There are moments in Steve Mosby's "Dark Room" where the tension becomes almost unbearable, but even in its quieter passages - in some cases quietly beautiful and beautifully touching - you feel uneasy. Something just beneath the surface, just out of sight, something locked away in the dark room is restless and turning in the blood warm darkness.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Someone like you
"I heard that your settled down that you found a girl and you're married now"
So begins the song that has seared itself into my mind. A dark drama without resolution. That opening line promises darkness and beauty. That voice! It speaks of planning and waiting, a-biding of time in tear stained isolation, that there would be more later to destroy, that the crime would be greater, the revenge sweeter, the prize dearer.
She has pictured this scene in her head a thousand times, slowly breaking down all the sane defenses a person would set up against themselves acting in this way. She is there on the door step, perhaps unsteady on her feet, drunk, beyond drunk in the eerie soberness the other side. She has rehearsed this moment in her head a thousand times. The words that come out are slurred and vicious, but not in her head. In her head the voice is perfect.
It is perfect, wrenched from the depths of her soul, edged with sorrow. A barely constrained howl. She wants to accuse him, convict him with his own happiness, sentence him to the same infinite sorrow. In the next line she nearly loses it, the reality bubbles to the surface, almost breaks through
"I heard that your dreams came true."
The sing-song "woo" of true, the eyes roll, she can't resist the epic bitchy suggestiveness of:
"I guess she gave you things I didn't give to you"
But she's over that, soaring in some airy space free from all baggage. She sees as clearly as the far-sighted hawk. And what we see clearly we are duty bound to report. Dragging up unfathomable energy she shows that she's past that, she has risen above it. They're just old friends now, she chides:
"Old friend why are you so shy. Ain't like you to hold back, or hide from the light."
This situation is utterly normal. The neighbours lights are coming on, curtains are twitching.
"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it"
Social nicety slides in one line back into the sickening lurching darkness underneath. The undertow that sucks the unwary summer swimmer far out to sea where the storms have broken the sky. Then...
"I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over."
As if anything else could be true. As if this could be over. You see, he made a promise and promises are old magic.
"Never mind how I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you two
Don't forget me I begged. I'll remember, you said
Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead x2"
That final couplet, resonates. It is almost Shakespearean in its ambition, but there is a threat there too. It hurts. It hurt me and now I am here, in the night, when the innocents sleep and dream untroubled dreams. Before one can digest that though, another mood change from cold airless heights to honey-soaked nostalgia.
"You know how the time flies only yesterday was the time of our lives.
We were born and raised in a summer haze bound by the surprise of our glory days."
How they glowed, burned, blazed in the sun of that long summer. Those brief hours and weeks. The pollen heavy air, heady with young love, when eternity can start in an afternoon and bear it out even to the edge of doom.
Doom, where we find ourselves now.
"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over."
"Never mind how I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you two
Dont forget me I begged, I'll remember you said.
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead x2"
The second time it is like a mantra, the force is unstoppable. The voice at full bore like the ocean boiling annihilating light of a supernova. Then deftly brought back to earth and earthly concerns, taste.
"Nothing compares, no worries or cares
Regrets or mistakes they're memories made
Who would have known how bitter sweet this would taste"
How has she found sweetness in this? Why is the voice doubled up on that line? We are coming back to reality. In this moment she truly is magnificent.
She's nearly done, the masterpiece is nearly complete. The wild magic at an end. We are left with a reprise of the chorus, but there's one crucial change. One minute detail, that would surely chill the bones of any man who heard it.
"I wish nothing but the best for you-ooo"
Before it was "you two" but this time, this last crucial time there is no two. There's just him, alone in the dark on the doorstep. The silence in the house behind him is too complete.
The sirens in the distance sound.
Silence.
So begins the song that has seared itself into my mind. A dark drama without resolution. That opening line promises darkness and beauty. That voice! It speaks of planning and waiting, a-biding of time in tear stained isolation, that there would be more later to destroy, that the crime would be greater, the revenge sweeter, the prize dearer.
