It is 1959.

The music winds its way out of the bar. The night is unseasonably cold, and heavy coats are wrapped closely around the milling crowd. The music wanders through the city that night, weaving and rising and falling, a fast moving wave. It floats, an advancement of notes, through a world on the brink of change, rising to the stars.
It is 1959.
The music has found its way upstate.
The campus is blanketed by a heavy cloud of mist. The evening promises a cold night. Philip Morrison sits back in his chair, feet resting on his desk, studying the chalkboard covered in work. The silence is too heavy, and he reaches forward to flick on the old, yellowing radio. It crackles, and after a quick silence, music rises from it. Morrison ponders for a minute, the tiny radio waves making their way through the quiet building. They move up and down, front to back, a testament to order. The slow jazz fills the room, and for a minute, everything has fallen into place. The wild waves drawn on the board, the blue darkness, the stars hidden behind the swaths of cloud and night.
It is 1959.
The music comes to the rows of little houses.
Peter is bored. He lies on his back in his bedroom, studying his ceiling. He had it painted with stars for his 7th birthday, just last month. His homework is done, his mother is at a friend’s house, and his father has shut himself in the study to work. Today at recess, Peter pretended to be a pilot, soaring through the sky (playground) on his plane (the back of his best friend). On a reckless impulse, Peter scrambles off the bed to the door, and opens it a crack. He peers down the stairs at the study door, greeted only by Hammer’s affectionate bark from downstairs. Hammer chose this family. He was a stray dog, who found this little blue house to his liking years and years ago, and decided to stay. Hammer was old now, became tired easily, his black coat spotted with white hair. But he was never too tired for Peter, and now his paws scrabble on the pale hardwood floors as he tries to pull himself up the stairs to the boy, panting. Peter creeps down the stairs and wraps his arms around the big dog as he watches the imposing door of the study. A noise is coming from the room. Jazz. Peter’s father always listens to jazz when he works. The music rises angrily and suddenly, and then sinks back down into a smooth lull - it always reminded Peter of a swarm of bees. Daa-dum. His father doesn’t come out, and after a few minutes, Peter resignedly returns to his room. He has a row of figurines standing on his dresser, the assorted guardians of the bed room. He picks up the alien, small, round and green, and carries it into bed, running his finger over its wide eyes.
It is 1959.
The music swells, suddenly realizing its importance.
Morrison’s peace is broken by the sudden opening of the door. He cracks open an eye and sees Giuseppe Cocconi striding into the room. Cocconi folds himself into a chair, and studies Morrison expectantly.
“I want to talk about Gamma Rays,” he says, his foot bouncing up and down.
Morrison responds, “What about them?”
“Do you think they could be used?”
“Used?”
“To communicate.”
Morrison sits up, and rests his elbows on the desk. Cocconi looks tired but invigorated, and Morrison is suddenly aware, as those caught up in great moments often are, that Cocconi has thought of something. Cocconi reaches forward and carefully places his hand on the radio, still amicably spouting the sound of a saxophone.
“Like this radio,” he begins. “This jazz. It’s coming from somewhere, yes? The music, the jazz, is a form of communication carried on radio waves over a short distance. What if we could use radio to communicate over longer distances? Between the stars?”
It is 1959.
The music, proud of its ability to spur action, reaches the boy.
An hour has passed, but Peter is still resting on the bed, now surrounded by all his figures. The jazz is louder now, creeping up the stairs, staccato steps to his room. His mother should be back any minute now, but to pass the time, he has come up with a game. The aliens and the pilots are having a dinner party. One alien has its long arms wrapped around a pilot, and they are happily swaying to the creeping jazz. They hear through the music.
It is 1959
It has been three hours. The board has been erased and written on and erased and written on. The two men are covered in a light dusting of chalk, sitting back in the chairs, facing each other. Cocconi is waiting for an answer, practically on the edge of his seat.
“It makes sense,” Morrison begins cautiously. Cocconi stands up, moved by the force of their success, and sits with a smile.
“Any civilized society, even with remedial technological abilities, would be able to receive and understand these signals,” he continues. “At 1420 mgH, nobody would be signaling on these frequencies, we would stand out to them.”
Cocconi points upwards and purposefully approaches the radio. He turns it on with a newfound affection.
It is 1959.
It is fall.
Peter is resting on the floor of his room. He is in the 3rd grade now, but not much has changed. His mother is still at a friends house, and his father is still working in the study, jazz twirling out from underneath the door. Peter crawls to the window, and lifts up the curtain. The street is pitch black, only lit by the milky, spreading light of the full moon. He turns his head upwards, at the freckling of brilliant stars across the skyway, and reaches for the alien figurine, still just as round and green and wide eyed.
It is 1959.
Cocconi and Morrison tear through the mail together, through envelopes and pages and magazines, paper cuts and rusting pages abound. Finally, the journal spills from the pile. Nature. They rip through it with agitated pride, finally, finally coming upon the publication. “Searching for Interstellar Communications”. There is pure joy, and they stand on the brink of a future of searching, searching for the others, the ones we were separated from so long ago. The faculty fills the office, chatter and laughter and someone turns on the radio. Music envelopes the room, and floats out the open window to the clouds.
It is 1959.
Spurred on by a sudden rush, Peter runs down the stairs, alien figurine in his little hand. He flings open the front door, letting the jazz spill into the neighborhood and dances into the yard, awash with moonlight. Hammer rises and pads to the door proprietarily. Peter whirls and spins and laughs as the music rises, wrapped up in trumpets and piano. He raises the little green man up, up, against the smattering of little lights and captures the image in his mind. The alien rests on a blanket of stars. A sharp contrast against the blue black night, shot through with moon. Peter flops down onto the frost covered lawn and watches the sky. He imagines the little green men racing between flickering pinpricks of light. What is it like up there? He imagines a wild world, where space is filled with black and then a brilliant pink, in which a strange chatter flows through the air waves, extending to strange planets. Peter stops. The wonderful and weird world disappears, and he is back on the cold grass. The alien in his hand studies him with expectant, glinting eyes, like a secret is trapped in his wide green head. The study door still hasn’t opened. Peter flings the little figure into the sky with all his might, and walks back inside. There are tears on his cheek. The space creature rises into the blackness, and with a thud, lands on the grass.
It is 1959.

The room is quiet. The chalkboard abandoned, lights off, only illuminated by the gentle streetlight outside the window.

It is 1959.

For the most part, the evening crowds have disappeared. The streets are empty with the exception of a few stragglers, stumbling down the cement pathways. Although they are alone, lost in the night, they each carry a sense of satisfaction. The night has exceeded their expectations, and wherever they end up, they will be happy. Not lost, traveling.
Back in the bar, the musicians idle by the stage, snapping shut cases and adjusting to the strange silence that surrounds them after the performance. The saxophone case still lies open, its cargo gleaming and gold in the dim lights. After a long night of journeying, the music winds its way back into the bar, and curls up inside the saxophone.