I'm dreaming; either that or I'm strung out on DMT. The hyperdimensional elves are here with me again, but they appear to be on a coffee break this time. Usually when I visit, they're hard at work weaving the fabric of the universe from superstrings; now, though, they're dancing amongst these wispy clouds that seem to have music emanating from them. It sounds like... well, like the kind of music that hyperdimensional elves would dance to. The clouds bounce around in a sort of Brownian motion as the elves dance, but when I try to reach out to touch one, it evaporates in a chilly mist. I try to ask one of the elves what the music is, but my mouth is made of foam, and the word bubbles float away without popping.

Then I wake up and go to this party. It's one of those faux- classy casual- formal affairs that I feel compelled to attend because I'm supposedly an "adult" now. Anyway, the party's dull and I barely know anyone. At least the bar is fully stocked. As I mix myself my fourth Sidecar, I begin hearing it again... the music. I experience a brief moment of inward panic: am I having some sort of drug flashback? I follow the music to the huge speakers in the corner of the living room, but with each step I take towards the stereo, the music grows quieter. When I stand directly in front of the speakers, I hear nothing except the low- level chatter of the party.

I feel the presence of a person next to me. "You like?" A woman's voice says. I pause. No one has spoken a single word to me since I arrived. Am I being hit on? Am I obviously so drunk as to be an easy target for some freakish desperate person? I don't turn to face her, but instead attempt to exude an exterior of detached cool. "What is it?" I ask offhandedly. "Guess," she says. "Hmm..." I hum. "I can't tell..."

"You can't hear it because you're listening to it," she says. "You must learn not to listen to it in order to listen to it."

My bluff was called. "Uh... how?" I ask.

I feel someone take my hand. "Dance with me," she says.

We dance. She holds me so closely that I still can't see her face. Her hair smells faintly of cookies. She whispers into my ear, "Now do you hear?" "I do," I say. It's some sort of retro- futuristic easy- listening lounge music, except it's very... strange. Chirpy, yet laid- back. "That singer sounds like Laetitia Sadier from Stereolab."

"It is," she says.

"But it's not Stereolab, because there's a guy singing too," I say.

"No, it isn't Stereolab," she says.

"Well, it's definitely not Combustible Edison," I say.

We continue to dance, not listening to the music. "Why can't I hear the music when I try to listen to it?" I ask. She says, "Because it ceases to exist when you do. It's only meant to provide atmosphere, not to act as the center of attention. Is that not the nature of all music?"

I am taken aback. "No, it isn't," I blurt out. "Music shouldn't exist as mere sonic punctuation unworthy of closer inspection."

I feel her tense up slightly. "What are you saying?" she asks. "Are you saying you don't like this music?"

I know I have offended her somehow, but keep talking nonetheless. "Well, what good is music if you can't listen to it? What good is it if you can only perceive it peripherally, but never directly?"

"It's just fine the way it is," she says, a trace of anger in her voice.

"No, no, it's not," I say. I don't know why I persist-- maybe I'm more drunk than I thought. "It's not that it's necessarily bad, I mean, it's pleasant enough to listen to like this, but it's really the only way to listen to it. It carries no emotional weight. It's pretty, but it's empty."

"How dare you!" she says, casting me aside and stomping away. I lay on the floor, disoriented, looking up at the stern faces of the other partygoers. "Why did you have to do that? Do you realize you've ruined a perfectly good party again? Don't you know who that was?" Looking at the now-hazy figure storming from the room, I suddenly come to a horrific realization...

-Nick Mirov