The Driverless Car

Everything about this memory is off -- weird, like a scene from a David Lynch movie. A FARGO vibe, (without the snow), Wenders, Jarmusch...anyway. 

I’m little, around eight. Certainly under ten. I don’t know why I’m here; don’t remember being here before, or going back later. I don’t remember leaving to get there, or what happened  afterwards. With my grandmother, I think she’s the one who brought me here. Visiting someone, for some reason. 

There’s a garage here, a full on mechanics shop. I remember the garage painted a pale blue color.  We’re out in a rural area, surround by desert. A crumbly  grayish -white house a few yards from the garage. I’m playing outside, by myself, and not much to do, except scratch around in the ocher dust, which I do. I remember being annoyed by the barely heard music from a transistor radio in the garage. I remember the radio as being red, sitting on a shelf. No people around.  And thinking: why do people just barely turn on their radios, then leave? Here I am, outside, alone, in this strangle place, the music a constant thin hum of metallic irritation in the air. 

I’m watching red ants. I’ve never seen red ants before. Thousands of red ants, and I’m careful not to get them on me. I suppose my grandmother is inside the house. I don’t remember if I was forbidden to go inside, or what, but I don’t remember being inside or who the people were we were visiting. So I’m outside, watching red ants. It’s quiet -- except for that stream of ghost music -- and it’s silent out here. No other people, or houses or buildings that I remember. Across the dirt road  there is just open space; dry fields, brown grass.

A black car drives up the road. I get up to see who it is. And I’m confused, because I don’t see a driver in the car. I move around, to get a better look, thinking I’m not seeing things correctly. The car is moving very slowly. No matter how I move around, I can’t see a driver in the car. The windows are not blacked out in any  way-- it’s simply the fact of no driver. I remember seeing the black car, no driver, up on a little hill, as if the road rose up a little in front of the house. The car slowly continued on, after slowing down and pausing at the house, the garage, the red ant filled yard, before continuing on. And still, no driver.

Not a dream, remembered for some strange reason decades later. A memory, and why this seemingly mundane one that still sticks? Within the memory however are odd details: the why of us being there, the where, just me and my grandmother, and, of course, the driver less car. 

An anomalous event, definitely. Whether it's paranormal, supernatural, UFO related (cover memory?)  or a MIB  type encounter, who can say.