As soon as the final class of school finished, Jonas ran to where his bicycle stood in his port. He swung his leg over the seat and pedaled fast, eager to reach the Annex room. In his haste, he bumped into two departing Tens, and he had to apologize to both of them and put the papers back in their homework folders. As soon as they had ridden off very disgruntled, he mounted his bike again and pedaled off rapidly.

He reached the Annex room and wheeled his bike into the port, leaving it leaning instead of upright, and hurried inside. He gave a quick nod to the attendant and hurried into the room.

Jonas knew he was acting ridiculous, in such a hurry to get to training, but he could not restrain his actions. Each afternoon, he lived for what he experienced in the Annex room. In his ordinary life, he could not stop thinking about the secrets and truths imparted in him, the vibrancy they gave his life, the way they made him feel so proud to be the lucky one chosen for them.

Yesterday, The Giver had promised him the wonderful memory of hearing-beyond, or music. Jonas could not imagine what music was. He reviewed what he already knew—it was something you heard, and no one except he and The Giver had ever heard it. Jonas wondered if he had already heard beyond, but he simply had not realized it. He pushed aside these speculations, as he took off his tunic and moved to the bed. He reminded The Giver, "You promised at the conclusion of yesterday's training you would give me the memory of hearing-beyond."

The Giver nodded, smiling. "I'm quite happy to give it to you."

He placed his hands on Jonas's back, transmitting the memory of music.

Jonas closed his eyes and opened his memory-eyes. He stood in a room with two other females. A huge black box stood against one wall. Was it a chest of drawers? But it had no drawers, and projected out about halfway was a block of white. He examined it, and he perceived the word piano.

One female sat on a bench with her fingers poised on the block of white—piano keys, he perceived-, while the other stood at her side. The female on the bench was fourteen years old and the female standing was nine, he knew, as part of the memory.

The female pushed down on the piano keys with her fingers, and as her fingers moved up and down, many sounds seemed to come out of nowhere. Jonas looked around wildly, inside the memory, though he knew they must come from somewhere. And then he realized that they came from the piano. The older female pushed down on the piano keys, and for each piano key there was a specific sound. He looked up and down the row of keys. There must be at least twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty! And each one with a corresponding sound!

He tried to listen to the sounds—music, he realized. This is music. This is what music sounds like.

There were no words to describe music. Words flew into his head that he had never heard, and yet they all described the music perfectly—unearthly, harmonious, haunting, melodious, euphonious.

They all flowed together perfectly, so beautifully that the music seemed to lift his consciousness and cause feelings to gush within him. Hearing beyond was truly remarkable, as The Giver had said.

The Nine, the female standing, opened her mouth and took a breath. Then she began to speak, but it did not seem to be to anyone in particular. She said, "I remember tears streaming down your face when I said I'd never let you go. When all those shadows almost killed your light."

Then the word singing came to his mind. The female was singing—speaking, but at the same time producing music. Speaking beyond, he thought, the term coming out of nowhere. It seemed to be a term he had produced on his own.

The female continued singing the words—Jonas knew them to be lyrics, to a song— as the Fourteen continued playing the piano. Jonas knew instinctively that the two things, the music and the singing, were meant to be heard together.

"I remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone"
But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight

"Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound

"Don't you dare look out your window, darling,
Everything's on fire
The war outside our door keeps raging on
Hold on to this lullaby
Even when the music's gone
Gone

"Just close your eyes
The sun is going down
You'll be alright
No one can hurt you now
Come morning light
You and I'll be safe and sound

"Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh
Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh
La La (La La)
La La (La La)
Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh
Oooh, Oooh, Oooh, Oooh
La La (La La)

"Just close your eyes
You'll be alright
Come morning light,
You and I'll be safe and sound..."

The nine-year-old finished her last word and smiled, panting slightly, as the fourteen-year-old—her sister, Jonas knew—played the last few notes on the piano.

Then the memory ended. Jonas lay on the bed, taken aback by the abrupt end. He opened his eyes, and realized suddenly, that his face was slightly wet with tears. Embarrassed, Jonas turned, discreetly wiping his face. The Giver put a strong arm around him and used his robe to wipe Jonas's tears, to his humiliation. The boy tried to shake him off, saying, "No—please—I apologize—I don't need—"

"Enough, Jonas," The Giver told him firmly but gently. "Remember what I told you. Nothing is foolish or shameful here. Trust the memories and how they make you feel."

Jonas nodded, still embarrassed. He lay back down on the bed, overcome by the memory, as The Giver watched him. Finally, the old man spoke. "That's one of my favorite memories. Not only because of the hearing-beyond, but because of the children in it as well. So young, yet so-"

Jonas sat up suddenly. "Giver? What do you mean— I apologize for interrupting, sir."

"No apologies here."

"Yes…" Jonas nodded. "Giver, what do you mean when you say that children are in it? There's only one child, the Nine, the one who sings. The other is a Fourteen, I sensed, the one playing the piano…"

"No, Jonas. She's a child. Back in the time of the memories, people were not adults until they were much older than Twelve. Eighteen, usually, or Twenty. Or Twenty-One."

