The singers
The Singers
Maya sang. Her mother heard the song with fear. Not HER daughter! She had been doing research here in India for ten years, married an Indian, and now her daughter sang. She's come to investigate the strange disease---illiterate children would begin to sing with glorious voices, but would end up killing their parents. Vasant had died, so now her daughter was going to kill her. But she knew the cure---save her and live, or die and let the singing live, for when the parent died, the singer developed a transcendent level of beauty, sang one glorious song that was worth the price of the world, and died. Was it worth their deaths to produce one song---to give pleasure to others? But to die themselves? Was the song, beautiful as it was, SO worthy? Why did Nature give her the problem? How would she solve it? What did it mean?
Or should the title be: The Singer and the Song?
BOTH (the singer and the song) she could not have. POISON IN PARADISE would run through her mind as she enjoyed the lovely surroundings of southern India. It's her SON and she wants to FUCK him, and children kill their parents because they can't fight the desire---no, they think they're LIBERATING their parents by sending them to HEAVEN while they're killed HAPPY while listening to their SONG!! She debates suicide, drowning in the Indian Ocean (obvious mythic parallels), but decides THAT'S not the way. As on the page about the dream that produced this story, I say at the end that it should be quick moving, fast as notes, yet FEEL for her AND her son, since thoughts had swirled through changes. But I don't like the idea of a constant inner monologue, but can't see her talking to her SON (why not?), and don't want to bring in another person---maybe she can pray to HER god and visualize someone like Ganesh coming in to argue for the other side? Can take place in a day, or the time it takes to tell, and have her as the MAIN character, and maybe for tease the son shouldn't appear at ALL, and only symbolize (on film?) the song by a violin cadenza, and maybe THIS is the story that I should send around for the item on my list!