Y.P.R.: No. 9 Dream

Wednesday, December 10, 2003 | Fiction

No. 9 Dream

by Josh Abraham

Doctor, I’m having that dream again. I’m in a band—an old-timey band from, like, the 50s, and we’re on stage, behind the curtain, just moments before showtime. Ed Sullivan is introducing us, and I’m freaking out, because I’m on drums—and I can’t play the drums. I can’t even read music. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, and I’m about to make a complete fool of myself on live, national TV. So, the curtain raises, right? And the spotlights go on. And the audience explodes! Cheers and shrieks and teenage girls are swooning, and I’m sweating profusely and just hoping to God I don’t pass out. I look over to the bassist, the guitarist, the singer… everyone’s backs are to me. Nobody knows I’m not supposed to be here. My mind is racing through scenarios—I can fake an injury or something. Maybe I can yank out the cord leading to the mike and at least cause a little delay—no, we’re starting. We’re starting, and I don’t know what to do, so I just blindly swing my drumsticks, haphazardly smacking, I dunno, kettles and that big one in the middle, and I’m pumping my foot on that gas pedal thing, and I’m striking that little tin thing that looks like a Chinaman’s hat—you know, that thing? Cymbals, whatever. I’m just making a racket and, miraculously, nobody’s yelling at me to stop—and then I see the bassist, he turns to me, and the bassist is me. Doc, the bassist is another me! Why are there two of me? I don’t know how to play bass! And the guitarist, that’s another me, too! And the guy singing and dancing up front? Me! There’s three of me singing backup chorus. I’m the whole band, and none of me knows how to play an instrument! But, still, our noise is catchy. It’s infectious. The crowd loves it. And, before I know it—that’s it. Finished. Over. Done. *Sigh.* Doctor, am I Andre 3000?

Josh Abraham was born in Algeria in 1913. He spent his early years in North Africa, working various jobs—in the weather bureau, in an automobile-accessory firm, in a shipping company—to help pay for his courses at the University of Algiers. As a young journalist, his report on the unhappy state of Muslims in the Kabylie region aroused the Algerian government to action and brought him public notice. From 1935 to 1938 he ran the Théâtre de l'Equipe, a theatrical company that produced plays by Malraux, Gide, Synge, and Dostoevski. During World War II he was one of the leading writers of the French Resistance and editor of Combat, then an important underground newspaper. Abraham's fiction, his philosophical essays, and his plays have assured his preëminent position in modern French letters. In 1957 Abraham was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His sudden death on January 4, 1960, cut short the career of one of the most important literary figures of the Western world when he was at the very summit of his powers. No, wait. That was Albert Camus.