Zim's music had a life of its own, which meant a lot to Godwin, who really had no life of his own. Zim did not just make music. Zim was the music, and without a doubt Godwin was his biggest fan. Rain and snow, wind and cold, none of it could keep Godwin away from the Globe when Zim was spinning. Shunning the dance floor, Godwin would plant himself at the foot of the DJ booth and would stare up at the tall and lean skunk who towered like a god over the gyrating mob below, and he would let Zim's music flow through him and he would be alive, more alive than he could be anywhere else. The beat was his blood, the bass his heartbeat, just as it was Zim's. How many hours had Godwin stood gazing raptly upward as Zim's black fur swallowed up the fading light, leaving only the white hourglass on his torso and the twin blazes that bobbed on his tail behind him, until the show started and the colors started to fly and turned those white blazes into a dancing cartoon UFO floating in the misty atmosphere?

While Zim sometimes mixed the music of other artists, most of what he spun was of his own composition. Godwin had never heard anything like it before he started coming to the Globe. The music had a voice, Zim's voice, that from the very first beat filled Godwin's head with wonderful images. It was a force; it was a living thing, and maybe Godwin alone could hear it, since the other kids in the club just jumped around and wriggled like epileptics. Their loss, Godwin thought, so he stayed by himself and allowed the music to tell him its stories. The night would whirl away until Zim at last gave his signature signoff, the classiest of any DJ in the world. Zim would pump the music up to a frenetic beat and then let it fade -- to Godwin, it was like falling asleep on Christmas Eve -- and then Zim would hoist a foot up on the rail of the booth and would lean forward, and with one arm resting on that bent knee he would smile down at the crowd, touch his fingertip to his brow in modest salute, then as the last notes dwindled to silence Zim would fade into the darkness and vanish with it. No one ever saw him leave. It only reinforced Godwin's little dream that Zim was made of the music itself.

Dreams, though, are not supposed to die, and if they do, they are supposed to go with more fanfare than a tired blurb on page eight of the paper's entertainment section. "Local DJ's death ruled accidental." Alcohol and antidepressants, the coroner had said, tsk tsk, what a shame, kids today. Godwin knew better, though. Accident? No. Try murder. Cold, unfeeling, brutal murder, carried out by greedy fat bastards who only saw dollars in music, and aided by equally cold, equally unfeeling, equally brutal crackheads who dared to call themselves his fans.

Godwin bitterly remembered the night when he had taken his usual spot beneath the DJ booth and had waited for his idol to appear, only to see some flashy fox with a car-salesman grin jump into Zim's place. "The Globe is pleased to welcome DJ Mojito!" boomed through the club and the crowd went wild. Godwin was stunned! He had heard about Mojito. He was some famous celebrity DJ from Hollywood that was always on television and was supposed to be the greatest blah blah since blah. The music started and the kids danced like crazy and Mojito beamed and waved and blew kisses like some goddamn movie star, and Godwin's heart sank even further. It was...notes. No life, no voice, no story. Just notes. Dismayed, Godwin wobbled through the crowd and pushed his way into the door marked "private" that led to the manager's office. "Where's Zim?" he panted. "Is he sick? When's he coming back?"

The manager barely glanced up from his racing form and squinted at Godwin through a black mask that made him look like a cartoon burglar. "He ain't coming back," he grunted. "Now beat it. I'm busy."

Godwin gawked at him. "But...but....what do you mean? Why not?"

The chair creaked as the scrawny figure sat back and regarded Godwin with those mean little beady eyes. "Listen kid," he growled. "Zim's too small for us. The Globe's outgrown him. We need big names here. BIG names. Zim just doesn't cut it. We sent him packing."

"How could you? Zim IS a big name!"

"Not big enough. I told you, he's done. Now get out before I call the bouncer."

"You can't..."

The manager jabbed a bony finger on a button and barked, "Marley! Get in here."

Seconds later Godwin was being hauled by the scruff by the same wolf who had nodded him through the door a thousand times. Marley did not say a word as he shoved Godwin out the back and slammed the door.

Godwin tried to fight back. He tried to start a petition, but few club-goers bothered to sign it. Some even wrote nasty things. Dismayed, he tried to organize a protest, and even though a few bored-looking stoners showed up, they ran straight back to the club the minute the flashy fox hit the booth like some electronic pied piper.

Nobody cared. The fickle crowd who had cheered for Zim cheered just as eagerly for any talentless hack willing to throw music at them and sign an autograph. In despair, Godwin spent the evenings alone in his tiny apartment, refusing to set foot into the Globe (even though they probably not let him in) and trying to think of how to convince them to bring Zim back. He thought maybe that Zim would find a spot in some other club, and Godwin bought every newspaper in the state for weeks on end hoping to find Zim's name on the bill. His hope was dashed -- no, his whole life was dashed -- when he finally found his idol's name on page eight. Suicide. Bull! They had killed him. They had taken away Zim's music, and with that they had taken his life. Zim was the music. And now the music had died.

