It was an ordinary day. I'd just finished folding the washing and was busy putting it away in its various drawers and wardrobes when I spotted something familiar in the bottom of my husband's sock drawer. It was a cassette tape.
I'd bought my husband a small, piano key tape recorder for christmas when our son was less than a year old with the intention of making recordings of him as he grew but our son was now eighteen years old and away from home at Manchester Victoria university. I hadn't seen the recorder for at least ten years, or any of the tapes for that matter, so I was curious as to why my husband would have one of those old tapes in his drawer and, without really thinking about it, I picked it up. There must have been something special on it, some memory of a special day that meant a lot to Mike and I wanted to share that memory.
Holding the tape brought back memories of those long gone days and it felt so familiar but also strange after all those years. I turned it over and over in my hand, noting that it was a ninety minute tape and that the only thing written on its label was a date but that couldn't be right. The date written on it was just over six months ago so it couldn't be one of our old tapes. I couldn't imagine whose it was and how it had got here but I definitely had to know what was on it. Normally, I would have asked Mike about it but he was out visiting his mother and, anyway, I felt a slight tinge of excitement at discovering this mystery like I was in some sort of detective story. Our stereo unit in the front room was quite old and had a turntable and a double cassette deck and, even though I was alone in the house, I found myself tip toeing downstairs and carefully slotting the tape into one of the decks.
I pressed play and listened to complete silence so I turned up the volume and listened to the amplified hiss of nothing. I'd been ridiculously excited by my discovery and I felt bitterly disappointed as I headed into the kitchen and switched on the kettle.
