Dream: The piano in the river

This dream is set in Hawaii – it’s not really obvious how it is so, but I know it. I am under a very large tree, perhaps a banyan tree with all its roots draping languidly, providing a great big shade. The tree is set on volcanic lava rock, a black flowing sheet frozen in time. I sit on the black rock with two other girls and we are watching the river drift by.

A part of the tree is just in front of us, and we don’t cross to the other side of the branches where we would have a full view of the river. Suddenly one of the girls stands up and says that she wants to see the river. I stand up too, but the third girl stops us both, saying it is dangerous. They both sit back down but I venture past the thicket of branches right in front of us. Just a few metres away, I am at the edge of the water. I can hear their voices calling out to me, but I step into the river with no hesitation.

As the water rushes past, I start to swim. I am acutely aware of all the joints in my body moving in the pattern that they are supposed to. The river is flowing fast, but I swim effortlessly, as though I am swimming in a pool with no current at all. Soon I reach the middle of the river where the water is very still. Looking back, I can see the shoreline with the huge banyan tree, but it is a fair way away now and I feel a little afraid. The currents that I swam through seem so impossibly strong now that I am in the still centre of the river.

I see a black object bobbing in the river, a little way away. I swim towards it and within a few minutes I see it is a piano. A black, short upright, a very practical style – probably a Kawai or a Toyota. Only the Japanese make these unadorned, functional pianos without the scrolls and ornaments of European pianos. I open the lid and press the keys, but they are totally waterlogged and no sound comes out. I lift the lid and look inside, and the strings lay there quietly as if they are sleeping. I try to watch the hammers as I press the keys again, but I begin to lose my balance in the water and I have to give it up.

What does it mean? I wonder to myself. How does a piano get to be floating in the middle of the river?

All of a sudden, a thought enters my mind that I must go to look for P, because I have been away for a very long time. I look all around me, but the banyan tree is no longer obvious. The shoreline is full of trees, and none of them look like the tree. I start to swim towards the shore anyway, and within a few strokes I am caught in the tide. It wraps violently around me, and dunks my head under the surface. Just as I start to gag, a wave lifts me up and dumps me again. I fall hard on my face, my eyes fill with water and I lose my vision. My arms and legs struggle to keep me afloat, but the waves are utterly relentless. Lost in despair, I wake up.