When I was nineteen, I had a spectacular argument with my parents a few days before Christmas day. The argument was about me bringing a girl home and ended in me throwing a punch at my old man and him retaliating by kicking me in the balls. Not something I'd ever envisaged him doing in the past but once it had happened I could see that he possessed a hidden talent I had perilously overlooked. I threw a few things in a bag, stormed out of the house and started walking. Then I started thinking of my plan and I can see now that I'd done this in completely the wrong order. It should have been Argue then Get Balls Kicked then Plan then Storm Out. As it was I was walking out of London, where my parents lived at the time, towards the sea. In this case via Essex. It was about two in the morning but it was mild considering it was December.
I walked for a couple of hours and hit some empty stretches of road and began to enjoy the solitude. When I reached the marshes outside of the East End, something happened. I was slipping into a dream as I walked and then I had stopped walking by the marshes and was sitting on a spaceship filled with aliens. I know what you're thinking but please bear with me. This is no science fiction story nor am I saying it actually happened.
It was friendly enough and they spoke English and looked human. We chatted and they told me all about their world and how they'd take me there so I could have a look around if I wanted. We were comparing notes and it struck me that their progress had taken a completely different path to ours. We had progressed physically, building machines to help us talk over distances, travel over distances and see images of things without being there. They had progressed mentally, they could do all that we could do but with their mind. All the things we fantasised about. Even the spaceship was not made of the conventional stuff that you and I would expect. Not metal but some clear bubble-like stuff. This is when we got talking about entertainment.
I was a struggling musician back in London and when I mentioned this to them it was as foreign to them as the spaceship material was to me. They didn't have music and they couldn't grasp the concept of it. I sang them a few songs and they loved it and that's when it came to me. I might have been a struggling musician on this planet but on theirs I would be the inventor of Rock'n'Roll. I could take all the best music I knew and share it with them. I'd be Elvis, Lennon, Jagger, Plant all wrapped up in one. They'd get all the songs I'd ever heard and I'd get my dream. To perform and sing and write and spend my whole life involved in music. In this particular case I wouldn't just be part of it, I'd be the creator of the whole thing.
Then I had my second realisation and it was a sober one. I hadn't thought to bring my guitar. It remained resting against my wardrobe in my room in the house of my parents. I tried and tried to explain but they didn't understand. How could they? Made of wood. What was wood? Frets and curves and tuning pegs and strings and a bridge. Christ I didn't understand how to put the bloody thing together so how the hell were they supposed to. Then I begged them. Please I have to get home to get my guitar. You have to hear it, it's beautiful and it will change your lives I told them. They seemed to understand the urgency and frustration and started to talk among themselves and I figured they were deciding what to do. I put my head in my hands and tried to remember anything my old woodwork teacher had told me that might help me build a guitar.
When I lifted my head I saw that daylight was almost here and there I was still walking by the marshes. I was shaken by my dream. Was it even a dream? There was no sense in walking on. I turned and headed back home to pick up my guitar.
It was mid morning by the time I finally arrived and I was shattered. Eggs and bacon, coffee and toast were placed in front of me in return for peace and I accepted. We talked, they apologised and I apologised and the kick in the balls was forgotten. By the time the plates were cleared away things were back to normal.
It seemed pointless to return to the marshes, guitar in hand when it was so clearly a dream brought on by all the emotions and fatigue. These days when I play guitar, I play a little bit louder just in case.

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