Return to Marching Band

Ugh. It’s these guys again. I’ve seen them before. They were in the same high school marching band that I was in. Actually, this whole place is my high school marching band practice field, and high school in general. Not much is different from it other than the fact there is a new “Band Hall” type of build right next to the practice field that looks sleek and modern (more like shit and mundane in my opinion but that’s how I feel about anything modern in architecture). There’s also some unfamiliar faces here too. Don’t think I recall seeing these dorks in my high school marching band either but the fact they are here as well means I don’t like them automatically either. Thing is though, we are all adults now. So I’m guessing this is some sort of re-union thing (which I would had missed since the 10 year anniversary or whatever was ages ago). But the way we were treated by our “unknown” drum major felt like we were out here for something. I assume some sort of competition. God please enough of this already. I really don’t care.

So our “Drum Major” or whatever was screaming orders like they always are, telling us to “go here!”, “no do that over again!”, “That sucked do it again!”. “Play louder!”, “Why didn’t you practice your part earlier?!!!”, “Get with it!” and so on. Why am I even here? I don’t even have my Alto-Saxophone anymore but I guess in this dream I got another one somehow. Did someone from my school convince me to come to this stupid practice session? It boggles the mind but that’s just how my dreams are when it comes to shit like this. Doesn’t feel hot outside at least. Feels at least cool enough to wear a sweater which is something that I might have done at least for one marching band practice session in reality. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only Saxophonist in my group as most other sections have multiple musicians on the field. Seems like the others didn’t show up today.

So after a while of repetitive drills, we were let loose for a break. Everyone seemed to be headed towards the weird band hall building so I went along with them. The interior was kind of set up like this festival of some sort with food stalls, various booths with marching band promos for professional marching band teams, and other stalls where they are selling merchandise. There’s a lot of people here too, mostly band nerds and the like. It seems like there are multiple bands here from other schools since I see some uniforms that aren’t from my own school. Some people seemed gathered around in groups. Fucking socialites. Whatever that means did I just made it up lmao? I don’t like large crowds so I do what I do best and keep to myself as I look around the place.

That was until I started being approached by various and former bandmates that I went to school with from years ago. “Hey it’s good to see you again”, “Wow you haven’t changed one bit”, “How’s it going?”, “Long time no see bro”, and so on. Some of these former band members look exactly how I remember them. Others seemed to change a bit with more facial hair, gained weight, or declined in appearance. Oddly enough, I did see my once high school crush off in the distance, talking with some other band girls but I had enough of her and don’t want anything to do with her anymore so I ignored her. In fact, I think I had enough of strolling around in this little festival here.

I manged to get out from this band hall now there’s this long queue of people waiting to get inside. Come on people, you can do better things with your time than mess around with marching band crap. That’s how I felt about the whole thing. I didn’t want to associate one bit with my past, nor the people who didn’t have a reason to even recognize me. I was a nobody then and a nobody now. I might have been one of the decent players in the band but it’s not like I was good at what I did because I loved doing marching band. No. I wanted marching band done and over with back then and I wanted out especially now. Just get me out of here already.

But I ran into someone else. Someone that I had never seen or met before in my life. A girl with medium length black hair tied into a pony tail, wearing gym clothes. She appeared to be coming back from practice since she look all sweaty and had a water jug in her hand. She was a little bit taller than I was and wore glasses too. Her skin was tanned brown too. I don’t see how seeing as the weather was cool right now. I don’t recall anyone like her from my memory. But she did recognize me. She called me out by name. I could hear her enthusiasm in her voice from seeing me like if I was a lost dog. I don’t like being treated like some kind of pet. But before I can even react, She comes right at me and hugs me really tight. I’d never had anyone hug me like this before. Not even my own mother. She kind of stinks like sweat but I’m too distracted by her hugging me and getting close to my face to the point where I can hear her breathing on my ear. “I was so worried about you, I thought I’d never see you again. I hope everything is alright” at least that’s what I think I heard from her.

I completely lost it. I was now sobbing and hugging her back like my life depended on it. I was mumbling about how I was a complete failure after high school and how much I hated school and marching band. I went on about how nobody cared for me. I suffered through near death experiences and illnesses. I was tired and wanted my suffering to end already. My god I lost myself to my emotions. I would never do that in reality but I was doing it right now in my dream. I just wanted to unleash my feelings and regrets all at once. But she was there, this unknown girl, holding on to me (it would had been a pathetic sight to see but I am pathetic so it doesn’t mean anything to anyone that knows me) and telling me “But you’re alright now. You have nothing to worry about. I’m here if you need anything. There’s no need to keep it all to yourself.” I spent the rest of the dream in her embrace and peacefully (kind of) woke up from my dream with a massive headache and severe allergies.

I thought I was through with these dreams, but it seems whatever is bugging my deep conscious, it hasn’t been resolved so it seems. Despite taking measures over the years to pull myself out of the gutter and back into society, I don’t think I’ll ever recover from the regrets of my past and the miss social opportunities I could had never experienced. Reality really sucks sometimes.