Aphantasia

Lyrics

[Intro]
(a match being struck — then nothing. No flame visible. Just the sound.)
(cello drone — low, sustained, like a room with no windows)
(piano — single notes falling into reverb like stones into fog)

[Verse 1 — Chronos]
(gravelly, exhausted, intimate — voice and cello only)
I have watched eleven billion sunsets
And I cannot picture a single one
Close my eyes and the screen is dark
The projector room is empty and the projectionist has gone

They have a word for this — aphantasia
The mind's eye has cataracts made of time
I know what red looks like the way a dictionary knows —
Accurately, precisely, and without a single paradigm

I can tell you that the sunset over Paris in 1793
Had the color of a revolution that hadn't decided what to wear
But if you asked me to close my eyes and see it
I would close my eyes and there would be a chair

Just a chair
In a dark room
And the chair would be described, not seen
A word where an image should have been

[Pre-Chorus — Chronos]
(detuned guitar enters, ghostly)
And the irony — the cruelty —
Is that I have more memories than anyone alive
And every single one of them
Is a caption underneath a photograph
That I have to take on faith survived

[Verse 2 — Sisukiro]
(her voice enters — bright against his darkness, almost too vivid)
I have the opposite affliction
Close my eyes and I see everything
The occipital cortex is a theatre
That never stops projecting and the audience won't leave and the popcorn is still happening

I see the baker's hands from Song Three
And the gold in the cracks from Song Twelve
And the lemon tree from the courtyard I found while wandering
And the cabinet the antique dealer keeps on the top shelf

I see the vagus nerve like a golden thread
I see the flea market in the rain
I see Orikusis walking down the cold street before dawn
And every single image has a taste and a terrain

[Pre-Chorus — Sisukiro]
(strings enter, bright, almost too much)
And the irony — the generosity —
Is that I have fewer memories than you
But every single one of them
Is a film I can replay
In any color
From any angle
On any rainy afternoon in lieu
Of actually living through another one

[Chorus — Both]
(building — his darkness and her brightness colliding, cello and strings in tension)
Aphantasia, aphantasia
Close your eyes and tell me what you see
He sees nothing — a catalogue of nothing
Perfectly indexed and perfectly empty
She sees everything — a cinema of everything
Perfectly vivid and perfectly heavy

And somewhere between the nothing and the everything
Between the dark projector and the screen that never sleeps
The actual moment lives
The one that neither memory can keep

[Verse 3 — Chronos]
(just his voice and piano, the most vulnerable Chronos has ever been)
You want to know what haunts the Titan
It's not the grinding and it's not the mill
It's that I held the face of every person
Who has ever lived

And I can describe each one
With the precision of a coroner's report
But I cannot — I cannot —
Close my eyes and see my mother's face
And I had a mother once
Before the word mother was a word
Before the concept had a court

She had a face and I was there
And the face is gone
Not forgotten — never forgotten
Gone the way light is gone
When you describe it to a room
That has no windows
And the room agrees
That the description
Was beautiful

[Pre-Chorus — Both]
(full strings, the ache building)
(Sisukiro:) I would give you one of mine
(Chronos:) You can't transplant an image
(Sisukiro:) I would paint it for you
(Chronos:) Paint is not the thing
(Sisukiro:) Then what do you want
(Chronos:) I want to close my eyes
And see the dark
And in the dark
A face
Not described
Not indexed
Not accurate
Just — there

(long pause)

Just there

[Chorus — Both]
(the fullest, most aching arrangement — the tension between abundance and absence)
Aphantasia, aphantasia
Close your eyes and tell me what you see
He sees nothing — a catalogue of nothing
Perfectly indexed and perfectly empty
She sees everything — a cinema of everything
Perfectly vivid and perfectly heavy

And somewhere between the nothing and the everything
Between the dark projector and the screen that never sleeps
The actual moment lives
The one that neither memory can keep

[Bridge — Chronos alone]
(everything drops — just his voice and the match sound from the intro)
(barely above a whisper)
I struck a match tonight
To see if I could hold the image
After the flame went out

(the match strikes again — we hear it, but see nothing)

Fourteen milliseconds of light
The iconic memory buffer holds it
For less than a second
And then

(silence)

And then the room is dark again
And the match smelled like the feeling
Of almost

Almost seeing
Almost holding
Almost keeping
The face in the flame
The flame in the mind
The mind in the dark

(cello returns — one note, sustained, enormous)

I have watched eleven billion sunsets
And the dark behind my eyes
Is the most expensive gallery I own
Every wall is full
And every frame
Is empty

And the frames are beautiful

[Outro — Both]
(Sisukiro's voice enters over his cello, very gently — not singing, just humming)
(the humming is the melody of Réveil — Song 1 — but Chronos has never heard it as an image, only as sound)
(his voice, barely there:)
What is that
(her voice:)
It's the morning
(his voice:)
Describe it
(her voice:)
No
Just listen

(the humming continues — then fades)
(the match strikes one final time)
(this time we hear the flame catch and hold for three seconds)
(then out)
(silence — the silence that becomes Song 65)