Recorder Lesson

The first thing I remember was being in a recorder lesson. There were four of us taking group lessons together, and in this lesson we were put into pairs. I was working with a young boy, and we'd been working together through the lesson on something, and the plan was that later on in the evening the group would meet up again and we would perform a duet with our partners.

The lesson ended and I went home. The layout of the house was not like any house I've ever lived in, and we were getting ready for the wedding. It was early afternoon and we still had a few things to finalise, and the wedding was due to be later that evening. We were cutting it a little bit fine as we had quite a long drive to the wedding.

The weird thing was that my mum was here, and she was with Ces (her ex-husband). We were talking about how much stuff was left to do and she said that I should call my recorder partner and tell him I'm not going to be coming back this evening!

Mum had had an argument with Ces and was upset. She told me that she didn't want to go to the wedding with him, and so I suggested that she could come in the car with my and Yu Lee. She was delighted at this idea!

Mum was nervous about telling Ces that she wouldn't be going with him as she thought it would probably make him angry. I remember thinking "Why are they still together? Does she even want to be with him any more?" Then I remembered that they weren't really together any more (in real life they've been divorced for years).

We went to tell Ces, but when we got to him, the first thing he said was that maybe mum should come in the car with us. Mum looked relieved.

Blocked Tenor

We said we should make a move, but I wanted to show Mum my recorders. Yu Lee said that we shouldn't mess around, but I said that one minute wasn't going to make a lot of difference.

I took Yu Lee's soprano recorder (the type children are give in school) out of its bag, and said that it was easy to play, but I didn't really like it because it was too shrill. I blew a few notes on it and put it back.

Next I took out my alto recorder (quite a bit bigger than the soprano) and put it together and showed it to Mum. I played a few notes, and told her that this one was quite easy to play, but not quite as shrill as the soprano.

Finally I took out the tenor and assembled it. When I lifted it up, what looked like clouds of cobwebs seemed to be sitting in front of each of the holes in the recorder, that looked like bright lights shining out of the holes through a large volume of transparent cotton wool.

Mum was surprised by how big it was, and I asked her what she thought it would sound like. She said "lower". I put the recorder up to my lips, covering all of the holes to let out a deep note, but when I blew into it, a very muffled sound came out of the recorder as if was blocked by something. I thought it was odd that the recorder would be full of condensation already, but I blew through the sound hole to try to blow the moisture out, but nothing came out. I put it up to my lips again, and the sound was still muffled.

I was determined to show her what it sounded like, and Yu Lee was putting the pressure on me to hurry up. I took my fingers off of some of the holes to play a higher note, and this time blew through it long and hard. At first my breath had considerable resistance, and barely a sound came out of it, but then all of a sudden the blockage cleared and clouds of fine, white dust erupted from each of the holes like a fountain, creating a large white cloud that hung in the air and then started to drift slowly down towards the ground. As the blockage cleared, the recorder started to make a beautiful, deep tone, unlike anything I'd ever heard before.

A Mad Panic

"Come on Stephen, we're going to be late!"

Yu Lee was getting really anxious now so I put the recorders away and started to get my things together to go to the wedding. Yu Lee asked me to call the registry office and confirm what time the ceremony was, so I did that. It turned out that we only had a couple of hours to get there, and it would pretty much take the whole time we had left to drive there.

At this point I was starting to panic too. There were still a lot of things to do, but we just had to leave, so I was frantically grabbing my suit, the rings, all of the things we needed and trying to get them into the car so that we could leave.

This is where a really common dream-sign happened for me: I was repeatedly walking back from the house to the car, picking things up, but every time I got to the car I realised I'd forgotten something else. I was feeling anxious and frustrated at my own incompetence.

As I was grabbing stuff and getting ready, I was listing the things we hadn't done. "We didn't make the CD with the music; we didn't do the seating plan..."

Eventually we got everything together and headed outside. "Yu Lee's driving," I said, "because she can drive much quicker than I can and I don't want to be late." We started to get into the car, and then I woke up.

Yu Lee is going to cook something, and the recipe asks for butter cream. Unfortunately we don't have any, so I do a quick Google search and find out that instead of using butter cream, you can make something very similar by mixing butter and mild cheddar.

I go into the kitchen and melt some butter, then I cut some mild cheddar into cubes and mix it into the butter. For some reason the mixture goes a light brown colour and solidifies, and doesn't look like butter cream at all.

Yu Lee gets frustrated, and we decide to go out instead and head into town.

We arrive in Cambridge city centre and I'm carrying a small baking tray with the 'butter cream' that I've made. We walk around a bit looking for a restaurant, and then Yu Lee suggests that we head out of the city centre and explore some new places that we've never been to before.

We walk past a restaurant with a man standing outside (I think he worked there and was trying to get customers to come in) so I approach him and say "Would you like some butter cream?" The man reaches out and breaks off half of the mixture in my baking tray and puts it on the stone windowsill of the restaurant. Then he picks it up and it has dirt on it and starts to brush it off. For some reason this makes Yu Lee angry and she asks me why he's making such a big deal of brushing off the dirt.

We carry on walking, and end up in a new part of town which I've never seen before. We walk down a little side alley which leads down hill, and at the bottom is a hotel which is in a very old building. I think I see somewhere that we can cut through onto the next street, but the gap between the buildings is actually only a couple of centimetres wide.

I notice the bins outside the hotel, and decide it is time to throw my 'butter cream' away. Before I do it I break a piece off and try it, and it tastes like a rich, half cooked pastry. I think I must have put too much flour in it, and then dump it in the bin.

Yu Lee goes inside the hotel and I follow, and when I get inside I see her disappear upstairs. I get to the top of the stairs and can't see where she's gone, but then I notice the toilets are there and think that she must have gone into the toilets.

While I wait for her I look around. The building is very old, and is the kind of building where all of the floors are angled and everything is wonky. At the top of the stairs there is a round table with four chairs under a low, slanted roof with a window, and to the left is a landing with doors to the toilets and some of the rooms. I remember thinking that this must have been built as a very nice house, but now it is a hotel. I wondered how the floors could have sloped so much without the building just falling to pieces.

Yu Lee comes out of the toilets and we head outside and continue walking. We come to a park and walk through it, and two homeless people approach Yu Lee. One of them starts asking her for money, and while she is distracted, the other one puts his hand on the small of her back and starts walking, pushing her with him towards some bushes.

Yu Lee is starting to look scared and I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I quicken my pace to try and keep up with the guy that's marching her away. "What are you doing?" I ask him.

"Fixing her," he replies.

"You'll have to fix me first!" I say to him as I start to get an adrenaline rush.

This is the last thing that happens before I wake up with my heart pounding.