“Tom.”

“Devic.”

“Tom.” 

“Jevic.”

“Tom.”

“Tevic.”  

The Ics called Tom by name as one by one they entered the conference room to find him seated, and he returned the courtesy. They hadn’t met since last year. Chilly and obdurate, the committee of Ics took seats around the oval table, glaring from red eyes. Informality had been agreed upon, but none brought food or drink. They launched straightaway into their cause. Tom listened since he could do nothing else.

“…lambent disjointed minor fingertips swathed in silken major fifths. Sensuous fish carve sweet curves in idle water….” 

Tom understood Ic and spoke it fluently, as well as any non-native. He enjoyed the musicality and flowing metaphors of the language. He understood the Ics’ partisan message, too. He also feared it, but not really. The Ics droned on with the seriousness of death, but the issue was far lighter. More and louder was coming, though. He braced himself. 

“…thirty-second notes the delicacy of snail trail on whistling wind in shade….”

Out of respect, he had agreed to meet the Ics ahead of tomorrow’s vote. The award for Film Score of the Year as determined by the Intergalactic Assembly of Film Critics hung in the balance. As it had last year, his ballot looked to be decisive. He desired to reassure the Ics of his impartiality. 

“…Vedic change iron to satin becomes the sensuous slide of rain melting sandstone….”

Vedic, an Ic, was again the Ics’ choice. At the previous awards, Tom had cast against him in favor of Marta of Earth, but young Vedic’s entries included only three major motion picture scores, none truly outstanding. The veteran Marta, the eventual winner, had scores for six films in contention, the music more than praiseworthy, particularly for Stale Bed and Stay Flat. Arguably, she had deserved her victory.

For this year, Marta had music entered for the two blockbuster films The Divines Don’t Know and Unseen Untold. But Marta was seventy-two now and tired. Her usual bouncy measures sounded formulaic.

Brash Vedic, however, had scored two movies with intergalactic box office success, The Average Fear and Influence of the Stars. His music was….

“The trilling of spiritual spit in the unemptied valveless horn….”

Transcendent, as the Ics knew. Tom himself thrilled to Vedic’s revolutionary horn. The Ics’ claim that he deserved this year’s award for Score Composer of the Year was hard to deny.

“…tones of the winged insect in humid wind flattening fronds in green harmony….”

The Ics were really piling it on, much more so than last time. Of course they felt cheated, as losers do. And they blamed, who else, Tom, who had cast the deciding vote against their candidate.

“…Metronomic knuckles of microtonal ambiguity rely on tickled ivories in third position….”

To show he could withstand their pressure, Tom turned to his table neighbor Darlene. Who was this newcomer? He had introduced her perfunctorily during the seating, and her presence had to worry the Ics. Thin, red of hair and nervous, Darlene had already overturned her cup of hot tea in setting before her a paper plate holding three grapes. A fresh face at the Academy, she hadn’t been present the previous year and didn’t recall the Ics’ shocked embarrassment when Tom had voted for Earth’s Marta. Of course she knew of it; the entire entertainment industry and all the cosmos knew of it, the part that cared to know.      

“…hand-picked celestial vibrations mingle with tenuous waves of whirlpool ear….”

Darlene smiled. She too spoke more than passable Ic, but limited herself to pleasantries. The Ics liked her, for all their misgivings. They saw that she spilled tea with the best of them. They wanted to trust her, too. After hearing her name and title--“Darlene who was Tom’s understudy”--they were pleased to note that she regarded everyone as important, and responded to any comment with a gush of sympathy and friendliness. She was an appeaser. But Darlene came from Earth. Tom came from Earth. Marta too came from Earth. Who could say there was no bias? Not the Ics, who saw bias everywhere.  

“…lanolin smoothness transposed by augmented sevenths to the tinkling of early morning urination uhhuh!”

The Ics knew that Darlene held no power, and would not vote in tomorrow’s closed Assembly. As an understudy, she could vote only if Tom died or became incapacitated, neither event likely to occur at the Intergalactic Assembly of Film Critics, but no one ruled anything out. Still, the Ics considered her a possible influence on Tom and played to her.

“…Old-timey ululations choked with heavily rosined fingers when serene mollusks collide….” said Jevic, looking at Darlene. 

“When serene mollusks collide,” said Tevic, staring at Darlene.

“When serene mollusks collide,” said Devic, watching Darlene.

The Ics had become a single voice droning “when serene mollusks collide.”  Tom needed to offer up a counterpoint or forfeit the game. Not that he wished to hand another win to old Marta, still Vedic’s main rival. Besides sounding tired, she was a known user of the Metron Helmet for Creatives. Of course all artists used the Metron now, Vedic included, and no Academy rules banned the device, but Marta had been hospitalized for overuse. Lately she had worn the helmet to complete entire scores in only hours, the price being a mental fatigue that left her debilitated for weeks. She was a bad example. But a case could still be made for her leaping score to The Divines Don’t Know, and Tom was determined to make it. Above all, he disliked the Ics squeezing him, and when their momentum stalled a moment, he jumped in, speaking to their understanding.   

“The climax of silverware dropped into a drawer from sixteen feet, the crash of old stoves falling into dumpsters….”

The Ics “got” Tom. He had the idiom down and his accent was good. Knowing this to be so, none had brought along a translator. But Tom’s opinion elicited immediate if modulated outrage.       

Tom kept going. Adroitly he honed in on Marta’s musical core. There was plenty to admire about “silverware dropped into a drawer from sixteen feet,” and especially about “old stoves falling into dumpsters.” At the same time, it was worrisome that he, Darlene and Marta hailed from Earth, and that Vedic, alone of the nominees, came from Ic. 

Tom shot the Ics a look, and they shot one back. He dared to repeat, “Old stoves falling into empty dumpsters.” The Ics remained unmoved. He said it again, more forcefully: “Old stoves falling into empty dumpsters.” The two views were entrenched: Marta’s “old stoves falling into empty dumpsters” versus Vedic’s “when serene mollusks collide.”    

An impasse. 

Darlene fed herself all three grapes on her plate at once, spraying Tom with their juice as she bit into them open-mouthed. She didn’t apologize. She smiled at Tom, and smiled at the Ics, charming all into a peaceful interlude. She then reached into her stylish reticule and withdrew a miniature sound system. Placing the little speakers on the table, she switched on Marta’s entry, the score for The Divines Don’t Know, a thumping romp and more than worthy. She allowed it to play for a few minutes, though the constant motif  “stoves falling into dumpsters” clearly made the Ics uneasy. Careful to wear a neutral face, she then hit a button to launch Vedic’s score for The Average Fear, featuring unamplified ’tar, muffled tron, and rubbed seashells. Such soulful music, “when serene mollusks collide” being the best way to describe it.  

Darlene let the music play on, longer than Marta’s had played, and still on. Soon the Ics began to relax. They sensed that Darlene was sending a signal.

Tom too relaxed, feeling that Darlene’s selection was correct and that she had gotten him out of a fix, even if she hadn’t prepared him. She was indeed an exemplary understudy. But he would never forgive her those grapes.

Michael Fowler is a former humor writer treading a new path.