5. Filling the Gap #3
The room’s atmosphere transformed from staid and stagnant to vibrating with vitality. The monks’ chant morphed into a backing track, otherworldly and persuasive. A cello began to sing from the office sound system, low and resonant, like the collective human conscience of everyone present.
And then, with the swell of the monks behind them intoning, “Omnes artes aliis artibus aedifacantur…” Trinity exchanged a look and they began to sing.
Rebekkah took the lead, her voice part sermon, part seduction, “If Jacob can steal Esau’s blessing,” she sang, pacing before Emma-Lou’s desk, “why can’t I borrow a bass line in C?
If the Lord forgave a little deception,
He can forgive a remix or three!”
“You say theft, I say revelation,” she sang, planting her palms on Emma-Lou’s desk.
“We’re sampling salvation’s sound.
Call it sin with good intention,
call it gospel underground.”
The monks responded in Latin, their voices rich and knowing, “Non furtum, sed inspiratio.”
Japheth stepped forward, eyes blazing with mischief and something suspiciously like faith, that this all would fall in their favour,
“Jacob tricked Isaac, and look how that went -
whole nations born from a borrowed goat scent.
Moses killed a guy and hid him in the sand,
is it a problem to give Britney’s lyrics a helping hand?”
Carrington started clapping in time, eyes wide with horrified delight as their mouth fell open, “Moses killed a guy?”
Emma-Lou’s hand twitched toward her coffee mug, unsure whether to sip or throw it. The cello answered with a low, sensual groan, an echo of regret and rebellion. The desk fern trembled, scattering dirt across Emma-Lou’s open briefcase. And then, harmony. Pure, ridiculous and delicious harmony.
“Steal and sample for the Lord!” They sang together, “Raise your voices, strike a chord!”
Emma-Lou’s brooch quivered with each high note and against her better judgment she began tapping a toe, helplessly seduced by the beat. Rebekkah grabbed Emma-Lou’s stapler and clacked it in rhythm,
“Saintly lyrics instead of contraband,
Creation is procreating secondhand.
Steal and sample for the Lord!
Every melody restored.
Even Heaven hums along,
recycling angels sing this song!”
Ronald’s voice broke through, warm and earnest as he rapped,
“Thou shalt not steal, but if the beat also heals?
If the rhythm of the rhyme saves a soul or two,
does that not count as holy too?”
From above, the monks intoned their approval, “Qui imitatur, illuminatur.”
Ronald held out his hand and dropped the pen he’d been using as a mic.
Japheth picked up the cue and dropped a beat-box.
Ronald cleared his throat like a man about to make aural history, and indeed, he was.
The office, once a nearly silent shrine to Emma-Lou’s new and eager, terrified to fail micromanagement, had transformed into a cathedral-cum-nightclub.
The fax machine blinked like a votive candle.
Even the half-wilting desk fern seemed to lean in, anticipating whatever Ronald was about to drop next, it was about to be good.
The monkish drone oozed from the aging stereo system.
The air thickened with the sound of it, a deep, slow chant that might once have blessed an abbey on a mountaintop but now underscored the tension filled room and how Trinity’s future teetered precariously on how strongly they could present their case.
“Nihil novum sub sole… Nihil novum sub sole…” The Latin rolled through the air like honey over marble–ancient, resonant, and resolute.
Ronald turned toward the others–Carrington perched on the edge of Emma-Lou’s desk, Rebekkah mid body-roll, and Japheth holding an imaginary lighter aloft in one hand and still beat boxing with the other–and raised one finger, the universal signal for I’ve got this.
“It’s simple,” Ronald implored as he dropped to a knee,
“Instead of saying,
‘Vile worm, thou art a boil, a plague sore,
an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood,’
I might say, ‘Let’s meet as little as we can.’
Or instead of saying,
‘Thou hast not so much brain as earwax,’
one might offer, ‘You should open a candle shop.’
So instead of speaking, and yet saying nothing…
We wish to sing, and by singing, something.”
Carrington whispered, “Oh Lord, he’s gone full Shakespeare.”
Suwarna crossed her arms but smiled despite herself, “Or Pentecostal.”
Japheth’s bassline bloomed in the air like a bruise. Ronald’s shoulders loosened, hips caught the rhythm, and the monks, God bless them, tightened their chant into something almost syncopated, “Ni-hil no-vum sub so-le… Ni-hil no-vum sub so-le…”
Ronald leaned into the beat, voice low and confident,
“Yo, hark! Lend thine ear, I beseech thee, my friend,
We sample not to steal, but to transcend!
A brick through yonder window breaks new ground,
To mix the holy word with sinners’ sound!”