"Twenty-One?" Jonas spoke aloud in wonder. Then he moved on, "Giver… so that was music? That's hearing-beyond?"

The Giver nodded. "Are you a little disappointed?"

"No, Giver, not at all. It's just…I'm… confused."

"Confused about what?"

Jonas tried to sort out what he was feeling, tried to put it into precise language, but he couldn't. "Confused about how the music makes me feel?"

"Could you describe how you feel, right now?"

Jonas nodded, but he warned, "It's not going to be precise, I can't find any way to make it."

"Precision of language doesn't apply here, especially not to music."

Jonas began, "Well… As I was listening, I felt so many different things… The music seemed happy, but at the same time it seemed sad. And at the same time it seemed mysterious, like it was saying something that I couldn't hear—but that's ridiculous anyway, music can't talk. And also, it seemed… hopeful? That's what confused me—how it made me feel."

Jonas let himself talk into silence, and then he remained quiet for a few moments. Then he spoke again. "Giver… You know what I have noticed? When I was a small child, right up until I was a Nine or a Ten, my own feelings seemed so easy, so straightforward. Like my younger sister Lily, she always seems to know how she feels. She's angry because someone broke the play rules, or she's excited because she's getting her bicycle in December, or like that. It was like that for me too, when I was her age. But about a year ago, just before the Ceremony of Twelve, I began having trouble figuring out how I felt. I could hardly understand how I felt about the Ceremony, and I could hardly place a right word to it. Then the Ceremony came, and…. Well, you remember what happened, and over the last year, as I've gotten more and more memories, I've began to understand my own feelings better, but now, when I've heard the music, I can't figure out how I feel again…"

He stopped, realizing how long he'd been talking. But The Giver was listening attentively, taking in each word. Then The Giver said, "Jonas… I think you've reached a critical point in your training. I wasn't expecting it for a long while, but it seems to have come early…"

He trailed off. His eyes were focused elsewhere, and he seemed to be in deep thought. Finally he spoke, "You've absorbed the memories very well, Jonas. Very well."

Jonas smiled, and then he continued, consumed with so many questions about music. "Are there different musics? Like there are different colors?"

"Oh, yes. There are ballads, and there are sonnets, and there are limericks, and nursery rhymes—why, I have a whole world of them, in my memories."

"What was the kind of music you gave me?"

"It was called a lullaby."

"A lullaby," Jonas repeated. The Giver continued, "A lullaby was a sort of song that was sung to help newhchildren sleep at night."

Jonas digested this. Then his head shot up in inspiration. "Giver? You remember Gabriel, the newchild my family is taking care of?"

"Yes. The one who needed extra care?"

"Yes, him. He cries so fretfully at night, they're talking about releasing him. But Giver, I think, if he was given a lullaby, he could sleep quietly at night."

The Giver nodded. "Gabriel has pale eyes, does he?"

Jonas nodded, and suddenly, he knew what he would do tonight. Then, with an uneasy feeling, he realized what The Giver had just said. He met his eyes, and The Giver was looking at him. Did the old man suspect him?

Uncomfortably, he changed the subject. "Giver, in the memory, I perceived a lot of words. I perceived music and piano and piano keys and singing, but there were also some words I perceived that are adjectives: unearthly, harmonious, haunting, melodious, euphonious.

"They all seemed to describe the music perfectly, but I also tried getting at another word, one that seemed to describe the feelings perfectly, yet I couldn't tell what it was. It seemed to tell how the song was happy and sad and hopeful and mysterious and lingering, all at the same time, mixed together."

"The word was bittersweet."

"Bittersweet."

Jonas fell into silence, thinking hard. It seemed incongruous that the music made him feel happy and sad at the same, and so many other emotions as well. But at the same time, it seemed to be a recurring idea in the memories—that the feelings that grow from them are not easy to analyze, the way the feelings citizens share after the evening meal are simple and straightforward.

"Giver?"

"Yes?"

"I was thinking…although I was crying… I liked the feeling of bittersweet. It made me cry, but at the same time it was… good…"

He trailed off yet again, unable to express himself.

The Twelve was silent through the evening meal. On the bike ride home and in preparations for the evening meal, he had sustained the quiet sense of awe the music had left him with, as well as the bittersweetness. He didn't want to let go of this strange, wonderful new feeling. But even as he tried to remain calm, irritation swelled up inside him. That his family unit was satisfied with their meaningless lives. That they chattered so lightly, so irrelevantly about trivial matters while he contemplated the complexities of music. That there was no way he could give them a shred of his new awareness, no matter how hard he tried.

Which was undoubtedly why he did not even wait for Gabriel to fall asleep in his crib before he gave him the memory of the lullaby. Gabriel slept soundly—what was it the girl had sung?- safe and sound, in his crib, the youngest one of the three lucky bunch in the community of Sameness , to experience this weird sensation, this joy, called music.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Giver, or Safe and Sound. Those belong to Lois Lowry and Taylor Swift, respectively.

I read The Giver a few years ago, and I was rereading it recently when I wondered what might have happened if The Giver gave Jonas the memory of music instead of keeping it for himself. Please review- criticism is welcome, as long as it's constructive!