#5: Oh Crap, We’re In Trouble Now

Date: Before the Beginning of Time
My Mood Is: scared shitless

A lot happened today, so I’ll try to be brief.

Eru Ilúvatar summoned all the Ainur to a great conclave in the Empyrean Realm. We assumed it was going to be something really important; maybe Eru would show us the Flame Imperishable, or maybe he would tell us why we had been created.

But no. It was just more singing.

Eru wrote a new song; a “mighty theme,” He called it. A theme for what? I wanted to know. But He passed out the sheet music, and we all assembled into choirs, and prepared to sing.

Then Eru told us, “ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will.” Finally, a chance to do our own work, and create something, instead of just praising Eru all the time! I mean sure, Eru is praiseworthy, don’t get me wrong. But all the praising gets a bit tiresome after a while. To everyone except Eru, apparently.

Now Melkor saw this as the perfect chance to make his move, and present our new ideas to Eru. He told me to stay over with Aulë’s group, with the earth spirits; but to watch Melkor and follow his lead.

I was very excited.

So Eru starts singing, and everyone joined in. The music was okay, I guess; a bunch of soft, interwoven harmonies. Kind of flat and boring. But pretty! Very pretty.

After a while, something amazing happened. Melkor was singing a different song! I didn’t even notice at first, because Aulë is SO FRICKIN’ LOUD. Many of the Ainur close to Melkor were confused. After all, no one had tried this before.

But Eru TOLD us to “adorn the theme,” right? Those were His exact words!

So I listened carefully to Melkor’s theme, and then joined in. It was very cool, kind of low and percussive, but much faster and less ponderous than Eru’s. I liked it a lot.

Huan was gaping at me, waving his arms around to get me to stop. But I didn’t care. And soon, more Ainur joined in – lots of the people at the meeting, and most of the fire spirits, even the ones who weren’t part of our conspiracy. That Manwë guy was really loud, trying to keep up with Melkor, and compensating for his lack of singing talent with sheer volume.

But overall, the effect was great. Melkor’s new theme provided a percussive backing for Eru’s theme, and together, the music was really much improved.

Eru smiled – an excellent sign – raised his left hand, and changed his theme, making it more like Melkor’s. Terrific! Eru liked our work! So Melkor started on a new piece, with lots of deep bass notes and low strings and interwoven percussive noises. Those of us following Melkor hearkened to it, and joined in. And pretty soon, the song had changed again, and become a melding of the minds of Eru and Melkor.

Now I guess around this time Eru started to get pissed. I didn’t notice, I was too busy singing. What he was pissed about, I had no idea. But Eru changed his theme again, making it very soft and weak, no match for Melkor’s mighty singing. Following Melkor’s lead, we really just started rocking out. I’d say by that point, more than half the Ainur were following Melkor, and while the others were meekly chanting along with Eru, we were really belting it out. It was fantastic!

Suddenly, this enormous noise drowned out everything! I thought the heavenly spheres were collapsing! But it was just Eru, playing the omnipotence card. We all shut up right quick, and a good thing too.

Eru was really, really angry. We’d never seen him like that before. I mean, just LIVID. And I gotta tell you, I almost crapped my pants.

Whatever pants are.

I gotta go; I'm on the clock, and Aulë’s giving me the evil eye. I’ll finish the story as soon as I can.