Thomas Disch: On Wings of Song

Daniel was wired into the apparatus. It felt like sitting in a chair that was tipping over. That was so that when he pretended to go limp he wouldn’t fall on his face.

He rested his hand lightly on the armrest. With his thumb he felt for the hidden switch under the satin on the armrest. Even now, he didn’t have to use it. But he probably would.

He sang. “We’re dying!” he sang.

Like a flash flood the Symphonette swept him into the chorus. Despite being strapped down to the apparatus, he was singing beautifully.

He repeated the chorus. This time, as he came to the last line, at the caesura, he applied the lightest of pressures to the switch on the armrest, and at the same moment closed his eyes and ceased to sing. The Symphonette finished the song by themselves.

The dials of the apparatus showed that Daniel was in flight.

It was the moment Mrs. Norberg had been waiting for. She stood up, in her fifth row seat, and took aim with the revolver she had concealed, the evening before, in the upholstery of her seat. A needless precaution, for there had been no security check at the door.

The first bullet lodged in Daniel’s brain. The second ruptured his aorta.

Later, when, as a preliminary to her sentencing, the judge was to ask Mrs. Norberg why she had killed Daniel Weinreb, she would reply that she had acted in defense of the system of free enterprise. Then she placed her right hand on her breast, turned to the flag, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. “I pledge allegiance,” she declared, with her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, “to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”