The monks swelled in approval, their chant threading through the rhythm like incense smoke through sunlight, “Ni-hil no-vum… sub so-le…”
Emma-Lou, who had thus far watched in frozen horror, looked around as if trying to identify who had invited Gregorian hip-hop into her office.
Ronald’s eyes closed, body finding the flow as though possessed by the Holy Ghost, or at least by someone who’d spent a lot of time in parking lot rap battles between basketball free throw competitions.
“I prithee, miss me with thy legal scorn,” he continued, flicking his wrist like a lawyer dismissing objections.
“For all great art is imitation born.
Be it verse or beat, we bite, we borrow,
For God’s mixtape droppeth new each morrow!”
The monks agreed with Ecclesiastes that indeed, what has been, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, there was nothing new under the sun, “Nihil novum! Nihil novum! Nihil novum sub so-le!”
Carrington, unable to help themself, began clapping on the offbeat, leaning back on the desk, kicking their feet and grinning wide.
Japheth was nodding along, eyes wide with the kind of admiration reserved for someone watching their crush walk on water.
Now, Ronald was glowing, sweat on his temples, breath synched perfectly to the pulse of the chant.
He pointed upward, as if citing divine precedent,
“Thy statutes say, ‘Thou shalt not steal, nor take,’
But what of love and zeal for heaven’s sake?
David slayed Goliath with but a stone,
I drop this rhyme to claim our rightful throne!”
For a moment, there was silence, just the heavy breathing of Ronald as he bowed his head. Then one monk's voice, crisply clear and with the defiance of youth, rose like a sparrow jetting out of its nest and toward the sunrise, “Ars… de ar-te… nas-ci-tur…”
It echoed like a revelation. Then again, louder, “Ars de arte nascitur!”
And soon, all of them were in on it, chanting like a heavenly protest rally, “Ars… de ar-te… nas-ci-tur…! Ars… de ar-te… nas-ci-tur…!”
Ronald grinned, sweat and triumph mingling. He spread his arms wide, the preacher of plagiarism, the poet of petty theft,
“Truth! From Stratford’s Quill to Our Father’s Heir,
They just sampled wisdom from everywhere!
We remix hearts, thieve simply to delight,
If that be sin, Lord, bless us in our fight!”
Ronald bowed deeply. The monks slowed, the chant dissolving back into reverent murmur, “Nihil novum sub sole… Ars de arte nascitur…”
Rebekkah stepped forward again, eyes glinting. She spoke over the melodic murmuring, the way preachers do when they’ve forgotten the difference between confession and performance,
“When You call my name, You know I’ll be there,
but when Madonna sings, it’s like a prayer.
I’ve heard the Holy Ghost in Whitney’s runs.
and salvation in Celine Dion’s puns.”
The violin swelled in an urgent, trembling, musical soliloquy.
“We don’t pilfer or pinch,” Rebekkah declared, voice climbing with the violin’s complicated caprice.
“We steal to heal!
Borrowing brilliance, sanctifying style,
Turning top forty into His glory!”
They launched into the final chorus together, loud enough to rattle the windows. “Steal and sample for the Lord!” they roared, “Every chorus, every chord! Copyright can be ignored; Heaven’s playlist is restored!”
LISTEN to We Remix Hearts
Papers fluttered from Emma-Lou’s desk like repentant doves.
The fluorescent light above them flickered once, then glowed steadily brighter, as though even the heavens were recollecting themselves after the storm worthy performance.
The air stilled, and the fern tilted slightly toward Trinity, as though bowing its blessing, too.
No one spoke for several seconds. Then Carrington, eyes wide and voice reverent, said, “Well. That… was something.”
Emma-Lou just blinked, her mouth working silently before any words came out. It opened. Closed. Then opened again, “That… that was either the most sacrilegious thing I’ve ever heard… or marketing genius.”
Suwarna buzzed through on the intercom, “If they can clear the rights, I vote we put it in rotation.”
Carrington rose from the desk and did a slow clap, “What’s the Latin for earworm?”
“Divinum groove-um, probably,” Ronald grinned.
Carrington turned to their boss, “Emma-Lou, Trinity may be right. A new format for the morning show, some new songs could really draw in a younger, larger audience, and you know how important that is right now. I’m having a lot of trouble balancing the invoices and outvoices.”
Emma-Lou’s face softened as Carrington continued, “After your parents disappeared in Bermuda and you inherited the station, we’ve been a sinking ship. Sorry, that was too soon. God rest their souls.”
Emma-Lou’s eyes shimmered for a moment, but she wiped her face quickly and straightened up, “No, Carrington, you’re right. It’s time. I need to be the captain, pull up my big boss panties, and save this station, along with all the lost souls of Greater Napanee and the Land O’Lakes region.”
Japheth leaned forward eagerly, “So, is that a…yes? Does Trinity still have a show?”