It came to mind because the same thing happened to me today.

I dreamt of murder, but I couldn’t understand how real it was. I dreamt of you, but I didn’t know if you were really there. I closed my eyes shut and opened them, but nothing changed. So was it real, or am I still sleeping? We walk along a deserted street of a grey city and look around: broken musical instruments cast from windows lay strewn on the pavement. No need for them now. Guitars, flutes, violins, trombones, accordions, drums. The city is silent. The city is in lockdown. Cracks form. Noiseless faces cast their glances on us from broken windows. They are like pupils in the eyes of buildings.

“I had a nightmare today,” I tell you. “I dreamt that humankind had forgotten how to make music.”

As usual, you don’t speak, as if saying: “What’s this nonsense now dear?” And I love you madly. As a musician loves his instrument. As the dreamer loves his dream. As people love a God impassive to their prayers. I know that you too can feel the silence of the empty streets swallowing us up. You too feel the grip of fear. You too sense that God has deprived humanity of music and the ability to forget about mortality. We walk for a long time, holding hands. The cafes and restaurants are closed. The way home is forgotten. We stop at a crippled piano deprived of a leg at some point during the battles for a prime place in the old communal apartments.

I squat, tilt my head, and lay my hands on the diagonal keyboard.

Suddenly, a beautiful and melodic sound. My fingers tremble with surprise and my mouth dries. I close my eyes. My throat cramps. I venture into another chord. I hear the beating of hearts and hammers of the primitive builders creating our bodies. They excavate subcontraoctave notes, thick and booming, out of the soil. Like thunder straining to smash windows on a summer veranda. Like a string wrapped round the vocal cords of a basso profundo. Has God forged us the way we design our homes? Does he strike us with a hammer, driving us into the grave, or stir the concrete and pour it with his huge hands into wombs? Or is he different? The composer, the conductor who waves his hands and teaches monkeys to evolve to play the violin, and me to cry and love you from the very opening verses.

“Ave Maria!” you exhale. Your arm rests on my shoulder, wraps around my neck. There is panic in your voice: “What’s the matter? What’s happening to you?”

Somewhere in the piano a string snaps. I open my eyes and my fingers are short, curved claws. I am a monster.

And you . . . Here you are, reading flashes of my neurons transcoded by my shaky hand into symbols on paper.

Wake up. It’s the dreamtime now.

F.

Kyiv

Romodanov Neurosurgery Institute