“Saaaaay yooooou’ll share with me one love, one lifetime…”

The music surging through my headphones mercifully masks my breathy, pitchy attempt at singing along. Though the office space around me is empty, some lingering sense of self-consciousness and propriety instructs me to keep my voice soft as I tidy away my things. I had to be careful to keep my back turned to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me, lest I be blinded by a burning orange sunset. That said, I’m grateful of its glow; it allows my workspace to remain well lit into these long evenings without the crushing darkness looming over me. Plus, being able to work a little later than my coworkers leaves me a little privacy to belt out showtunes to my heart’s content as a reward for finishing the day.

“You will cuuuuuuuurse the day you did not d- whoooo…”

…well, maybe I shouldn’t belt them out too loudly. I glance around the empty desks sheepishly, praying that nobody had heard the voice crack more befitting of a pimply youth. Though I see no-one, I still cough sheepishly, if only for my own benefit. As the last few notes of the song peter out, you busy myself with finally flipping off my computer screen and stuffing a folder into my bag, desperately trying to ignore the heat in my cheeks. I consider tapping the control on my headset to turn off the music in embarrassment, but I decide against it; the music would be a good companion on the walk downstairs, so long as I can stop myself from any more singing.

I know this album well; I fully expected a triumphant brass fanfare to accompany me on my walk out, yet to my surprise, it’s replaced by a low, reverberating bass hum. I frown in confusion – had my headphones suddenly cut out on me? Experimentally, I tap my fingers against the controls. Pause, volume up, volume down, they all seem to work fine. And the sound certainly doesn’t seem like electrical noise or anything like that. It sounds more like a long, sustained chord on some deep bass instrument, so low that I can feel it just as much as I can hear it. It’s not unpleasant, exactly. In fact, it reminds me of the electric tingle I get every time I step close to a blasting subwoofer, yet without any of the discomfort of overly loud music.

Withdrawing my phone from my pocket, I flip open the cover – maybe I’d just put it on shuffle by mistake? Yet when I turn on the screen, the text scrolling across the top reads “Masquerade”; that’s the next song on the album, certainly, but it’s definitely not what’s playing. As I try pausing and unpausing on my phone several times to no effect, my feet are still slowly shuffling towards the elevator door, the well-practiced route coming naturally even while I’m focused on other things.

“…”

I perk up, looking around the office for the source of what sounded like… a voice? The words were far too quiet and indistinct to make out, as if they were being carried from a great distance, but they were definitely there. For a moment, I furl my brows, wondering if someone else is still here this late – didn’t cleaning crew come yesterday? Abruptly, I come to a halt, rolling my eyes. I couldn’t hear anyone anyway unless they were standing right near me, I had my headphones on. I shut my eyes and crank up the volume a notch or two on my headphones. The voice gets louder, but it’s still fuzzy and indistinct, not helped by the insistent rumbling chords blanketing the track. Suddenly, I’m possessed of a feeling of apprehension – what if it suddenly bursts into a crescendo and blasts my eardrums? I elect to turn the volume back down – wisely, if I do say so myself.

“…”

There it is, those words again, louder this time. I strain my hearing to the best of my ability, but I still can’t quite make them out. The voice is pleasant to listen to, though – slow, deep and smooth, much like the continuous tones his words are blending with, although that doesn’t stop me from pressing my lips together at being unable to quite understand.

A flicker of motion in the corner of my eye catches my attention. It’s just the music text on my phone screen beginning to scroll. I wonder if the system has just gotten confused somehow, mismatched track and name. That could probably be fixed by the old standby, turning it off and on again. A few strokes bring me to the appropriate menu, but I hesitate. It is a weird track, but I am curious about it; if I turn it off, who’s to say that I’ll be able to find it again? Yeah… best to listen to it all the way through first, if only to find some distinguishable lyrics so I can find it later.

“…listen…”

Like a minnow making a ripple in a glass-smooth lake, one word breaks through the impermeable bass chords. An appropriate word, too. I close both my phone and my eyes again, shutting out all external stimuli to fix my attention on the words just barely beyond my comprehension. Vaguely, I realise that I’ve stopped walking towards the elevator, and am instead half-perched on the edge of a desk as I listen. Good a place as any, I suppose.

“…draining… with every…”

Is the voice getting louder, or am I just devoting more and more focus to it? Either way, I’m becoming more and more aware of the words. The voice is definitely male, his voice as sweet, dark and warm as a mug of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. I still have no idea what this song – if I can even call it that – is supposed to be, but the voice alone holds me in rapt attention. I’m grateful that these headphones block out almost all outside noise. It allows the sound to completely fill my ears undiluted, the slowly sharpening words reverberating back and forth across my consciousness.

“…breathe in… and out… the sense of… flowing through…”

Without even really meaning to, I breathe in time with the rhythm of the words. I hadn’t even realised there was a rhythm, at first, but there… there definitely is. A sort of… gentle, yet irresistible cadence. Almost poet-like words, dancing through my proverbial fingertips, just barely bending and swaying out of reach. My curiosity feels almost… hungry, filling me with an implacable need to, to, to listen, to understand. It wasn’t like any music I’d ever listened to before and… and yet… it was like I was gobbling it up, ravenous for each word to fill my senses.

“…wanting, needing to… your mind running along one track, a single…”

One track… one focus… the voice is getting clearer and clearer by the second, rising up over the thrumming chords in the background. It’s like… a massage, for my ears, a… a soak for my brain in a warm bath after a long day at work. I… I realise I’m falling in love with this song, this… this weird, gentle song, supplying a soft, sweet rhythm to… to…

“…to an exhausted, overtired mind. It’s as simple as breathing, to allow yourself to drift on these feelings, sinking down into that blissful feeling of emptiness…”

Sinking… down… there was… something I needed to do… something I was on my way to do, before I started listening to this… something about down. I drag my eyes open, surprised by how heavy they feel. I must… must be… a lot more tired than I thought I was. I almost want to fall… asleep here, just curl up on the desk. It would be so nice to just take a little rest, indulge in this feeling of… of…

“…obedience…”

…feeling… but nnno, no, I need to… to get in the elevator to… to go down, right? That’s what I need to do now, right? I force myself to totter onto my feet. My head feels… fuzzy, kinda… light… like an overfull balloon…

“…larger, lighter, rising higher…”

…yeah, that sounds right. Need to get up and… and get to the elevator. Just… one foot in front of the other. There we go, that’s it. I’ll… I’ll get home in no time. Once… once I get in, I’ll… I’ll take, like, a twenty second power nap, while…

“…while the elevator sinks down, down, dragging your mind into that blissful blankness…”

…it takes a couple tries to hit the right button, eventually, I manage to call the elevator. Instead of waiting, though, the steel doors open immediately, the light of the cabin spilling out onto the office floor.

W…wait…

Are the lights… blue?

Th-that’s…

“…perfect, like being able to sink deep below the waves as you fall…”

Yeah… sounds… really nice, actually. I shuffle, half-stumbling into the elevator cabin, propping myself gently against the railing. He’s… he’s smiling at me… it’s…

“…so good to see that you finally joined me, my dear…”

I watch him reach out his hand, tapping the button for the bottom floor. The image is kinda… fuzzy… oh, wait, I’m just… my eyelids are just…

“…drifting, fluttering, wanting to fall shut…”

…but I can still see the numbers on the elevator display beginning to tick down…

Ten…

Nine…

Eight… my words filling your ears…

Seven… my words filling your mind…

Six… feeling your body sinking deeper…

Five… feeling your mind sinking deeper…

Four… wanting to fall…

Three… needing to fall…

Two… craving to fall…

One… to my words…

D I N G