I was struck by how well David Thomas was looking:  fit, lively, energetic. The last time I’d seen him he’d been ill, visibly ill, and weakened — but still determined, as ever, to continue on his life’s work, producing remarkably fresh and unexpected music that undermined the expected norms of a rock concert while delivering something powerful and urgent. He had been so debilitated that I couldn’t quite square how healthy he looked, sitting in a deep leather chair and enjoying a dark pint, but I was sure glad to see it.

The venue was a small pub in England, warm and friendly, but featuring a genuine performance space with lights and sounds. Waiting for the band to go on, I ordered a refill and when for some reason the barkeep didn’t fill my pint glass all the way, I gently complained and he topped it off. So I bought another one, for the man next to me, and we fell into conversation, he about how thrilled he was to be here, me about how proud I was to be producing the event.

David went onstage first, which was a massive surprise — I’ve seen Pere Ubu innumerable times, and generally the band came on first, he was generally the last one on stage, and deservedly so, as the front man, as the originator, the visionary. But then it became clear that it would be only David, David and no one else, and I worried if people would feel disappointed, and if they’d want something back, something in return, a make-good, because they’d expected Pere Ubu, I think I had advertised it as being Pere Ubu, but it was just David Thomas. But David, being David, went full thrust on his solo performance, and he was offbeat and brilliant and utterly committed and captivating.

And then I realized:  David is dead. He looks so good! And I’m so glad to see him! But I remember he’s dead.

And Pere Ubu — or, in his absence, the band as it was called two weeks ago in Hove and in London, “The Moon Unit” — isn’t dead. Because I just saw it without him.

And then I felt a hand rubbing my back, that of my fiancée, and I realized I was dreaming, awakening from a dream now, and I was very sad indeed to realize it was a dream, because I so wanted David Thomas to be alive. David Thomas whom I knew and had spent time with on several occasions over the course of 25 years and someone whom I always appreciated, not a friend, not really, but certainly a creative lodestar, someone whose work I had followed for the vast majority of my life, and I didn’t want him gone because I didn’t want the concerts to stop let alone the new music, and also because I wished him well, truly, always, as a thank-you for everything he’s given me for 40 years and more, and because, selfishly, selfishly because I could see the health struggles he’d been suffering, selfishly I just wished him to be alive longer.

But the dream was over, and no, I wasn’t producing a gig by Pere Ubu or by David Thomas, and David was still dead, gone from his mortal plane, and I was still grateful to him but still feeling the hollow space in my core that I’d felt since he died last April 23, a date that I’m unable to forget.

I shared this with K., my dream, and I suppose she could see written on my face what it had meant to me, no matter what I said about it. Science will tell you that when you dream of someone you’ve lost, it’s your brain processing your loss.

But what K. said to me was better: “It’s nice that he came to visit you.”

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