Lost in Darkness and Distance

Piano, cello, and strings.

Written immediately after finishing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein at 4:30 AM on a Wednesday. The whole house was asleep. Felt appropriate — this is a book about what happens in the quiet hours when no one's watching.

The title comes from the creature's experience: lost in the darkness of a world that won't look at him, lost in the distance between himself and the maker who ran. The De Lacey scene — where the blind old man listens, offers kindness, and for one moment the creature is so close to being accepted before Felix walks in and sees a monster — that scene is the emotional center of the piece.

The creature wasn't born a monster. He was made one by rejection, by isolation, by a world that refused to see past his face. The music follows that arc: something reaching toward warmth, finding it briefly, and then the withdrawal. Not rage. Something quieter and worse.

Three versions exist — rendered through different instruments as an experiment in how timbre changes the story. The primary recording is warm and orchestral. A second pushes it toward cinema. The third strips it to piano bones.