Hi-tech Dream



My wife and I were walking along an elevated walk-way in a posh area in the city. It was well past mid-night, could be a little too early in the morning – say around 2.30 – 3. It was very cold, and as usual, I was wearing only a cotton shirt but my wife was covering herself well with a woolen shawl. We were talking about so many things, including our visits to remote places where the sky was so clear that you could see so many stars that you don’t see in the polluted city skies. As we were talking, I looked above and asked her if she could make out some of the stars and constellations.

As if by magic, suddenly there appeared in the sky, by the side of all important stars and constellations, their names in red-laser light. I showed it to my wife and exclaimed the advancement of technology, and asked her to read the names, as I was not able to read because I was not wearing my spectacles. She read out names like Betelguese, Rigal, Castor and Pollux the Gemini twins, Aldebaran, Ursa Major, etc.

She wondered how names could appear in the sky and I replied saying that a space education center or planetarium must be around, because they only could have such hi-tech equipment to beam laser labels in the sky. And soon enough, as we were walking further, I saw the large doors of a big building open up and people coming out of it. Immediately, the lights in the sky also went off. We wondered what was happening there and our attention shifted to the name board, which read “Madras Astronomical Society” and the wordings “Laser Light Show – Every Second Saturday night – book in advance”. I told my wife that that explained the red labels we saw in the sky.

Finishing our walk, we went back to our house. While opening the door, I heard the buzz of a moped horn at the gate and realized it was almost time for the milkman. I wanted to check the exact time and looked at my digital wrist-watch, pressing the light button. It is here that the dream mixed into reality. I realized I was really pressing the light button on the watch and time it showed was 4.18 am, the room very cold due to the air-conditioner and a mild shower outside making the room temperature drop even further. My mother was deep asleep nearby. My wife, my daughter and her newborn baby were all sleeping downstairs. And, somebody was really buzzing his moped’s horn outside.
Oh what a wonderful and real-like dream it was! May be that technology exists in some part of the world, where you could flash a text high in the sky for people to read, who knows! It being too early to get up, I closed my eyes to force a sleep, to wake up as usual at 5.30, but the beauty of the dream still remains fresh in my mind, two days after I dreamt it, that I am able to vividly recall and record it here!

Don't ask me why the people coming out of the building should have, in the first place, gone in at all, since the laser was only being beamed out in to the sky!  I am only narrating what I saw in my dream.