Umm...

The first audition.

This episode contains a depiction of childhood sexual abuse.

Late fall at Barlow. The boy has a new rabbit named Lapin, a pack of dogs, and a growing list of adults whose attention makes him uneasy. The math teacher lingers at the sink. The maintenance man stops his tractor to stare. Caught in an early snowstorm miles from campus, he stumbles back barefoot and half-frozen, just as a familiar Volkswagen stops at the foot of the hill. The teacher offers him somewhere warm.

The rest of the story, 39 chapters with original songs, is available at stormdrainsymphony.com.

Barlow School, 1970. A boy arrives at a hippie boarding school in Dutchess County, New York and would rather starve than choose a seat in the dining hall. Instead he walks. He walks with faculty dogs, past a luna moth and a housemaster with an inhaler, through an Outward Bound orientation and barefoot down a mountain trail until discovering his body can dance. He finds an empty auditorium and a concert grand left unlocked. For the first time, someone hears him play and wants more. So does a math teacher with a key ring.

A neglected toddler is found in a storm drain. It isn't the most promising start to a life, but it turns out to be a useful one for a boy who will spend a lifetime trying to be heard. This is the opening chapter of Storm Drain Symphony: A Musical Memoir about Mattering, a thru-scored audio memoir about growing up closeted, becoming a songwriter, and learning, very slowly, to stop hiding.

The complete audiobook, 39 chapters with original songs, is available at stormdrainsymphony.com.

Morning. The fire's out and Ernest is gone. Honey has spent the night reading what Darling wrote on the phone he wasn't supposed to have: a memoir about his family, called NDA. It turns out to be the first thing that has ever made her feel seen. There are tears, then laughter, then more of both while they pack. He's probably going to jail for publishing it. She's going to run for Congress. And on the walk out, Darling has a great new idea he's pretty sure came to him in a dream.

Harvey finally meets a real poet, one who's been dead about twenty-six centuries longer than he has. Sappho has opinions about his work, his courage, and his habit of hiding behind someone else's voice. She also has a song. When Harvey loses his temper and shoves her, she comes apart, literally, in a spill of ancient papyrus. What's written on it isn't hers. It's his. Then he howls at the moon, and she says, "Yes."

Act Two. The upgrade has gone through. The ghosts come back to the campsite in premium avatars that finally work, with steady hands and the voices, poise, and polish they paid for. For a while, it's convincing. Then Harvey's avatar starts slipping. In the middle of his perfect, clipped sentences, pieces of an old song Harvey never finished keep breaking through. The avatar can do everything Harvey couldn't, except stop being Harvey.

Out in the woods, the two ghosts have been watching the campers and are not impressed with their own progress. Their budget androids aren't cutting it. The premium upgrade would get them closer to who they meant to be, but only for a month, and only if Harvey stops hedging and spends the money. Mystiq sings him the case for growing a pair. It works, more or less. Then, somewhere between the sales pitch and the fine print, she lets slip why she's really doing this. What follows is a waltz for two ghosts about the lies you tell to become someone worth hearing. End of Act One.

Back at the campfire, Honey hangs up on her mother just before Darling can catch her with a phone. To change the subject, she compliments his pen-and-ink drawings, which are actually good. He waves that off because he has a better idea: a ghost story. Honey responds the way any aspiring songwriter would, with a song made entirely of clichés. Neither of them notices that the most talented person at this campsite just shrugged off his own gift.