John Wise’s restored banjo-madolin and the mysterious apporting spanner.
Partner duplicated
I am always interested to read about hypnopompic hallucinations or sleep demons, because of what I experienced about 30 years ago.
I was in bed in the middle of the night, and was woken by the bedroom door opening and my partner coming in. He had clearly been up to go to the toilet, although I thought at the time that it was strange that I’d not woken up when he’d got out of bed.
We had quite flimsy curtains and there was a streetlight outside, so I could see quite well. I remember very clearly watching him push the door shut quietly behind him, and the look on his face as he walked over to the bed – he looked quite relaxed and content. As he approached the bed, I turned over so I would be facing him when he got back in to bed.
As I turned my arm fell on something in the bed under the covers. It felt solid and large and I was completely stunned – it was so unexpected that it made me feel really shocked and disorientated as I couldn’t imagine what it could be. Time seemed to go really slowly and it was with some effort that I dragged my eyes from my approaching partner to the bed as I felt so much dread.
What I saw was my partner, fast asleep in bed beside me. My hand had fallen on his leg. Looking up, I saw the room was empty.
The sight of him coming in the door and walking across the room was as vividly experienced as anything I’d seen in “real life”. Possibly the interesting thing here is the mundane nature of the form it took. It must be truly awful if it takes a more frightening form.
Louise van der Hoeven
Langley Park, Co Durham
Spanner provided
Some months ago, I called in to a local charity shop for a browse. My eye caught a musical instrument case on the counter. The shape of the case – a banjo ukulele. I believe in serendipity; was this my opportunity to reacquaint myself with that unmistakable George Formby plinkity-plink? I was close with my guess. It turned out to be a Reliance banjo-mandolin from the 1920s.
