The chambers of the temple, cut from yellow, ancient stone atop Mount Ounochuja, echoed with music among the clouds.

It was initially thought to be a most absurd arrangement, turning a ruin into a prison for copyright violators, with the original material looped ad nauseam as chastisement. But the number of protestors, as outraged as they were at the beginning, steadily decreased over the span of decades until the idea became accepted without question as a normal part of post-digital society.

On its fiftieth anniversary, the campaign received widespread praise for its historical, innovative approach to stopping once-rampant intellectual property theft. While petty copyright violators received punishment in local prisons as part of a massive global effort, the temple was reserved for only the most notable offenders, to set a powerful example for all humanity.

Zandras Angendolis had the privilege of being notable. His life’s work had propelled him to the status of genius, as officially decreed by the International Academy of Music. Though his followers numbered in the tens of millions, he did not have a family or a close circle of friends. Such was the result of his singular vision and attention to his music at the expense of social matters.

Surrounded by the intimately familiar music, he sat quietly in his cell, which was darkened inside and partitioned in a way that no passersby could see within. This would often disappoint tourists who wanted to take a picture with the prisoner in the background. They sometimes tried to talk to him, but he did not respond because he was often in a world of his own, inattentive to his surroundings. The silence occasionally resulted in doubt about his presence, but the guards would address such skepticism by turning the light on for three seconds, just long enough for spectators to see his brown locks of hair and gentle blue eyes which confirmed his identity. If he happened to be facing away, perhaps while sleeping, a guard would go inside the cell and adjust his body and head to be in plain view. Zandras did not, on any occasion, protest the physical manipulation.

Syolfran Rädagaar, Zandras’ one-time collaborator and the plaintiff of the copyright infringement suit, was granted special access to the cell after normal visiting hours. The warden, deeming a face-to-face encounter between the prisoner and the legal owner of the music an appropriate layer of added punishment, expedited the request through an otherwise endless bureaucracy.

“Zandras,” said Syolfran in a hushed tone, with his lean, formally attired body pressed against the bars of the cell. “This is Syolfran. Do you remember me? I was in an ensemble with you in Budapest before you were famous.”

There was no reply.

“I’m here to set you free,” Syolfran continued. “I know you didn’t steal my music because it was I who stole your music.”

He waited in anticipation of a response, but there was still nothing.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It was a complete mistake. I had no intention of taking your music. I honestly thought I had composed it myself, but it was a piece you had played in practice in its rudimentary form years ago. The notes sank so deep within me that I didn’t realize they didn’t originate from me. I was ecstatic when those notes poured out of me, and this euphoria deafened me from any memory that would have kept me from publishing the work as my own. Your only crime was publishing after me. It was only after I heard of your imprisonment that I realized what had happened. I didn’t even bring the case against you. It was brought on my behalf against my knowledge. I’ve petitioned to have you set free, and I was told that the Overseer himself would likely examine the evidence.”

There was yet more silence. By this point, Syolfran was no longer certain Zandras had comprehended any of this. “What date was given to you as your day of release?” he asked, nearly ready to give up the attempt to communicate.

“March 5^th,” a voice as tranquil as a pool of water finally responded.

“I’ll have you out by October. That’s when the hearing is. You won’t have to finish your term.”

Suddenly, three guards rushed into the chamber and apprehended Syolfran. Against his wishes, they took him away toward an adjacent holding cell. “What is this?” he asked in astonishment as he was pulled away. “How dare you!”

“Don’t make this any worse than it has to be,” the lead guard said. “We’ve received orders to place you in detention. That’s all we know.” They shoved him inside a cell, locked the entrance, and turned the lights off, as they would do for any criminal.

Shortly, the temple warden, accompanied by another guard carrying a small device, walked to Zandras’ cell. As the guard installed the device on a pillar just outside the bars, the warden began to speak. “You still refuse to acknowledge your crime.”

Zandras did not respond.

“Mr. Rädagaar has greatly misinformed you. The hearing has already taken place. You have each been convicted of stealing from the other and conspiring to hide the thefts thereafter. You will both be penalized to the fullest extent of the law.”

The warden turned on the device and explained its precise functioning as he programmed in the requisite instructions. It was a biospectral transmitter. Once fully activated, it would connect Zandras’ mind with the thoughts of millions of people who now viewed him with contempt. He would feel all of their judgments and witness each instance of mockery.

Syolfran’s cell was close enough for him to hear the warden, but not close enough to make the words understandable. He could only see through a shadow projected on the wall that the speaker occasionally pointed in his direction.

After the warden’s departure, Syolfran paced indignantly, but he was unable to hold on to his anger for long. The haunting notes, full of profound tenderness, reverberated throughout the temple and penetrated his consciousness so thoroughly that he could no longer tell if they were coming from outside or within, just as when he had imagined himself to be the composer.

Slowly, he began to feel other sensations that he had never experienced before. His field of awareness expanded beyond his immediate confines, as if he were in many parts of the temple at once. He had the distinct feeling that, hidden away from sight behind a distant pillar, a man and a woman were standing upright, pressed against an indention in the stone wall, enveloped by waves of music in the midst of fornication.

Syolfran began to weep, and he didn’t know why. He thought only of Zandras’ music and those two words, “March 5^th,” spoken with such unearthly clarity.

Soon, he felt another presence, a man in a white robe with long, flowing white hair and beard. The visitor moved through the corridors with the utmost grace, as if walking on air, and a transcendent peace that was not disturbed in the slightest by awareness of the increasingly vocal couple. It was the Overseer.

In an instant, sounds of the deepest sadness could be heard in Zandras’ unmistakable voice as he cried out, utterly devastated by some unseen force.

It was then that Syolfran felt the emptiness of countless souls on the surface of a bubble floating in the vastness of the cosmos as Zandras’ music continued to echo into the infinite void.