Contagion 2 - June 2003

We continue our journey through the dark and dismal Contagion world. We had arrived at the point where protagonist Noah has found the dying girl and are ready to head into the flasback. But let’s first insert the ‘piece’ that has been provided by the release of Contagious and comes in between The Painted Man and Spectre At The Feast.

The Hour Glass

As time slips through my finger tips
Like grains of sand in Caesar’s hands
I can hear the time bomb as it ticks and it ticks
Not long to go now, no more will we stand
Invincible, sure and superior
We are fallible, weak and inferior
As we slip and we slide down the long mountainside
We’re the debris of a lost human tide

There’s a feeling I can feel as the clockwork clicks around
There’s a shadow after me and it waits without a sound
I’m so tired of standing by while the fates designs my life
They never tell me why the world must die!

Surely there is someone to reach out
Surely there is someone to reach out

As time slips through my fingers
There’s a void where the hope used to be
As time flows through my fingers
We see visions that no one should see
And it’s cold, so cold out here
And it’s cold when there’s so much to fear

As time slips through my fingers
I am blinded and alone
As time flows through my fingers
I am haunted by demons I have always known
And it’s cold, so cold out here
And it’s cold when there’s so much to fear… So near!

Desperation drips from every line. Noah’s racing against time to save the world and he seems to be losing the fight. He feels like he’s being toyed with by higher powers while he’s in the dark about what’s going on. The fragment ‘the fates design my life’ suggests that there is indeed some large-scale plan by an undefined higher power going on.

Mankind’s sad state after the outbreak of the virus is described; seemingly invincible and superior, man has now proven to be fallible and inferior. Mankind reached so high, but is now a shadow of what it used to be.

Noah is haunted by ‘demons he has always known’. Just like the line ‘This seed of hate was carried in my soul/Waiting for the moment when it could take control’ in Never-Ending Night, this line hints at the fact that Noah seems to be selected (chosen if you will) to play this role. The dreadful things he now sees all around him, the results of the virus, have already been haunting him for all his life. Now they’ve come true. This also means he did not bring the virus into the world on purpose. He was merely an instrument, an innocent person cursed with this fate (‘a pawn in the game’, as Clive put it). But why Noah?

Skin Game

Knowing what I know
I’m never free to come and go
But when I try to open doors
I burn when daylight hits the floor

Playing the skin game
Breathing the blue flame
Playing the skin game
In sight, insane

Knowing what I know
I’ve been looking for a space to grow
And maybe I can set you free
Yes maybe I can set you free

Playing the skin game
Breathing the blue flame
Playing the skin game
In sight, insane

I’m content to live in the vacuum I have made
A comfortable existence on my own
The problems of the world are there for others to debate
I prefer to face my days alone!

Kneeling down before I sleep
Never said a prayer that I believed
One day you’ll understand
Why have I become this way?
Maybe it’s another quirk of fate
Yielding to my DNA

Try to live on my own
Reborn once more as a whisper on the telephone
Unafraid of it all
Every thought, every dream, I will call! I will call!
Now I’m living alone
And all I am is a whisper on the telephone
Making sense of it all
Every thought, every dream, I will call! I will call!

The beginning of the flashback provides us with some clues. Noah is gifted with special ‘insight’ (he’s psychic?) and therefore knows things others do not (‘Knowing what I know…’). He does not know why he has this special power, he’s just been born with it. Now the interesting question is whether he was chosen to carry the virus because he has this special power, or whether he’s been given this power because he was destined to bring the virus into the world… But either way these two things are connected and together make Noah’s fate.

He may have insight, people around him just think he’s insane and accuse him of playing a skin game, i.e. of being a fraud. Noah opts for playing the skin game and thus make a living. Meanwhile he tries to use his power to do good (‘Maybe I can set you free’). But, without knowing, he also breathes the blue flame, i.e. carries the virus.

At a certain point Noah decides that he does not want to live this way and goes into exile (‘Now I’m living alone‘). He’s content to live on his own and stops trying to use his power to make the world a better place (’The problems of the world are there for others to debate/I prefer to face my days alone!’). The only contact with other people is by telephone.

But the visions, thoughts and dreams won’t stop coming and he’s still trying to make sense of them, which makes him call out desperately (portrayed powerfully by the ‘screaming man’ in the Contagion digipack and the Skin Game video footage). It must be frustrating when you’re plagued by dreams and visions all the time without knowing what they exactly mean.

