During the summer immediately following my graduation from high school, I drove to Cleveland to stay with a girl I had met earlier that year at the Projekt Records festival in Chicago. She and her older sister were the reigning goth ladies in the small goth/darkwave scene of Clevo, referred to as "The Sisters" by all of the local club-goers.

During my first night there, we all went out to a club called The Paradise (I believe?), next door to a smaller venue which we would later frequent almost nightly called The Chamber.

On this particular night, the girls (and all of their friends) had taken acid. I sat in a chair at the edge of the dance floor watching them, feeling disconnected from everything and still sort of surprised at myself for having driven all this way to see this girl who I barely knew.

Then a song came on that struck me like lightning. The lyrics: "Imagination takes the shadows away"... such a bold and simple statement which at the time I suppose I needed to hear, filled as I was with doubt about my future, this relationship (why the hell was I in Cleveland with this group of people?), and my life in general. Those words left an impression on me that I would repeat to myself for weeks to come.

I tracked down the artist and the song, which would prove itself to be one of the only uplifting numbers in Xymox's career. From the Netherlands, (Clan of) Xymox's "Imagination" off of the 1989 album Twist of Shadows.