As can be seen, only a small portion of this 1994 poem is used in the choral piece "Nightfall". Although the original poem begins with the "smoking or no-smoking" dialogue, it seemed appropriate to base the main body of the music on an adaptation of the final verse of the poem -- focusing on the non-urban silence of the night sky in the country where the stars form silent pinpricks of light in the black sky, reminding us of the final silence we all must one day face.
SILENCE smoking or no-smoking? he asks no-music? I hazard he smiles - sir, that isn't possible the speakers are everywhere he's right it was an unreasonable request like asking to receive no junk mail the senders are everywhere overload! overload! turn down the input! sir, that's anti-social hold still we'll just implant this tiny clipper chip into the base of your skull you'll never complain again no no! I wake up in a sweat the virtual bureaucrat sits quietly behind me when did you first have these nightmares, he asks, that noise was out to get you? I'm trying to read on a train and these two guys behind are talking about their fishing trip nothing to tell each other really they were both there - know the same things but they tell them over again anyway that's the friendly human thing to do I squint at my book but can't make out a thing but fish I try a walkman with ear phones it simply burps in some treble without blocking the big-mouthed bass behind look, the implant I want is . . . the miniature toggle behind the ear: off for silent reading the finger-sensitive spot above the eyebrow: off for sightless listening the sinus-wave filter - the kid in the next seat stares at me you crazy or something? he asks I nod actually, he doesn't say that he's not into talking (for which I'm glad) instead, uses his eyes as output devices while bobbing his head up and down with the beat the echoes escaping from his earphones shake the train I've got an hour before my meeting so if I could eat quietly somewhere . . . but all the restaurants have piped-in migraine the whole atrium is throbbing Vonnegut had a story about IQ-equalizers in some future world implanted electrodes emitting random buzzes to destroy connected thought the higher your IQ the louder the buzz - a fair handicap system, after all but we don't have to wait, the buzzes have arrived and they're jamming in the parking lot at the fourth restaurant I give up and go in anyway smoking or non-? he asks listen, I - at night in the country when the sun and sounds go down - there flower one by one into the mute black sky pinprick constellations of stillness a pointillist quietscape dream rehearsal for the final silence ......................................Copyright (c) Rod Anderson 1994