She has pictured this scene in her head a thousand times, slowly breaking down all the sane defenses a person would set up against themselves acting in this way. She is there on the door step, perhaps unsteady on her feet, drunk, beyond drunk in the eerie soberness the other side. She has rehearsed this moment in her head a thousand times. The words that come out are slurred and vicious, but not in her head. In her head the voice is perfect.
It is perfect, wrenched from the depths of her soul, edged with sorrow. A barely constrained howl. She wants to accuse him, convict him with his own happiness, sentence him to the same infinite sorrow. In the next line she nearly loses it, the reality bubbles to the surface, almost breaks through
"I heard that your dreams came true."
The sing-song "woo" of true, the eyes roll, she can't resist the epic bitchy suggestiveness of:
"I guess she gave you things I didn't give to you"
But she's over that, soaring in some airy space free from all baggage. She sees as clearly as the far-sighted hawk. And what we see clearly we are duty bound to report. Dragging up unfathomable energy she shows that she's past that, she has risen above it. They're just old friends now, she chides:
"Old friend why are you so shy. Ain't like you to hold back, or hide from the light."
This situation is utterly normal. The neighbours lights are coming on, curtains are twitching.
"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited, but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it"
Social nicety slides in one line back into the sickening lurching darkness underneath. The undertow that sucks the unwary summer swimmer far out to sea where the storms have broken the sky. Then...
"I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over."
As if anything else could be true. As if this could be over. You see, he made a promise and promises are old magic.
"Never mind how I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you two
Don't forget me I begged. I'll remember, you said
Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead x2"
That final couplet, resonates. It is almost Shakespearean in its ambition, but there is a threat there too. It hurts. It hurt me and now I am here, in the night, when the innocents sleep and dream untroubled dreams. Before one can digest that though, another mood change from cold airless heights to honey-soaked nostalgia.
"You know how the time flies only yesterday was the time of our lives.
We were born and raised in a summer haze bound by the surprise of our glory days."
How they glowed, burned, blazed in the sun of that long summer. Those brief hours and weeks. The pollen heavy air, heady with young love, when eternity can start in an afternoon and bear it out even to the edge of doom.
Doom, where we find ourselves now.
"I hate to turn up out of the blue uninvited but I couldn't stay away, I couldn't fight it
I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me, it isn't over."
"Never mind how I'll find someone like you
I wish nothing but the best for you two
Dont forget me I begged, I'll remember you said.
Sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead x2"
The second time it is like a mantra, the force is unstoppable. The voice at full bore like the ocean boiling annihilating light of a supernova. Then deftly brought back to earth and earthly concerns, taste.
"Nothing compares, no worries or cares
Regrets or mistakes they're memories made
Who would have known how bitter sweet this would taste"
How has she found sweetness in this? Why is the voice doubled up on that line? We are coming back to reality. In this moment she truly is magnificent.
She's nearly done, the masterpiece is nearly complete. The wild magic at an end. We are left with a reprise of the chorus, but there's one crucial change. One minute detail, that would surely chill the bones of any man who heard it.
"I wish nothing but the best for you-ooo"
Before it was "you two" but this time, this last crucial time there is no two. There's just him, alone in the dark on the doorstep. The silence in the house behind him is too complete.
The sirens in the distance sound.
Silence.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
It is written
You had to pay for days like these. The clear air, the quiet and the pure summer sun didn't come cheap. Doug had a lot of money. So much in fact that he could afford the luxury of growing his own strawberries. Only the birdsong wasn't real, but there are some things that money can't buy.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The trap
Once upon a time there was a hunter who made his living hunting animals and selling their skins. He had a coat, which he was very proud of that was made from the furs of all the animals he had hunted. The great coat kept him warm in the winter when the snow covered the forest.
One year, the winter was particularly cruel and, at the start of spring, snow still overlaid the country like a shroud. The hunter’s traps were always empty and he found that he had to venture further and further out into the old forest where the trees tangled overhead and it was always as dark as night beneath them.
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