ARCHIVE

This story takes place in a city square, depicting an episode in the lives of two street people, a man and a woman, as observed by a narrator who watches from her hotel balcony. Focusing in, the narrator begins to "hear" fragments from the minds of the lovers: The young man, once a classical pianist, now produces a hellish blues, which fuses with the courtyard's musique concrète, with shards of his narcissistic dreams, and with dehydrated strings of the older woman's distorted understanding. The narrator doesn't move to interfere, yet she is compelled by what she witnesses: Is the woman rescuing or destroying the man? Commissioned by New American Radio.