What Dreams Are Made Of

Concluding this little story, Angus McCloud’s limo driver was giving me a tour of what looked like Earth sometime in the distant future. Since I was dreaming, I didn’t know it was a dream. I thought the sun had actually entered into the Red Giant phase, a phenomenon that often occurs whenever Yellow Dwarf stars like our sun expend their fuel. The sun would eventually grow and grow and consume Earth and the entire solar system before it died out. But, what puzzled me more than anything in this dream-turned-nightmare, was that the limo driver suggested that there was something I could do about it.

“Well,” I told the driver, “if you think there’s something I can possibly do about all of this, tell me what it is.”

“I’ll tell you,” he said in an accusatory tone of voice, mixed in with that Middle-Eastern accent that was beginning to get on my nerves. “I’ll tell you what you can do, Mr. Bugos.”

“Spit it out,” I urged him.

“What you can do is...” he began.

And then I woke up.

Red Giant Night

Continuing with this little story, I puzzled over what Angus McCloud's limo driver had just said about having faith in the future. Then I started to get a little peeved because I had been promised a free ride home and what I seemed to be getting instead was a mini-tour of another solar system.

But, before I could muster up the courage to complain, the limo continued to glide through this strange planet's atmosphere, from east to west, as if seeking a safe place to land. This was the scene outside the limo's canopy. But we didn't seem to be landing.

"We are seeing what nighttime on your planet Earth will look like when your sun begins its transition from being a Yellow Dwarf to becoming a Red Giant," the driver told me matter-of-factly.

"And this is as dark as it will get then?" I asked, startled at the thought.

"Yes," he replied, "but only for a very short time. When your sun reaches the Red Giant stage your planet will be consumed."

"Why are you showing me this?" I asked. "Nothing can prevent the sun from becoming a Red Giant when its fuel begins to run out. There's nothing I can do about it."

"Wrong," he said rather cryptically as he stared at me over his shoulder.

..to be continued...