Ludwig's POV
Musik.
Various melodies pulse through existence, their continuity broken only by the unmelodic sounds that tag themselves to the melodies…
Beethoven…
Mozart…
Handel…
Haydn…
Bach…
Tchaikovsky (a tag that is not quite in harmony with the others, for unknown reasons)…
And many others…
What a beautiful existence. How fortunate that this is all that exists, nothing that is not beautiful, or not pleasant…
For there are other tags, other sounds that, as vague as they are, foretell of a chilling other existence…
There is a voice – of sorts, but not exactly a sound so much as a… meaning… that also pulses through existence, that explains and labels these other sounds…
Each comes in a different voice. There is the rough, unstable tenor of the voice labeled as Onkel Wolfgang, Wolfgang or sometimes just Onkel.
There are other sounds, heard less often, such as those labeled as Wilhelm and Josephine…
And there is the sound heard most often of all, the one labeled as Sofia and also as Mutter.
Mutter. The non-voice of meaning has not explained what exactly this is. Anyway, the voice of Mutter is constantly repeating the same sound.
Ludwig.
It is a tag, but the non-voice of meaning does not explain what is tagged as such. It is not a bother at first, but though everything is explained as time passes, often almost as soon as the sound pops into existence, Ludwig continues to evade explanation.
The non-voice of meaning becomes the non-sound of a storm. The failure to define Ludwig in due time makes for a most unpleasant discord. The non-voice of meaning is not so omniscient after all.
The storm is bothersome. Why can existence no longer be a peaceful nothingness but music?
Another disturbance slowly begins to creep its way into existence. It is not dissonance, but discomfort. Before, there was only sound. There was no… form.
All existence is now explained, by the increasingly agitated non-voice of meaning, as a body encased in a shell. The sound labels are becoming increasingly clear. Although they all come from outside the shell…
This cannot continue any longer. The shell needs to be removed. The non-voice of meaning is torn between resistance to existence outside the shell and an imploring need to seek further meaning out there. The pressure of the shell on the body is becoming tighter and tighter, until the shell breaks against the body.
Although it could just as easily be said that the body pressed against and broke the shell.
The medium that sound once traversed falls away as a viscous residue, replaced by a more rarified medium that burns the more tender parts of this body. Sound is somehow clearer, sharper, almost painful.
Pain. The non-voice of meaning now attaches this label to the unpleasantness that the dissonant voices foretold of…
But most shocking of all is the sudden burst of brightness, sort of a music of another sense, except that it sometimes lacked in the dimension of time but showed enough dimensions to express form…
Sight.
So much was explained…
The voice that was labeled as Mutter was coming from a larger form, the first form that had become visible since the destruction of the shell. The voice was familiar, and almost as pleasant as the melodies that had once echoed through the egg.
"Ludwig. Mein Sohn."
Appendages of a sharp, angular form appeared. They were similar to the ones attached to Mutter, but they were instead attached to the locus of all perception, close to where the non-sound of meaning resonated from…
"Ich bin deine Mutter. Du bist mein Sohn."
This form that holds the voice of Sofia is my mother. And I… I… am her son.
I... Me I am Ludwig.
Seeing the body that was me, or part of me anyway, and that it was just another one like Mutter's, just one of many…
Others that were not part of my consciousness… were they of another consciousness? Did another consciousness actually exist?
The blinding light of the outside had shocked me into my sense of self. A sharper more alert state of being than the vague dreaminess of life inside the shell, in which so little existed and so little mattered…
But the non-voice of meaning continued to grow, until it… I… felt constrained by the limitations around it.
The non-voice of meaning, which I now realized was my mind, was glad to be out. I was glad to be out. Scared, but it was a fear I could live with.
Mutter put her appendages around me – her arms – and embraced me somewhat tightly, as the egg had, but it felt pleasant rather than constraining. My mind pulsing with the compulsive urge to mimic, I embraced her back.
Mutter then placed my body next to a larger object that I instinctively thought was beautiful. The body of the object was dark, sort of a non-sight, but it shone with a gloss of light that contradicted its inherent darkness.
Beautiful.
Rows of dark and light, dark and light, a contrast that made me giddy as I looked at it.
Beautiful.
I tried to say the word, but I was not yet trained in how to make these sounds that my Mutter was able to make. I watched, wide-eyed, as she began to touch the dark and light to create what I found most beautiful of all.
It was a melody that was familiar to me, only ever so much clearer without the sound-obstructing shell around me! I made crude vocalizations and made sound by hitting my hands together. My mind absorbed every note, every detail, every key, which key corresponded to which note.
I begin to press the keys myself – it doesn't sound quite as good, due to my limited motor coordination; the timing and some of the notes are off. I feel… ashamed.
Mutter gently grabs my hands and helps me to place my fingers in the right positions. I grab my hands away and feverishly bang on the piano some more. My limbs feel so unwieldy, but I am determined to get it right.
I practice a few times, my coordination getting better with each try. At long last, I play it perfectly.
Mutter embraces me again, expressing pride and admiration at what I had done and calling me a Wunderkind. The entire while, I am constructing a song that I have never heard before in my mind.
I look forward to the future of my life outside the shell. Pains, pleasures, I shall embrace it all!