The Lights Go Down

Date: 2/29/2024

It was night and I was driving down Forum, that dangerous curve that goes through the forest, and my headlights went out. I couldn’t see the road for a few seconds, but then I came back into the lamplight. I slowed the car and started looking around for somewhere to fix my lights asap. As I slowly drove through town, with the sun coming up, I noticed that everything was different. The buildings were falling apart. It was all concrete and steel beams and those poles with the grooves, I don’t know what they’re called, were sticking out everywhere. The gas stations were bare bones and there were a few people hanging out there. I pulled into the gas station and asked them how to get gas. They said to wait my turn and that it wasn’t gonna be cheap. But they were pretty friendly overall. They were like post apocalyptic punks. The could see I was confused, but they didn’t ask questions. Everything was so different. I had a bad feeling. I asked them what year it was and the girl looked at me like I was funny and said “2085?” The first thing I said was “that means my mom is dead.” She smiled and said “I guess.” There was more but I might write it later. Title of the dream taken from the ELO song because it got stuck in my head as I was writing the part about my headlights. Ironically that album is about a guy that gets transported to 2095. Hm.