I view music mostly as communication, so when I record, I'm

Host: The recording studio was steeped in dim gold light, like the last glow of a dying sun caught inside walls of foam and wood. A soft hum filled the air, the kind that lingers after sound — the ghost of a song that refuses to leave.

Outside, the city was drowned in night, but inside, the room was a small, trembling universe. A single microphone stood at the center, lonely yet expectant, as though it could remember every note that had ever passed through it.

Jack sat behind the mixing console, a cigarette unlit between his fingers, his eyes on the flickering sound waves on the monitor. Across the room, Jeeny sat by the piano, her hands resting on the keys, not playing — just feeling their quiet weight.

Jeeny: “Hildur Gudnadottir once said, ‘I view music mostly as communication, so when I record, I’m communicating to the listener in the future.’”

Jack: smirking softly “Communication? I don’t know, Jeeny. Sounds like romantic marketing to me. Music’s not a message — it’s a product. You record, you release, someone streams it, and the cycle continues. Communication ends when the upload bar hits one hundred percent.”

Jeeny: tilting her head, calm but certain “Then why does it make people cry, Jack? Why does a song from fifty years ago still reach someone who wasn’t even born when it was written? That’s not commerce. That’s connection.”

Host: The faint red light of the recording booth blinked softly, painting the room in a heartbeat rhythm. Silence thickened — not empty, but charged, like the pause before a confession.

Jack: “Connection is just what we call it when emotion finds a pattern it can recognize. Music’s mathematics dressed as magic. It’s all just waves bouncing off ears.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. It’s memory reaching for companionship. When Hildur records, she’s not just sending sound — she’s sending herself. A kind of emotional time capsule. That’s why she said she’s communicating with the future.”

Jack: “That’s a pretty fantasy — but the future doesn’t care. You can record all your feelings into a microphone, and the world still moves on. Listeners come and go. The moment you hit record, it’s already irrelevant.”

Jeeny: “You really believe that? That art dies the moment it’s made?”

Jack: “I believe the moment is the only thing that’s real. The rest is echo.”

Host: A gust of wind rattled the studio door, and somewhere outside, a car passed, its sound fading like a fleeting melody.

Jeeny: “But echoes are how we remember that sound ever existed. You think of it as decay. I think of it as continuation.”

Jack: “Maybe. But continuation isn’t the same as communication. If no one’s listening yet, who are you talking to?”

Jeeny: “To whoever will need it most.”

Jack: laughs dryly “So you’re writing to a ghost?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m writing to the human who will one day feel what I feel tonight — someone lost, someone listening, someone searching for a reason not to give up. Music is a message in a bottle, Jack. You throw it into the ocean, not knowing where it will land — only trusting that it will.”

Host: The cigarette between Jack’s fingers trembled slightly. He didn’t light it. His eyes softened, but his voice stayed sharp.

Jack: “Trust doesn’t keep the industry alive, Jeeny. Algorithms do. You can send your bottle, sure — but there’s an ocean full of them. Who’s going to find yours?”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “That’s not the artist’s concern. We don’t control the ocean — we just send.”

Jack: “Sounds a lot like faith to me.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. But what else keeps a songwriter alive? You think Hildur wrote Chernobyl because she wanted a hit? She was communicating with a kind of silence most people never dare to face — the silence after devastation. And that silence still speaks to people today.”

Jack: quiet now “I remember that score. It sounded like the earth was breathing through wounds.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s not music, Jack — that’s testimony.”

Host: The soundboard glowed faintly in the dark, a constellation of tiny green and red lights. The silence between them began to vibrate — not uncomfortable, but alive.

Jeeny: “Music is how we talk when words fail. That’s why it outlives us. The listener in the future doesn’t just hear your song — they hear your presence, your truth. They hear the part of you that refused to die.”

Jack: “You’re turning art into immortality.”

Jeeny: “No. Just proof that existence once spoke.”

Jack: “You really think music can do that? Survive us?”

Jeeny: “It already has. Think about Bach — dead for centuries, yet his notes still move fingers, still make people weep. Isn’t that communication? Across centuries, across silence, across death?”

Host: Jack’s eyes lifted from the screen to the microphone. It hung there — black, still, endless — like a portal waiting to be opened.

Jack: “So every time we record, we’re talking to someone who doesn’t exist yet.”

Jeeny: “Exactly.”

Jack: “And every time they listen, we come back to life.”

Jeeny: whispers “Yes.”

Host: The studio seemed to breathe with them — the air thick, alive with invisible sound. The machines hummed faintly, as if remembering old sessions, old voices that never truly left.

Jeeny: “You once told me you stopped writing because no one was listening.”

Jack: nods slowly “I did.”

Jeeny: “But you never stopped hearing. That’s the thing — the music still plays inside you. Maybe you were never supposed to find the listener now. Maybe they’re still in the future, waiting.”

Jack: voice breaking slightly “What if they never come?”

Jeeny: “Then at least the message will be there — like a light left on in a room you might never return to.”

Host: The red light of the recording booth flickered again, bathing the space in gentle pulse. Jack finally reached forward, pressed a button, and the room filled with the faint click of readiness.

Jack: “So... I record, and I talk to the future.”

Jeeny: “Yes. You don’t need to know who they are. You just need to believe they’ll listen.”

Jack: sighs, then smiles faintly “You sound like Hildur.”

Jeeny: “I sound like every artist who still hopes their silence has meaning.”

Host: The tape began to roll. The faint hiss of recording filled the air — that delicate bridge between now and forever. Jack’s voice, deep and hesitant, spoke into the microphone — not a song, just words, trembling like the edge of a melody.

Jack: “To whoever’s listening someday… we were here. And we tried to make something true.”

Host: Jeeny closed her eyes. The piano behind her echoed a single note — soft, lingering, like a whisper through time.

The recording light glowed steady. The machines listened, the room breathed, and in that fragile moment, the past and the future touched — through sound, through silence, through the human ache to be heard beyond the grave of the present.

And somewhere, in a time yet to come, someone would listen, and understand.

Fade out.