Io Leaves Quibbins with a Melody
questions Io on the white flats and gets intervals where he needs words. Rumor puts the Wisp, which is supposedly everywhere, in this one place, and he finds it under a sky so wide it hurts his eyes, the air tasting of static and salt, a soft thrum pulsing around him like a heartbeat. Those who have met Io say it speaks only through cooperation and harmonic tones; a nomad told him it sometimes sings, that a major key means it likes you and that dissonance means run.
Feeling foolish, Quibbins asks where it came from, and a shimmering major third ripples out in every direction, a gesture of omnipresence, perhaps. He asks why it bonds with some and not others, and a drifting minor seventh oscillates back uncertainly, like a shrug. Io spirals skyward, scattering motes of light.
Quibbins stares at his notebook, unsure whether he has nearly comprehended a cosmic force or staged an interview with himself.
Quibbins guesses at each interval himself, and neither guess settles where Io came from or whom it chooses.
- Io