An interesting hidden ‘code’ in this lyric is formed by the first letters of the sentences from ‘I prefer to face my days alone’ onwards: ‘I know my true name.’ What is Noah’s true name?

Salamander

Blue fire, spreading across
From my finger tips - a powerful chaos
Ice cold, consuming all
Unstoppable advancing wall of
Radiance, marching forth
For the final throws of a world war
Bow down before the truth
I hear the cry - too late to stop you

Burn - Like a moth to the flame
We’ll burn - As the fire calls us by name
Burn - Like a moth to the flame

Blue fire, spreading across
From the farthest shore – the final cost
Go back to the other place
Another side of a well known face
Blinding light, the world falls down
I will draw you in to the slightest sound
Reach out, follow your heart
To the end of time – You will not be the last

Burn – Like a moth to the flame
We’ll burn - As the fire calls us by name
Burn - Like a moth to the flame

Blue fire, a creeping curse
There is nowhere safe in the universe
Too late, you are hypnotised
By the gentle waves, as they dive and rise
One strike of a single match
And the human race is reduced to ash
Bow down before the truth
I hear the cry - too late to stop you

Burn – Like a moth to the flame
We’ll burn - As the fire calls us by name
Burn - Like a moth to the flame
We’ll burn - As the fire calls us by name

One of Noah’s visions is the dark vision of the ‘salamander virus’… A radiant blue fire that hypnotises every man, woman and child and draws them in, to burn like moths in the blue flame. There’s no refuge, the blue fire spreads everywhere and consumes all. Noah sees it happen, unable to stop it.

Tsunami

A wave that rushes headlong through the darkness
An eternal flood that violates our minds
A mighty river thirsty for our sanity
A waterfall that crashes down upon mankind

The foam that smashes deep into the shoreline
A tidal force that's pumping through our veins
A wordless voice that echoes in our beating hearts
Driving every living soul insane

There’s nowhere to hide now
There’s nowhere to run

A skyline that is changed beyond redemption
The planet with it’s back against the wall
Man was overflowing with self confidence
The time was overdue that he would take the fall

There’s nowhere to hide now
Nowhere to run
There’s nowhere to hide now
Nowhere to run

This track starts with the morse code, which says ‘be careful what you wish for’. For whom is this warning meant? Mankind? Noah? Anyhow, the warning falls on deaf ears and the virus is indeed unleashed; Noah’s vision has turned into reality. How this happens exactly is unclear, but the results are devastating. Every living soul is driven insane by the virus and civilization as we know it is destroyed.

The metaphors that describe the spreading of the virus as a wave, an eternal flood, a tidal force, etcetera, again point to the biblical flood. This is once more underlined by the phrase ‘Man was overflowing with self-confidence/The time was overdue that he would take the fall’; the virus as a punishment for the vanity of mankind.

Bitter Harvest

We’ve sown the seeds now
Don’t know where they may fall
Just lonely ghost towns
Empty churches, empty town halls
We’ve travelled far now
And so into the wilderness we crawl

I’m floating through the debris
Of reference books and catalogues
Climbing over sun baked bones
Of Kings and Queens and Demigods

You can take away my crown
But you’ll never bring my spirit down
I won’t give in
Try to push me off the rope
I will float down on the wings of hope
I won’t give in

I wander through the dead lands
Computer chips and stereos
Powerless technology
Instruction books and videos

You can take away my crown
But you’ll never bring my spirit down
I won’t give in
Try to push me off the rope
I will float down on the wings of hope
I won’t give in

Time may fly
And I will search the world for you
Rainbow skies
And I will cross the seven seas for you
Race on by
And I will find my way to you
Rainbow skies
And I will cross the universe for you

Now Noah travels through dead landscapes and deserted towns, remnants of civilization lie scattered everywhere and man has retreated into the wilderness. Not Noah though, who, being the carrier, is not affected by the virus. He is resigned to fight back. They (the power(s) that designed this scheme – question is who that is/they are!) may toy with him, try to bring him out of balance, he won’t give up. He will try to save the world. He knows the must find the girl for that (but why?), he will search all over for her and he will find her no matter what.

Note that the first letters of the sentences of the last verse, starting below, read Ararat, the name of the mountain on which the arc of the biblical Noah stranded when the flood receded.

Noah’s wanderings lead to the point where, still not having found the girl, his hope falters and he runs out of time; there’s almost nothing left to save anymore and mankind will be destroyed definitively (The Hour Glass). Thus we have returned to the the story line as laid out in episode 1 – the conclusion follows in the next episode!

By: Erik Beers