Fanatic's dream

I was in a small room with Stuart Murdoch and 7 or 8 others. I realised that I was a member of Belle & Sebastian and we were there to do some rehearsing. I looked around and Stuart was strumming his guitar, I looked at the faces of the other people in the room but I did not recognise them as members of the band. Instead, they were mostly young women, nearly all brunettes, chatting quietly and some were looking at pieces of papers in their hands. I asked the person next to me and she told me it's her music she was looking at. She hoped Stuart would like it. Turned out this was an informal audition for the film project that Stuart was working on. It also turned out that we were in Italy. Ah... that would explain why they all looked so.... Italian.

As I was chatting to a woman next to me, Stuart came over and said if I could do him a favour. What is it? I asked. He said, very gently, Can you take care of my camera for me? It is a Japanese camera. It is very old. I've put it in this zipblock bag here. I said, sure, I can take care of it. I wondered to myself why he wanted me to take care of his camera, but I didn't ask. His face looked very different, much older. I could feel that he was in distress. Then he put his head on my lap, as if weeping in silence.