I turned on the radio and it was tuned to five hundred twenty eight Hz. Love hurts, said the DJ. He was a bit of a dick but I lingered with it. Experts have confirmed that the love frequency can increase cell viability by twenty per cent, he said. Experts have confirmed that it can decrease the toxic effects of ethanol by a percentage that may be unfathomable. To this I raised a glass of ethanol.

Five two eight is the key to all mythologies, said the DJ. It’s the reason why bees buzz, why roses resonate, why snowflakes are six-pointed stars. Five two eight is the matrix of creation, a me on the scale of miracle.

And as the messages grew stranger, my mind began to spiral. Does a blade of grass grow towards the sun? asked the DJ. Naturally, because it’s intelligent. If it was stupid it would grow into darkness and die. And soon, despite my fears, my thoughts had begun to vibrate to the heavenly harmonic frequency.

It was the third summer of love and the radio was streaming a festival down by the sound mirrors. The neo hippies were worshipping the womb and vibrating with the infinite palette of rainbows. Couples were copulating by the concrete, as a hooded man resequenced its DNA, tuning the mirrors to five two eight. It was the love frequency, and they were spreading the love.

The next day the microphones began picking up the sound of my local supermarket. There was something unexpected in the bagging area; that something was love. The day after, the microphones began picking up the Thames, amplifying the runways of Heathrow Airport. Seven four sevens trailed incense, and within a week the microphones were picking up all known sounds.

With the whole world tuned to five two eight, the vibrations were becoming relentless, recalibrating rhythms and rewinding clocks. I listened to earthquakes ricochet off the Richter scale, and volcanoes spew lava into non-existent seas. As I stood in the supermarket, bulk-buying ethanol, all the dead I had ever known came back to me too, drawn by the five two eight frequency.

At the festival zeppelins had eclipsed the sun and the mirrors were eclipsed by infernal seas. Only the tops were visible now, so I swam towards them and assumed watch on the concrete. Sometimes, over the following weeks, I’d spy a bangled wrist as the neo hippies did aqua aerobics amid superbly exotic but long extinct fish. The neo hippies were growing more and more excited as the heavenly vibrations grew greater and greater; they were singing songs not of love but hate.

And it was at this point that the experts began to admit that they’d made a mistake. That five two eight was not the frequency of love, was not the heavenly frequency, but was the frequency of death, was the frequency of the sun moving towards the abyss. That we’d all been listening to things in reverse, as in a mirror, and that the third summer of love was the summer of blood. And it was at that point, when the end was in sight, that I decided to turn off the radio.

TRACKLIST:

A. The Third Summer of Love

B. Arabesque