pieces of plastic

I had a dream last night that I was driving through downtown Fremont in a Flintstone’s-like foot powered car. The place looked nothing like how I remembered and yet everything was familiar to me, as often the case in dreams. People from my past lined the street – friends, people I went to school with, people I worked with, people who I’ve seen once in my lifetime and never gave a second thought to. As I drove down this street in my foot powered car, I waved to these people but nobody waved back. I rounded a corner and saw someone from high school who I had not seen since. I gave him a slight poke to the sternum as a way to say “Hey, what’s up?”. As I did this, I tried to drive away quickly, but my foot got stuck in a rut. There was a brief period of awkward silence – the someone from high school looked at me as if to say, “Why did you poke me for?” When he finally recognized me, his bewilderment turned into nostalgia and the street errupted in laughter as did I. I freed my foot and continued my drive, leaving downtown and the crowds behind. The people slowly became specks in my rearview, the sound of their laughter gradually fading in the distance.