none but the lonely heart

prologue

Death-Cast did, as it so happens, call Queensland Symphony Orchestra conductor Johannes Fritzsch—however not with the warning of a lifetime, not to send word that he's going to die today, contrary to his first thoughts.

Truth be told, Fritzsch is entirely unsuspecting of the call, as he's organizing his space with his mind elsewhere, sorting out the scores splayed out on his desk; the defined print of music notes forming symphonies of Mahler, Shostakovich, and Beethoven.

He knows it's them, even without throwing a glance at the caller ID—he's all too familiar with the fortissimo pandemonium composed of brass, percussion, and strings. But of course—he's wielded his baton to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 a good number of times during his career.

He knows it's them, but an alarm of impending doom still sounds unforgiving in his head as the pit of his stomach falls, as panic grips at his chest and forces the rhythm of his heartbeat to stutter all the same.

He almost stops himself from picking up, accepting his fate—maybe Death-Cast will persist with its too-well-known ringtone there on the holder for all eternity. Maybe it'll occur to them they've got the wrong person. But then again, he thinks, Death-Cast call mix-ups aren't customary.

There won't be another to live within the shelter of his flat's walls—no one to brush away the dust collecting on the piano, no one to observe the raindrops racing down the window and obscuring the outside view. This place, full of music, homely and a refuge from a busy life—it'll be lonely.

He almost stops himself from picking up and accepting his fate—almost. It's widely known all over the world—when Death comes knocking at your door, it's over. There's no star in the sky that you can misalign to hold off your ending.

It all flashes before his eyes; all the monumental symphonic works he'll never get to conduct, all the orchestral musicians and soloists he'll never get to collaborate with. All the yesterdays have gone and he's completely run out of tomorrows, as the saying goes.

For all he knows, his time has come, below this bleak night sky—perhaps Death is positioned just beyond his door, coaxing forth a sheath of frost out onto his window, he muses vaguely, as he grabs the phone off its holder and brings it up to his ear.

"Johannes Fritzsch, conductor of the Queensland Symphony," he greets Death-Cast, his free hand fumbling to turn down the radio's volume—some news report telling of someone hit by a car while crossing the street.

"Good evening, Mr. Fritzsch, I'm Carla from Death-Cast," a lady speaks monotonously from the other end of the line, plainly with the tone of someone bored of their job; how many times has she introduced herself to the unlucky ones before this moment?

"Good evening," he replies. In spite of being in sight of probable death, Fritzsch finds his fear ebbing away, contrary to what others presumably feel in these situations. "I heard the ringtone—it's my turn to die today, isn't it?"

He waits patiently for the notoriously feared "I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours, you'll be meeting an untimely death," but surprisingly enough—it doesn't come.

"On the contrary, actually. I wanted to ask," he can make out the shuffling of papers from the other end as Carla pauses, "is Brett Yang still playing in the Queensland Symphony Orchestra?"

"Brett Yang?" asks Fritzsch, eyebrows lifting momentarily in surprise. "He's still playing, yes—he's been concertmaster for a while now."

"I see." Carla types away at a keyboard, the clicking tinny through the phone's mediocre condition, then the return of paper-shuffling. "I regret to inform you that Mr. Yang will be getting the call from Death-Cast sooner or later tonight."

Mr. Fritzsch, caught off-guard as he already is, feels the sinking feeling in his stomach return again; he responds with nothing but, "oh?"

Carla drones on. "We wanted to notify you in advance, in the event that you wish to open auditions for the concertmaster spot, or what you do to appoint a concertmaster—prior to the beginning of your upcoming programs."

"Well, that's kind of you." It never fails to leave him in awe—no Death-Cast staff member appears to have an ounce of sympathy to offer in their tones with these calls; not an ounce of genuine regret for all the souls of unfulfilled lives leaving the Earth so soon?

"We notify any major industries of calls soon to be given to individuals in their organizations. It's part of duties here at Death-Cast," she continues.

"Okay, then." Fritzsch sets his laptop on his desk and opens his email, but then pauses. "Do you want me to notify him, or...?"

"That won't be necessary," Carla answers. "We here at Death-Cast will be administering the call."

"I understand. Is that all?"

"Yes, that is all. Thank you for your time," Carla finishes with the slightest air of relief in her voice, and without giving monotone utterance to any other words, Death-Cast hangs up.

To Fritzsch's knowledge, Brett is undoubtedly one of the last musicians who deserve to get the call; respectful and hard-working, with a noteworthy amount of talent on the violin, he's one of the brightest musicians Fritzsch has met.

He sets the phone back down on its holder, and it follows that both he and Carla proceed with their work for that day, under those circumstances.

Fritzsch reclines back against his chair and heaves out a resigned sigh, before straightening up and clicking at his laptop's mousepad, stirring it from its sleep mode again.

His hands wander the letters of the keyboard as though to piano keys, an announcement forming itself in Helvetica script across the screen, words to notify the audience and the musicians; postponing the season's opening concerts, opening auditions for the concertmaster's spot.

Somewhere else in Australia, Carla proceeds with her Death-Cast duties, rapidly casting about for phone numbers on paper—she calls crestfallen parents with their children wailing in the background, teens in denial. She greets shocked silences, tears, fear, all with monotone.

It's 2:42 AM when she lays the first stone of flipping back and forth throughout a bulging D-ring binder, labelled Australian Arts Industry. "Music industry, music industry, music industry..." she mutters under her breath, scanning the pages and their content. "There we go."

Her finger scours the lines of names listed in compacted format, names of conductors, then artistic advisers and directors, and finally musicians, before landing on the name she's looking for—the concertmaster.

She picks up a red pen and slashes a line through his name in one swift movement, afterwards typing in the corresponding phone number and picking up the phone again.

Carla waits resigned, drumming her nails on the table and willing for him to pick up; he's probably holding back from answering, she thinks. Upon hearing the ringtone, lots of people do.

But at long last, she catches a voice from the other end, weary with sleep, but small with what is undoubtedly fear; years of employment at Death-Cast are to credit for her quickness at naming emotions in voices.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Carla from Death-Cast calling to speak with Brett Yang."

She's met with silence; Carla does her utmost to hold back an exasperated sigh and puts on a mask of utter patience. "Brett, kindly confirm that this is indeed you." She doesn't get paid enough for this.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's—it's me." Brett stumbles over his words. "I'm Brett Yang."

"Brett, I regret to inform you that sometime in the next twenty-four hours, you'll be meeting an untimely death. And while there isn't anything we can do to suspend that, you still have a chance—that is, all of today—to live."

She drones on with a lengthy speech about how life isn't fair, about death, telling him to log on to the Death-Cast website—and the like, verses of a script burned well into her memory from years of call-making and death-notifying. Brett listens from the other end in silence.

"And Brett, on behalf of everyone here at Death-Cast, we are so sorry to lose you. Live this day to the fullest, okay?"