I arrived at the house on assignment. My instructions were clear: to get to the bottom of what had happened to Swinburne, and to send my reports to a post office box listed at the bottom of my contract. Beyond that, I knew little – only the name of my employer, an organization called GimeTronics.

The door opened, and I was left within the enclosed world of the late sonic archeologist. Enclosing the room were shelves crammed with notebooks, meticulously dated, beginning in 1986.

An old cassette tape lay atop one of the shelves. I looked at the label. On one side he’d written, “Something happened to me once . . . I,” with no completion of the thought. The other side read, “Remember. Something happened to me once, I.” And in little letters far in a corner of the label, the date 12/86.

I feared that I shouldn’t, but having seen an old portable stereo on one of the shelves, I put in the tape and pushed Play. Immediately the sound of infinite bells filled the roam, a floating beautiful sound that encompassed me in a wave of sorrow and incredible longing. The music went on, always repeating but always changing, as the night grew darker – and I drifted off to the first of the dreams.