The Dark for Voice and Piano/Harpischord was written in 2006.
Monica Filgo contributed the text from which the lyrics were based and is based on her experience being mugged.
In the original text and adaptation, the author alternates between violent reality and numbing imagination. I felt the turning point in the text is when the unavoidable reality overcomes any escapist fantasy, and the two states of mind combine. This piece was an attempt make an adequately emotional setting to an experience of a personal friend.
A late drive and the Dark is so thick.
I twist my hair and imagine-
The scent of water on my head,
Rain sound of water over me.
I imagine sleep as I drive.
Ready with my keys, the shadows all around hide Him.
I feel my lungs explode, screaming.
I tremble. I am frozen stone.
Young, with this gun, he blends into the night.
He’s reaching towards me.
I step away, and imagine-
My hair in his fist, my teeth along the ground, my blood. I try to scream again, but he stops me.
I try to stand, to bite, to kick but he stops me.
I imagine dying.
I imagine living at this in between place with a gun to my
neck!
I feel the ground then nothing.
I would run for forever, if ever if I could stand. A future now that’s unreal!
He whispers, ‘Quiet calm down.’
I close my eyes, and enter the Dark.
Recording – 2008 – Allison Usher (Schnake) and Alejandro Aguello