In Bat Out of Hall, the bell tolls but is not heard. Bats cross the air without frightening anyone. Night gathers thickly around the figure at its center, yet nothing hidden within it appears to be coming for him.

The darkness has stopped behaving like an absence. As the eye adjusts, it becomes an environment: inhabited, enveloping and unexpectedly comforting. Things continue happening beyond what can be heard or immediately seen, and they no longer need to announce themselves to be real.

The King closes Air of Diamonds inside the dark rather than outside looking in. Once we learn to see there, we discover we were never separate from it.