Shorty is a Haitian boy trapped in the rubble of a hospital when an earthquake ravages the world around him. The bodies were lifeless and increasingly weak from lack of food and water, death seemed imminent. As Shorty waits for a rescue that may never come, he recognizes another presence who has approached him throughout his two hundred years of history. A man named Toussaint l’Ouverture – Haitian slave turned revolutionary leader whose life was ravaged by violence and ended up in the dark. When Shorty was unconscious and unconscious, scenes from his and Toussaint’s lives replayed and entwined. But the common ground of this modern boy from the slums and the visionary black leader will make listeners shudder.

• In Darkness

• By: Nick Lake