The music swells up around me – can you hear it? It is like a thousand seas, all raging together, rushing together, mingling and crashing, a great tidal wave of music. Tell me you can hear it. It is sublime, it is beautiful – the greatest music I have ever composed. Everything once known to me has disappeared. It became one, all these notes and staves and rules – and disappeared. It means nothing. There is only music. I have lost myself in the music – where am I? I do not care any more. I am a sailor lost in a storm-tossed sea, and I am drowning, dieing in the music. Oh, I wish you could hear it! It is ecstasy, it is pure, utter perfection. Such sadness. I can't cry, not anymore. Will you cry for me?

You want to help me, don't you? You do, I know. I can see it in your eyes. You want me to keep dictating this music. This heavenly music, this mass of death. You are reverent, because of its content, but you want more and more, don't you?

Shall I tell you a secret? This isn't my music. This doesn't come from my head. This is the voice of God. These pieces they attribute to me should be attributed to God.

Something tells me you knew that without me telling you.

It's true, isn't it? This music is unearthly.

The strings cut into me bluntly, harshly, and twist the knife this way and that. It doesn't hurt; I know this fire, and I want it. I want to scream; this is too much. I am baring my soul for you to see, and you are fingering it, caressing it, almost greedily. The music has cracked my shell, and you are surprised to see what is really inside. I am alive. I am a person. I exist as a soul. I am letting you in, allowing you entry into my deepest mentality as I have never allowed anyone else. You think you know me, now, don't you? Wait. I will unlease music onto you like wildfire; when they hear it, they will writhe in pain.

The sound is bare and grim. It is killing me. I want to rest, but I can't. I am being controlled by some entity – is it you? Must I prove myself to you?

No.

It is I who is driving this onwards.

Drive on it shall! I would rather die than leave my Mass unfinished.

The swelling stops. A light shines down on the overcast music like some heavenly angel, and it is cleansed, for a while. Here, I must ask dear God to place me among the blessed. Heal me, O Lord. Keep Constanze and Karl well. I want to leave.

The stormy music starts up again, and my plea is lost amid the music. I hear great voices singing; the horsemen of the apocalypse, perhaps? I am fading, I can feel it…perhaps my apocalypse is now?

But no. The angel's refrain is back, struggling among the hordes. Place me among the blessed, O Lord! Call me to you!

Can you hear it?

The music stops altogether and I come back to earth with a shuddering jolt. The room is bathed in amber light and you are at the foot of my bed. I am too tired to go on. My heart pounds as though I have run a thousand miles, and I smile.

Did I not tell you that this Death Mass was for me?