For the first time in years Godwin cried, and when there were no more tears left he simply stared at the stark paragraph, thinking that if he wished hard enough he could will it to be untrue. It said that the mighty DJ had been found three weeks earlier -- three weeks! Godwin had never even known, and had spent so much time hoping and yearning in vain.

"Found in his apartment in the eight hundred block of Spruce." That was not far away. A mile, maybe. Godwin decided that the least he could do would be to make a pilgrimage there. On the way he picked a flower that grew up from a crack in the sidewalk, intending to leave it on the doorstep as a memorial.

When he arrived he stopped short and the flower fell from his fingers. On the curb were battered boxes filled with shiny disks, a keyboard, turntables, speakers -- and a tired old hound was trudging along the walk with even more. Godwin ran toward him. "Hey!" he shouted. "Hey! This stuff! Did it belong to Zim?"

The hound wheezed and something rattled as he set the box down. "That young musician? Yep. Real shame, that poor boy. He told me he was gonna have trouble making his rent, but I told him just to --"

"What are you doing?" Godwin wanted to grab the old fellow by his overalls and shake him. "Are you just throwing this all away?"

The landlord stared at him a moment. "Well...nobody come to claim it. I thought I'd put it out here and if anyone wanted it, they could take it, and if not, the garbage men would haul it away." His sad eyes grew sadder. "Say, I reckon you were his friend, from how upset you look. I'm really sorry about your loss."

Godwin choked back fresh tears. "My loss. Yeah." He turned and peered at the tools that Zim had used to make his music, to tell his stories, and at the dozens of disks that were scattered now in boxes. "You...you said anyone could have this?"

"Well, yeah. If you want it, I've got no use for it. This box here's the last of it, in fact."

Godwin's heart surged. "Thanks!" he barked. Snatching the box up, he hurried to the rest of the pile and began to gather as much up into his arms as he could. A box of disks nearly fell over but Godwin caught it, gasping as though he had nearly broken a priceless vase. The old hound watched him pityingly for a few moments, then padded up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hold on there, son," he said in a kindly voice. "Let me go fetch my truck."

Across from the Globe sat an old three-story warehouse that housed a self-storage facility. Godwin rented a locker there and paid extra for twenty-four hour access, and it was there that he hauled all of Zim's treasures, box by box. He had no intention of keeping it there for long, however. He chose it because its roof overlooked the club, and the door to the roof was secured with a rusted old padlock that fell apart practically before Godwin's pry bar touched it. All he would need would be a few extension cords and his plan would be set in motion. Zim was going to live again, Godwin swore, and those fucking morons at the club were going to hear his music whether the liked it or not.

He chose a night with a bright full moon, which even though his kind could see in the dark made it easier for him to set everything up on the rooftop. The music from the club below sounded muffled and empty, only a little more so than it did inside, as Godwin hastily plugged in each cable. He had never done anything like this before, yet somehow he knew where each plug went, as though some unseen hand -- some black and white hand -- were guiding his fingers. Before long the setup was complete. The speakers were aimed down at the crowd that was lined up outside the club and jabbering to themselves about how awesome Mojito was and hey, did you hear they're bringing in DJ Thunder next week, dude that's gonna be so sweet. Godwin hissed angrily and switched the power on.

All that was left was to pick a disk. What story did he want to tell them down below? It was not easy. Many of Zim's disks were either unlabeled, or had nothing but numbers or dates on them. He found one, though, quite unlike the others. This one had the words PLAY IT BIG printed in big, bold letters on its face. To Godwin it seemed to be a sign. "I'll play it big," he whispered. He slid the disk into the deck and cranked the volume up as high as he could.

At first the speakers only hissed softly. Godwin began to think that this disk was blank, but then the meter jumped, just a little, and then again. There was a low thump, slow, steady, rhythmic, growing steadily louder, with an echo behind it like a heartbeat. A deep base note hummed and then swelled, joined by others into a mounting chord.

And then it grew dark. Godwin looked up, thinking that a cloud had passed over the moon, but it was not a cloud that he saw. It was a shadowy silhouette of a tall and lean body rising high into the sky, the moon behind it growing more and more feeble as the outline grew more substantial. The music rose and then exploded in a grand, adrenaline-filled chord as the moon disappeared abruptly, and in its place was a towering hourglass of white that reflected the lights of the street below.

Godwin's jaw dropped. "Zim?" he said, but his voice was lost beneath the thunder of the music's main theme.

The looming figure turned, the hourglass of white replaced by two white racing-stripes that stretched high into the sky. Godwin stumbled to the edge of the roof and stared down at the milling crowd, who had gone silent and were staring dumbfounded up at the apparition that the music had created. Zim took one step; as his foot came down the music's baseline thudded hard enough to make the whole rooftop shake. It was followed by a screeching discord in the high register, while at the same time the crowd below broke and ran, scrambling over one another in their haste to get away. The bouncer's eyes bugged out and he tried to tug the door open behind him. Godwin could not hear his terrified yowl, but it sounded in the music as Zim's hand descend and closed around him. The wolf was lifted, kicking, into the air, and then casually tossed aside. His body flew into the night and vanished from sight.

