Free IGMS Issue 32 by IGMS

I try to focus, but then I see it: a fermata out of place in the first movement, just as it had been left in the portal world.
    The maestro cues us in; his smile quickly fades. The music claws at my insides, but it finds no escape.

    After rehearsal, Josef and the others dart off in search of the portal, which went unfound during break. I wander up and down the concert hall aisles before finally settling into a seat in the back row. I watch as the stage empties of instruments and choristers, as the librarians collect music folders, as the stagehands rearrange chairs and stands, resetting the stage for the concerto that will open tonight's concert and serve as lead-in to our grand Beethoven finale.
    At my feet, the portal beckons. I should let the others know it's here. But I won't. They don't need this the way I do. They can find themselves in the music without any help.
    I take one final look at the stage. I'll be playing Beethoven's 9th tonight, but not from there. I slide out of the chair and through the portal, into the fourth movement. The music begins. I sink back against a cushion of slurred eighth notes, close my eyes, and listen as the movement unfolds. When the chorus finally enters with "Ode to Joy," I shudder at the feel of the thick wall of voices vibrating through me. My skin melts into the staves. Everything inside me pours like liquid down the staff lines, forming half notes and whole notes, sharps and flats, rests and staccatos, a world of musical perfection.
    My last breath is a sigh of ecstasy. I have become notes on a page, and I've never been played with so much feeling.



 
Winning Veronica's Heart
     
    by Ian Creasey
     
    Artwork by Kevin Wasden
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    Hello! Hello to everyone down in the front row, and all the folks sitting by the aisle in case there's a fire. Hello to you people at the back who thought you were here for something else. The robot porn is over the road, down the steps, through the unmarked gate . . . or so I've heard. Hello to my alternate selves, and everyone here who isn't me. Hello Manchester!
    It's great to be back. I grew up here, in one of those council estates where burglary is the local form of recycling. You know the kind of place: the police got tired of putting up Crime Scene boards every day -- "Have you seen this murder?" -- so eventually they just used an enormous piece of hazard tape to enclose the whole estate as a permanent Crime Scene. Instead of the old notice-board with the dry-wipe markers, they put up a wiki-screen so we could input the crimes ourselves. It worked fine until someone stole the screen . . .
    But it wasn't all shoplifting and joyriding. When I was a boy, I used to go and watch the football. Back then, football was real -- you could pretend to know one of the players, because he was your cousin . . . well, your cousin's friend . . . okay, your cousin's friend's babysitter's brother-in-law . . . but it was a connection! Nowadays it's all nostalgia: stars from the past uploaded into cloned bodies, scuttling around the pitch like dogs looking for somewhere to have a dump. Why do we need a veterans' replay of every Cup final from the last century? Sometimes I get nostalgic for the days before the Nostalgia Channel.
    I don't need TV: I have my own nostalgia. Right now, I'm nostalgic for my ex-girlfriend. I was with Veronica for five years. Now we've split up -- we're seeing other people. Well, she is. I'm not; I want to get back with Veronica, because I love her.
    Okay, at that point you're all supposed to go "Aahhh" in a mass outpouring of sympathy. So, let's pretend you're not a bunch of heartless bastards, and give it another go. One, two, three, Aahhh. That's better. Keep it up, I'll make an audience out of you yet.
    I have a plan for getting Veronica back, and I need your help. It'll all become clear as we go along. Pay attention! This could be on the exam.
    When I say it's great to be here in Manchester, I should say Manchester