Solo & Ensemble to the Death

Dreamed on 2019.03.31

The totalitarian powers that be are keeping us in cells; musicians pair up with each other to compete; the winner moves on, the loser is killed (or at least, taken away and not seen again). Each time you have the option to keep the same instrument or change to a random new instrument.

I'm not a musician; I'm one of the team that helps prep the musicians before their competitions and listens to them practice.

One of the people in my room is my friend, who is performing on oboe, the instrument he studied.

After he finishes practicing, a girl comes in on cello. It's also her instrument, but her arms are shaking and she can't get a consistent tone/pitch. "You've got this," I say, secretly and guiltily proud that my friend will probably win. She breaks into tears and the three of us hug her. She mumbles something angry that I don't hear, and I struggle to figure out how to word some sort of "things will be better after this, one way or the other" message that I ultimately don't end up saying, because how can such words mean anything.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Legal Dispute

Agnostic Dog Slugs and an Idiot King

New Year's Mission