Day 229: World’s Most Beautiful Song

World’s Most Beautiful Song
by
Matt Zurbo

Lucinda decided one day she loved music.
It just hit her.
And seeped into her bones.
(Girl dancing.)

She loved it so much she said to herself… “I’m going to find the world’s most beautiful song…”

That was no easy task!
(Walking past dude with stereophonic headphones on, she is gravitating towards the sound from them.)

Lucinda soon discovered music was everywhere…
(Dancing to two buskers. One playing violin, the other a snare drum.)

Everywhere…
(Birds singing.)

Everywhere!
(Two burly workers in helmets, heads down, working in a street manhole, small radio by their side. Girl watching them. Two kids behind them, skipping by, as if to music.)

Usually, the skaters played a lot of punk.
(Girl, and a few skateboard dudes, including a girl on roller skates, head-banging to music from a beatbox, smiling, hair everywhere.)
It was great fun!

But when they got the song right…
Everything felt so lazy,
(All sitting/lolling about edge of skating bowl, watching girl on roller skates take off, setting sun filling image with golden light. Lucinda swaying a bit near the beatbox.)
As if they were in a kingdom of light.

One day, Lucinda found a song on the radio she loved so much she wanted to put it next to her heart.
(Girl, warm, content expression, opening small door in chest to put radio in it.)

She could hear that song when nobody else could.

It would loop through her head, and come out her mouth when she spoke.

It coloured the way she saw things…

But Lucinda knew, out there, there would be other songs just as beautiful.
(Looking up at the speakers at a parade.) 

Then, it was raining hard at school. Lucinda saw a girl practicing clarinet,
(Sheltered under a small courtyard pillar, two butterflies drifting around her.)

and oh, oh,

oh, that sound, it rose through the building, the air vents…
(Butterflies in air vent.) 

It filled every classroom, softened every bully.
Made every boring test drift away.
(Kids at desks, looking dreamy. Can just make our clarinet girl in background through rainy window.)

And, when the song picked up pace… everybody was free.
(Almost a whole class dancing, smiling, laughing.)

Lucinda was so jealous.
(Standing in rain, watching girl with clarinet play. Two boys walking past in background, sheltering with jackets, school books, sneering at clarinet sound.)

They didn’t even know where the sound was coming from, or why.
(Clarinet girl walk home, clarinet hidden in case under her arm. Other kids sheltering from the rain, or laughing and talking, or dancing as if she wasn’t there.)

And suddenly, Lucinda knew what she had to do if she was going to try and find the world’s most beautiful song.
(Lucinda walking through a door labelled; Music Room.)

It might take years,
she might not find it at all,
(Sitting cross-legged hunched over a guitar, music sheets on floor, playing awkward, broken note.)

but Lucinda had nothing but music and time…
The End