A Day Spent In The Surreal

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living."

-Dr. Seuss

Ever have one of those days when nothing seems quite right? Kind of like you are living in the same world as everyone else, and yet you are half a step behind the natural flow of things? It's during those times that coincidences tend to occur. When you experience deja vu, over and over again. It's when you might just glimpse a specter out of the corner of your eye, or a funny light in the sky, that could just be someone from some far off community in space about to pay you, specifically, a visit.. You trip over invisible objects, and misplace your keys, only to find them later in a place you looked a dozen times. On days like the one I am describing, you just know you are moving through time and space, and for all practical purposes, it's completely out of your control as to who, or what, might cross your path.

I was having that kind of day a while back. I was running into walls, and forgetting to shut doors. Twice I picked up the phone to call someone, only to hear them saying "Hello, Hello," into the receiver. I had picked up the phone, before it even rang! I found a box of old love letters, quite by accident, written to me by an old flame, who I had dreamed about the night before. I called and asked Alan what he wanted for dinner that night, and without saying a word to him about what I was hungry for, he said "Yankee Pot Roast." The very thing I had been hungry for all day. It seemed that during all this missteps, there was something serendipitous also occurring. I was experiencing a phenomena of sorts. I was in both the right place, and the wrong place at the same time.

I got through the day with only a few silly bruises to remind me of the day, and as twilight was approaching I was glad that the day was nearly through. Most of the day I had felt so uncomfortable, and out of place, that it had made me feel weary. It was all quite spooky, and at one point I realized that more then anything else, I had felt as if I wasn't gliding through time, so much as time was stuttering, and I was the only one who noticed it. That's not exactly something you want to say to the person next to you in line at the grocery store. "Excuse me stranger, do you feel like maybe we are hurling through time out of control, and by the way, did you just feel that stutter? I had a chance to ask the person behind me in line at Lucky's just that question, but I had been distracted by the fact that the total for my groceries came up to $106.90.

I was ready to be home after that. I was done with that day. So, in an effort to shake off the wiggins, I put on some nice music on my care stereo. I am tired of the mixed CD I made a while back, so instead opted for the KFRC (106.9) instead. Classic hits from the 60's, 70's and 80's. As I started to leave the parking lot of the store, Huey Lewis and the News began to play, "The Power Of Love." That was the favorite song of the boyfriend who had wrote me the love letters I had found earlier that day, and who I had dreamed about the previous night. I hadn't thought of him in years, and now he was solidly in my thoughts. It wasn't really love between us, but it was a solid infatuation to be sure. He took me to see the movie, "Back To The Future" which of course is the movie in which this song is featured.

About half way through the song, and about five miles from home, I saw a silver car pull out from a side street, and move in front of me, and it was... you guessed it... a DELOREAN! I had to smile. Neat! How weird had this day had been! Wonderfully quirky, with the exception of the running into walls, but now, this bit of fantasy, things seemed to going full circle. Hmmm... given all the coincidences, could it maybehaps be Marty McFly in that car? Is Doc Brown somewhere nearby? Maybe it was Doc Brown in the car! Or maybe it was simply a case of being in the right place, at the right time to see one of the only 6,500 Delorean's that are believed to still exist!

In any case, it was fun to follow that car, and maybe daydream for a bit that I could be caught in the wake of it's possible trip through time, even for just a moment or two. After all, I had been traveling through time all day! Alas, as the car pulled onto HWY 13, and out of my sight. I was back to the present again, and almost immediately, everything, including time, seemed to correct itself. For the rest of the evening, everything seemed back to normal, it seems my day of the surreal had ended. As weary as the day had left me, I would have experienced it all again for that little bit of fantastic distraction. Hmmm... I wonder if the old flame had thought about me too that day? I don't really want to know the answer to that question, it's much more fun to wonder. That's what fantasies are for... right?

-OndineMonet
"Back To The Future Of The Past"
Berkeley, California
Sometime In The Past