I turned around to look down the driveway, though I had no idea how it could have gotten behind me. My eyes didn’t immediately register the change that had occurred. It was already dark, so what I saw before me wasn’t too out of the ordinary. Of course, my brain was also slowed from an evening of drinking and smoking cigars, neither of which I do very well. It did not want to fully admit what it saw, or didn’t see. At the end of the driveway, there was nothing. Blackness, emptiness. I couldn’t see any of the neighboring houses across the street. It was as if someone had dropped a wall of nothingness at the end of the concrete. The world just stopped. I couldn’t turn my head and look around for fear that the rest of the street, or the world for that matter, had turned to darkness as well.
As I stared into the darkness, though, I saw a figure floating there. It was very small as if it was far away. Because the blackness seemed to be infinite, it was impossible to tell how far away it actually was. But as I continued watching the emptiness, the figure grew bigger and bigger. The blurry shape started to clarify. I saw the dark corduroy pants, the grey sweater, and the cap like the ones young newspaper boys wore in the 20s. I saw the slightly rounded face and trim beard. He held a cigar in one hand and a nice glass of bourbon in the other. He stepped out of the emptiness and onto the driveway. I had to fight to keep my legs from buckling under me. It was Brad.
He just stared at me for a moment. He took a puff off his cigar and a sip of his bourbon. Eventually, words fell out of my mouth.
“This has got to be a dream,” I said.
The one standing before me chuckled.
“Always trying to figure things out. If you are right, then it is a good dream.”
“Lord of the Rings,” I said. “Arwen to Aragorn.”
Brad laughed again.
“Well, you obviously aren’t too freaked out to recognize a quote,” he said smiling. I didn’t know what to say. Despite his estimation, I was extremely freaked out.
“Walk with me a minute,” Brad said, holding his cigar hand out towards the end of the driveway.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Just walk with me.”
Brad started walking down the driveway, and I followed him, like a lost child. As we walked, I noticed that everything around us had changed. We were still walking on a driveway, but my street and the houses on it had vanished. The driveway seemed to meander through a grass field. The night sky had given way to an early morning one filled with purples and oranges. The driveway and the field surrounding it seemed to just go on forever. Every now and then, we would pass something sitting in the fields. I saw several bizarre metallic sculptures, pictures of enormous half faces, some paintings, a fence, a couch, a small building. Brad had at some point in his life brought all of these things into being.
endless driveway 