There were more bone-rattling thuds from the base as Zim began to walk down the street. Each stride carried him twenty yards or more, and within three steps he had overtaken the fleeing mob. Godwin stared, transfixed, as Zim casually stepped on the people who had forgotten him. Each thump of the base was now punctuated with an electronic crackling of bones, while their terrified screams were a constant dissonance high above the racing melody. One by one the colossal paws rose up and came down, purposefully crushing the little stoned-out figures flat. Before long the discord faded, leaving only the breathless tune, and then the deep thudding returned as Zim turned and walked back toward the club. His smile was serene, almost playful, and there was a spring to his step as he tramped back across the sea of broken, flattened corpses. Pausing, he stooped to pick up a parked car and studied it, then shook his head and placed it carefully back where he had found it. He selected another, much larger, and satisfied, he set it down snugly against the door of the club.

Godwin's breath caught. He knew that the management kept the other doors locked to keep club-goers from letting their friends in without paying the cover. The front door was the only way in. Or out. And Zim knew that, too.

Still smiling, Zim turned his back to Godwin and bent forward, hoisting his mammoth tail high for balance. He gripped the edges of the club's roof with both hands. The music's tempo raced and then came another explosive chord as Zim's lean muscles bunched up, and the roof peeled upward like the lid of a dumpster. Zim let it fall behind the club with a crash of cymbals and snare, and carefully he lifted first one leg, and then the other and stepped into the club's interior.

On either side of Godwin the speakers screeched a horrified note as Zim stood over the club-goers trapped below, hands on his hips, his smile not at all malicious but somehow all the more ominous for that. Godwin could not see into the interior but the music told him all he needed to know. He could hear the panic, the abject terror, the rushing this way and that and the helpless pounding against the barricaded door.

Zim crouched and reached down, and when he rose again Godwin could see the manager's masked face poking from the top of the skunk's mighty fist, a thin tail whipping from between two fingers. Zim smiled warmly down at him and then tightened his grip, the muscles of his forearm bulging. Again the speakers crackled; the flailing tail went limp, and Zim dropped the broken body and reached down again. This time what he plucked from below was the flashy, kicking figure of DJ Mojito. The Big Name did not look so big now as he flailed about, held by the collar of his sequined shirt between the skunk's thumb and forefinger. Zim stood up tall and lifted the little DJ up before his face. He grinned, then opened his mouth. The chord that screeched from the speakers stopped abruptly as Zim dropped the fox into his mouth and swallowed.

The song was far from over. Zim lowered his serene gaze to the club-goers, and casually raised a foot. It came down hard -- BOOM, went the base, with almost enough force to knock the speakers off their stands. That foot rose again, rising into view over the tattered rim of the wall. Godwin saw that the white toes had turned deep red before the massive foot descended again, and there was another explosion from the speakers. The theme was repeated again and again, the big skunk stamping with one foot and then the other. Soon the shriek at the top of the register faded, even though the thumping base continued for several more measures. Zim stopped and surveyed his work, bent and stirred through the carnage a bit, then stood and stepped down one final time. Only then did the frantic tempo slow, and Godwin was finally able to let out his breath.

Zim closed his eyes. The tune was serene, the notes contented, satisfied, finally at peace. Then once again came a low and heavy BOOM, BOOM of base. Zim lifted a leg over the wall of the club and his foot came down on the street -- BOOM -- and then the other -- BOOM -- and he began to walk toward Godwin, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Godwin stared in awe as the colossal legs swept closer, until Zim stood over him, towering like a god, just like he always had.

Godwin smiled. Zim smiled back, and then one of those mighty legs rose up. His gigantic foot swept into view and kept going, its underside looming over the rooftop. The music from the speakers began to swell again, intensifying, the tempo speeding up to match Godwin's heartbeat as the smile faded from his lips. "Z-zim?" he called, his voice lost beneath the blasting notes.

The speakers screamed a tense major seventh chord. The mighty paw began to descend toward him.

Godwin yelped and stumbled backward, flailing his arms to keep from stumbling. "No, Zim!" he pleaded. "Zim! It's me! I'm Godwin. I'm...I'm your fan!"

Zim's foot came down on the rooftop just as the chord triumphantly resolved. Shaken, Godwin stared at the great clawed toes that rested beside him. The fur glistened with thick wetness that looked black in the moonlight, and everywhere they were splattered with the brilliant color from dozens of shattered glowsticks. Godwin raised his eyes along the powerful calf to see Zim leaning forward, one arm resting on his bent knee, his eyes smiling warmly downward.

The last two measures repeated; Zim raised a finger to his brow and winked. Repeat and fade; Zim's body faded with it, growing indistinct, the blackness of his fur dissolving into the night sky and letting the moon shine through, and when the last notes trickled from the speakers he was gone entirely.

There was silence. Dead silence, broken only the by distant sound of approaching sirens. Trembling, Godwin opened the deck to retrieve the disk. There was nothing to reflect the moonlight within. All Godwin could see was a little spider grumpily working to rebuild the web that Godwin had just disturbed.