In the city of the future

Note: When I dream about people I know, I will often change their names.

I had this dream a few months ago but it is still so vivid. I wrote a song about it after thinking about it for hours on end.

In this dream, I was in what seemed like it could have been New York City. I was going to visit a friend, who I will just call SG. It was a very routine sort of visit: get a taxi, go, have a nice chat and some tea, play some music, and go home.

Except that we lived in some kind of police state.

When I got there, SG's house was almost empty. He told me that his wife and kids had already left earlier that day, when an officer came to the house and told them that he had 24 hours to vacate the place. The officer did not give a reason why, but the rest of his family had left immediately for an undisclosed location. He had stayed back to finish packing up what they could take with them before leaving. There was no sadness about this; just a matter-of-fact "it is what it is" attitude. Even I was not sad, although I knew I would never see them again. I just asked if I could help and so we gathered things into boxes, not knowing where the boxes were going or even if they would be going wherever they went. The only thought was that there would be Consequences if he was not out of that house. The officers would come search the place after the 24 hours were up.

We worked silently, accepting fate.