City Of Dreams

That's the thing about this city...it's not very big, but it acts like it's a major metropolis.

I'll explain. You know how in a big city you have to wait at intersections even when the light is green because some dope going across didn't quite make it all the way across? It's like that here because the city can't afford the computers to synchronize the traffic lights. So you wind up waiting at the green light while the cars behind you honk and honk, as if you could just go through the car in front of you.

You know how in a big city you measure distances in minutes instead of miles? You say “How far is it to the restaurant?” and someone will tell you it's only half an hour. It's like that here because when the place was founded, they laid out the roads along old cattle trails, all twisted instead of in a straight grid. Telling someone the distance to anywhere is no help at all – it's five miles away going straight, but you can't go straight.

Most of all, you know how in a big city you never talk to your neighbors? God knows why – fear, mistrust, whatever – but you just never talk to them. You might never see them, even. It's like that here. No one's sure of the reason, it's just always been like that.

There's a guy named Joe, for instance, who lives here on Random Road about a block away from the main road through town, and no one ever sees him. The house he lives in stands on an acre and three-quarters and it's two stories tall, one of the bigger places around, but other than that it looks pretty normal. It's not built of stone or painted black, the doors and windows aren't masked off or covered with wood paneling, it's not even isolated – people even go in and out. It's just that no one seems to be able to identify them. People aren't even sure how they know that a guy named Joe lives there. If you asked who lives there they'd say “Joe does”, but if you asked how they know that, after thinking about it for a little while they'd have to admit they can't remember who told them. And of course, no one knows what Joe looks like.

So, no one talks to that neighbor anyway. Or any other, for that matter.

The main thoroughfare looks pretty much like any other road, with the usual gas stations and diners and bike shops and pet stores and motels and hardware stores and clothes shops and shoe stores and pawn shops and banks and stuff like that. Somehow or other they look like they're all in black and white. Look closely enough and you can see all the usual colors. They're just more faded than most, Like they've been out in the sun too long, and maybe they have. Trouble with that idea is that it's always overcast around here. No fading from the sun anywhere else.

On the other hand, in the next block there's a house painted in every bright, cheerful color you can think of. Red, yellow, purple, orange. And not just in blocks, either. Patterns all over. The front door is striped green and magenta, with yellow polka dots of various sizes going up and down in no particular order. The rest of the house has a similar sense of colorful chaos. Who painted it that way? Good question. City records for the past 52 years are missing, so it's not clear who owns the place, or whether the last owners are responsible for the paint job or someone else, and if so, who. No one's been in there in living memory, so who do you ask? No idea.

The sky is always overcast during the day, and the city always has a bank of dark gray for surrounding it. That makes driving in or out a nerve-wracking experience – you never know what you'll run into (so to speak) when you drive into the fog, or if anyone will be able to see you or come to your aid if you really do hit something. So far, no one has reported any accidents, and those who announced the intention to return once they drive away have always come back, but who knows?

Nighttime is another matter. When it gets dark the sky is always clear and loaded with stars, even on nights when there's a moon. The disturbing part is that once the sun goes down you can see flashes of light off in the distance, so far away that you can't really tell whether the light is going up or coming down, or even what color it is. Lightning is usually yellow; this light appears to be green, or even red. You can see orange light flashing too, or purple or even white, but those colors flash out of the windows of certain houses in town.

Speaking of the houses, if you take a walk around town, it's strange to notice how few people live here. You can go into some of the stores and find people behind the counters selling things, but it's not certain which stores you'll find them in. And you can go into a store where there was someone behind the counter yesterday, but not today. If you go into a store without a person to sell you something, you'll usually find that the shelves are empty, even if they were full last time. If you do find stuff on the shelves – well, no one has ever taken anything out of the stores if there's no one behind the counter. Seriously, if you spent time wandering around town and saw almost no one in the houses or stores, but you could see the place wasn't abandoned – if you saw the lights flickering in the windows when no one was inside, and the clouds covered up the sun when it was sunny and bright just outside of town, would you walk out of a store with a cell phone or a blanket or a pint of ice cream? Would you want to know what the consequences were if you did that?

So what's going on in this city? Hard to say. But there's a theory:

Look at it this way, what else do you know that keeps changing with no warning or ability to predict what's next and no way to see what happens from outside? That's the theory – this city is dreaming. Do yourself a favor and don't wake it up. That's the thing about this city.