Several years ago, I had an appointment with a teacher at a new high school in Sprawling Suburb. I had talked with the teacher by phone; he gave me directions to the main office and his classroom. The school was located in a new neighborhood of new single-family dwellings, which spread across the hills like a red blanket of tile roofs. I have lived in Sprawling Suburb for a long time, so I did not doubt where the school is. I followed with interest over several years stories in the local newspaper about civic struggles to site, build, and name the school. As it turned out, the school site chosen was in a previously rural area, which had thousands of acres of orange groves before the subdivisions sprouted. My wife boarded her horse in the area, and we frequently passed that land purchased for the school.
Despite the fact that I knew where I was going, I decided to take a Thomas Bros. map of the city with me. The area developed so rapidly that perhaps new streets and traffic routing around the school might be unfamiliar to me. My appointment with the teacher was important to me; I did not want to miss it because I got lost in a new grid of streets. Like everyone else in Southern California, I rely on Thomas Bros. maps, and had complete faith in their accuracy; they had not failed me in decades. I have repeatedly been amazed at how rapidly the company updates and republishes their maps to keep up with Southern California's rapidly changing urban landscape. I checked the map to reassure myself of the location of the school and off I went in my vehicle.
When I arrived at the school site, in an area entirely familiar to me, as I said, there was no school! I was initially confused, but not concerned, because there were new streets being built all around and new housing developments in various stages of competion. I checked the street names on the map that bordered the school. I drove them, around the school. Still no school! Fields, wire fences, dirt streets with poured concrete curbs waiting for macadam; but no school. I did not doubt the map. To find the school, I started driving the immediately neighborhoods. I found a new elementary school, not yet occupied, but no high school. Indeed, troubling me, I found no signs of life at all. The entire area seemed empty. There were no people around. New houses, obviously inhabited, had no cars in the driveways or at the curbs out front. There were no pedestrians on the new sidewalks. Perhaps some disaster had struck and the area and it had been evacuated. I turned on the radio. Music stations blasted out their musical styles, a few talk shows chattered about this and that; but no indication that some tragedy had lifted everyone from this area of the city.
I became worried that I might not make my appointment in time. I decided to widen my search. If I could find a gasoline station or market, I could ask someone there if they knew where the school is. I drove down the empty through streets. No public amenities. I drove into other neighborhoods. Still no high school. I began to believe that something was wrong with reality. I slowed and pulled my vehicle - a pickup - over to the shoulder of a street. I could feel blood drain out of my head. I parked the pickup. I started to faint. Where was I? I had passed the place where my wife once boarded her horse, so I knew, or thought I knew, I was in the right area of the city. Why was the school missing? Why were there no people in sight, on a bright, sunny afternoon, in mile after mile of suburban subdivision? Was I in a movie about unreality? As I slumped onto the bench of the pickup, I looked again at the map. Yes, the map depicted the school as located where it should be; but the school was certainly, beyond a doubt, not there. The map was real, but I was not sure the neighborhood was also real. I slowly recovered myself. I drove slowly along the street. My hands trembled on the steering wheel. I wasn't sure I should be driving. No cars behind or before me. A few miles along, I encountered a large thoroughfare, with which I was familiar. A few miles west was the neighborhood where I lived. I turned down the road. Now cars were around me. I passed a filling station. Someone was standing at a pump, gassing their auto. I drove home.
What was happening to my life?
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