one of your kind in ages."
"That's because, after you went to Pylea, my entire people forsook music forever, rather than allow you to come back to torment them!" Lorne said, tears streaming down his face.
"Oh, my," the demon said looking startled. "That was rather… extreme of them."
"They considered the loss to be worth it," Lorne sneered. "I know who you are! Your name is Sweet, isn't it?"
Sweet laughed. "I've been called that," he admitted. "Not my real name, though, so if you have any wild ideas about banishing me…"
"I'll do whatever it takes to drive you from this town!" Lorne said. "I won't let you do to them what you did to us!"
"Easy now, brother," Sweet said. "I was just leaving anyway. My gig is through here. The job is finished. I'm going to shake the dust of this 'burb from my blue suede shoes and not look back. By morning, this should all be 'Thanks for the Memories' to these folks."
"Thanks but no thanks, you mean," Lorne said.
"Why so bitter, bro?" Sweet asked. "Maybe your people forsook music, but I can tell that you didn't. Looks to me like the whole musical talent of an entire world got poured into one soul, and it just happens to be yours." He grinned diabolically. "There are people who would sacrifice the most amazing things for a power like that."
"And it's because of that power that I can feel how much pain you've inflicted on these people," Lorne snapped.
"Who, me?" Sweet laughed. "It ain't pain I brought them, brother. I just let out whatever they had hiding in their souls. And it's so easy with them! They keep so much hidden, even from themselves, and their music…" He raised his arms high, and said, "The music is hard-wired into their very beings! It's their very nature! It's not just something they do for fun, or for money. These people are musical by nature!"
"Yeah, I know," Lorne said.
"So you see why I love this world so much," Sweet said. "Louis Armstrong. Mozart. Janis Joplin. Duke Ellington. Bob Dylan!" He sighed. "If there is a heaven, then for me, this is it. Right here."
"And I'm here to make sure you don't turn it into hell," Lorne said.
"Relax, bro," Sweet said. "Like I said, I'm hittin' the road." He turned, but then called back over his shoulder, "Want to come along? I'm going on tour, and I could use a piano man."
Lorne shook his head. "Never in a million years."
Sweet sighed. "Too bad. But enjoy this place, while you can. This here…" He laughed. "This here is one wonderful world!"
And in a sparkle of light, he was gone.
"Huh," Lorne said softly. But he could feel that it was true. The compulsion forcing the people of Sunnydale to sing was… ebbing.
"Oh well," he said to himself. "That's all, folks."
As he walked back to the motorcycle, he found himself singing an old Louis Armstrong number under his breath:
I see trees of green
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and for you
And I say to myself
What a wonderful world…