MINA'S SONG


It is turn-of-the-century London. In a few short years the world will change beyond recognition; but to the five people in this fashionable drawing room, the status quo seems eternal, unalterable. The four men are relaxing after a hard day pursuing their respective careers; one stamping out the aberrations of madness; one preserving the rule of law; one defending the privileges of the aristocracy in the House of Lords: one carefully inculcating old knowledge in young minds, lest they stray into freethinking and error.
They look with proprietary fondness on the woman as she moves among them, marking with satisfaction her composed, submissive demeanour. Her husband may compare her favourably with three women he once met in a castle, who, though enslaved, dared to defy their master, and thus doubtless merited their deaths. The noble lord may think for a moment of his sweet, gentle bride-to-be who came to her own doom by abandoning the protection of the divine order.
"Sing for us something, Madam Mina," van Helsing says, a kindly suggestion with the force of a command. It is the only sort of communication she receives now from these men who own her. She sits dutifully at the pianoforte, looking from one blandly smiling face to another, wondering whether she will dare, this time, to put aside the familiar Schubert and Chopin and play the song that uncoils dangerously in her heart. 

They tell me...I am all right now
They tell me I can go out in the sun.
They tell me the mark is gone from my brow
They tell me the battle is won
So why do I feel betrayed and alone
When I lie with my husband at night?
Why am I no longer happy
Just being all right?

They tell me I am all right now
They tell me I have beaten the curse
They tell me that I was enslaved to the Devil
In danger of death, or far worse
So why do I long for the keenness of senses
Made dull by the sun's cruel light?
Why can I not be content 
To be merely all right?

Two old foreign men have fought to the death
Over me, and the older man lost
And now I am saved, and with every breath
I count the unbearable cost
For a moment I've seen what my life could have been
But I'll never know freedom again
Just a nightmare unending of wise, condescending,
Complacent, contemptible MEN...

They tell me that he was a demon
They tell me he killed men for play
But I saw the sadness and pain in his eyes
That only true death washed away
That other man talked about souls now at peace
But he only lived for the fight
And now there is nothing to be
Except simply all right.
I could have been ageless, immortal, and fair,
And joined my dark prince in his flight
But now he is dead, and I...

I am simply all right.
Condemned to a short, bitter lifetime
Of being all right.