The Boy Who Heard Music - Chapter 23 - Thumbnail

"The Black Hole"

In the final chapter, Ray sort of straightens everything out. Josh went insane and murdered his best friend Gabriel at the long ago Concert in New York. The version Ray talks about happening at the asylum in Isleworth is a re-creation at the site of the original production of "Trilby's Piano." Leila and Ray's fellow inmate Josh attend. The steps from the original production now lead to a bar called "The Black Hole." Ray says that if you go in the bar, you can no longer returns to The Ether. Ray signs off leaving Leila and Josh chatting. Josh imagines Gabriel in The Black Hole ..."Piecing together the fragments with the help of a whiskey." Leila then leaves Josh to his asylum cell and his thoughts.

Pete's comment site may be closed but it is open here for anyone that wants to use it.

The Boy Who Heard Music - Chapter 22

"The Colegno"

The title confuse you? It won't be the only thing in the novel's penultimate chapter.

The Concert For New York takes place in Central Park with many guest bands participating in the realization of Ray's Grid dream. Audience members have their music played for them as it all coalesces into the sound of the ocean. Ray is there to take his bows and yet he is simultaneously watching a representation of the event on the stage at his old studio in Isleworth.

Then Josh grabs a gun from a security guard and shoots Gabriel. Victoria announces that, if Gabriel dies, all the people connected to him through the music will die as well. In this instance, maybe yelling "Fire!" would be safer. In any case, a massive staircase appears, a full-scale version of the staircase from "Trilby's Piano" where Trilby ascended to meet her dead love Hymie. Leila and Josh help Gabriel to the stairs and he ascends, apparently dying.

The Boy Who Heard Music - Chapter 21 - Thumbnail

"A Concert For New York"

In the world of Ray, his old Grid dream is starting to invade his institutional reality as everyone in the nuthouse but him leaves to participate in Gabriel and Josh's world concert. Turns out local developers have agreed not to tear down the sanitarium and Damoo's connected studio until the last inmate dies, and Ray is it. Nice developers they have in his world. I could use some with that degree of respect in my neighborhood.

Meanwhile, in New York, there have been a series of terrorist attacks, bombings ala London, not plane crashes as in 9/11. Good guess, 'though, as it turns out Our Author wrote this in 2000. The rocking Nostradamus strikes again, unfortunately in this case. A touch far-fetched, but Josh and Gabriel's concert is still going on despite the chaos in the city. Josh has brought Victoria to sing Gabriel's song. Leila arrives at the last minute to stop everything but decides to let it continue as a tribute to the city's victims.