All forms of life are different. Shape, size, color, texture, voice, and a hundred-thousand other features might easily distinguish one from the next. It was with no small sense of pride that the Third Prime Congregation of Malakais had coined the phrase "We so divided - All stronger united."

​

Despite this cheery sentiment though, it was undeniable some species paired together better than others. The U'Larak and San-Saium might bond deeply over the finer points of fate mapping. Reshi and Renaris both drink in the same blood red sunlight and claim it to be more pure than any other system.

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However, Renaris and U'Larak begrudgingly manage sharing space with one another, malice built on the sentiment of heresy to the unspoken union - the U'Larak claiming them to be slaves to superstition. This atop their starkly different physical needs compounds to form some rather tense trade districts. One suffering in the others natural environment while affixed with effective albeit uncomfortable BSO devices.

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Many in times of great strife and anguish feels a burning. A simmering distaste for their fellow galactic residents that with each passing comment, each look from irregular eye, and each sneer delivered from foreign mouth that threatens to rise to an unsustainable and destructive boil.

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But this does not happen. Tempers cool in time. Memories rise through the steam of clouded mind, bringing perspective. Bringing sound. Bringing music.

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The Humans had been the first. In some ways, they might even be considered the founders of the entire Third Prime. Though at that time it was simply The Prime, given that there had been no knowledge of the previous two wiped out in cataclysmic events of the cosmos.

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It was a great shame they never went on to see what would come of them. Of what their small action of rebellion in the face of annihilation might manifest.

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Eight of them drifted through the unblinking void of the cosmos, their home-world finally collapsed, brought to temperatures completely unsustainable for their lives. In the impartial blackness, with no aim and no purpose, they sent out a broad spectrum signal to anyone or no one at all. Their transmission rattled through the great nothing, pawing at each passing star. Channel 10.55.7; 771.

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First, it was jovial. Fast. Some mockery of their fate. Scornful. Willing to dance until the lights shut out and they had to be escorted - or rather smothered, out of existence. But that fell through. That thing we now collectively know as 'Jazz.'

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In the last hour of their transmission, something else was played. The roots of so called 'Jazz.' It was slow. It was haunting. It brought with it all the beauty of a flower brought to bloom, and all the tragedy of one born unto the shade to wilt away quietly. It needed no words to speak, nor guide to follow. It was call and response. It was the breathing of life and rattles of death. It was all the joy that was and shall be, and all the grief passed and yet to transpire.

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It was 'Blues.'

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What was found from these waves which bounced through eternity, their senders long deceased, was the one common ground every consciousness could share. The heartache of loss. The fear of joy for the bitter than must come. The unity of love, joy, and hope paralleled against the inevitable trudge of loss, grief, and anguish.

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Soon those phantom waves were joined by new ones. Some decades later a third chimed in. Then a fourth. Until soon, a galaxy once thought devoid of life became a swirling starscape of music, alight with an ever growing array of sounds. The strange airy tunes of the Kek-an. The thunderous beats of Renaris coldroms. The violent and clashing percussion of the U'Larak.

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But among all that new noise, one station is universally reserved. No formal writ of this was ever published. Rather, it needs no speaking. No declaration.

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10.55.7; 771

​

For that airway was carved out of time long ago by those eight doomed travelers. One need only tune in momentarily, in times of great doubt, to remember the only truth that ever really ends up mattering.

Space Travel was... much more mediocre than anyone thought it would be.

Some were excited when the prospect of tunneling was invented, digging through galaxies and having connections with species of every shape and size imaginable was a glorious thought. Others saw this as the dawn of horror and death and beings beyond our comprehension invading.

In reality, the universe is not a daring, adventurous young man travelling the world with a guitar and a suitcase, but an old, drunk, dying man just trying to make it through the day. After a while, you realized you never saw glorious blazing stars or amazing planets, all you saw were worn out space stations built by civilizations so old they'de forgotten their own history. New, loud, and obnoxious space bars created by new loud and obnoxious civilizatoins trying to have fun before it all falls apart into corruption and death, and the ruins of once unimaginably beautiful civilizations the size of whole solar systems, now nothing but food for a greater mass. These places that once held the keys to existence now rusty and broken.

So life did the only thing it knew how in times of strife, life played jazz.

Jazz was special for a few reasons, for one, it's based around hitting a note that's 2 beats away from the original instead of one, which is possible on any instrument imaginable, and the soft, flowy nature of jazz means no matter the frequencies you hear with your ears, it'll always soothe you to sleep or make lively and loving.

Thus began the age of music.

The most depressing part of the universe was how quiet it was, and people never really realized it until they entered a lifemade place and realized no one could talk to anyone, it was quiet, lonely, such different minds and bodies, such different traditions and ways of living and thoughts. We had worked so hard for space travel, for centuries we wished for alien life to come down, we wished to see beyond us, and when we finally reached it, we didn't even have the pleasure of it being evil, just a little shitty.

But during this age everything was loud, some large space stations even carried noise into the universe for a second they were so lively. Everything had music, there were bars brimming with loud tunes that made you want to dance and drink and fuck like there was no tomorrow, and lounges or repair stations where people sometimes needed to spend days had rivers of smooth, soft jazz flowing throughout them, overtaking you and bringing you with it. It turns out the one thing that made life worth living wasn't space, it was a little of music.

But than people discovered how to speak with it.

One man, Franklin Yurilson, an older man who had done nothing but play jazz his whole life, would have "conversations" with his bandmates at certain bars, at first life laughed along as his saxophone had "fights" with the trumpets or the drums, sometimes it would go on for hours, him soloing out beat after beat, note after note, it was beautiful. However, people realized it was a sort of lanuage he had invented. Certain notes carrying into eachother making complex sentences. So life did what life always did, copied it.

Suddenly bars were filled with the gag, but it didn't stop there, people did at home, not as a joke, as a means of communications, humming and playing and strumming all day long to any species that wasn't their own, and without any alphabet, without lessons, without even the announcement of the concept of this, Jazz was a language.

Now the music really began.

Entire space stations were built where people would almost hibernate, at this point humans especially led the way in ships that needed years to recharge, and while this happened they ate cake, or an alien equivilent, and hummed to eachother in quiet contemplation, people discovered the real meaning of life, but decided not to share it. To some it would've been disgusting to see, aliens all over drooling and talking in monotone voices, but to me it was beautiful, to me it was the reason I'm doing what I going to do now. To me the soft playing of a saxophone carried me forever.

Symphonies were conducted jazzily, and the singing done at a perfect form of frequency that made every species' ears melt with awe, cross-species dating skyrocketed, humans allied so greatly, and as they fell apart, humans allied again, again and again and again, until eventually we had dated and broken up with everyone in the galaxy, and we were all staying friends. For 4 millenia, the universe was nothing but saxophones and piano.

The age of music is dead now, just like it's beginning no one planned on it, it just faded out, and the universe is bathed in deafening quiet. But I am an old man, 100s of years old. So I clear center stage in the middle of a crowded bar, take out an old, withering Alto Saxophone, and begin playing.

As the crowd of pianists, drummers, trumpeters, and guitarists join me, I cannot help but crack a smile.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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