My mother was sitting in the front passenger seat, while I was seated in the back seat of a car which my father was driving through a Texas town whose streets seemed to be unpaved dirt. We seemed to be following a parade which was in progress. I didn't see a marching band, but I had the feeling that one had proceeded us. People were beginning to disperse on both sides of the streets.

We continued on until we reached a part of the city which opened up before us like some incredible sight. Around us towered tall skyscrapers, in the middle of which reared gigantic statues of soldiers perhaps twenty times larger than life. One soldier in an attack position carried a rifle with a bayonet on the end. Another soldier, apparently wounded, held a bayoneted rifle which was either stuck in him or in the ground. Gigantic cannons surrounded the soldiers. I pointed out the statues and cannons to my father and my mother, who seemed as surprised as I to see them.

I also pointed out another tall building which soared behind the others. My father said the building was the Parthenon and he headed toward it. I didn't think it was the Parthenon because I thought the Parthenon was in Rome. Since I felt disoriented by the place, however, I thought the building could possibly be the Parthenon.

My mother asked me to get out the binoculars, which I retrieved from the back window of car. I then lifted my upper body out the side window and sat on the door, with my legs remaining inside. I looked through the binoculars toward the soldiers, but now I couldn't see them. I seemed to see an image, but it wasn't the image of the object at which I was looking. Concluding that the binoculars weren't working, I pitched them aside.

By then we had traveled to the top of a hill where my father noticed a pay telescope along the side of the street. He pulled out some change and asked me if I had a nickel. I pulled out a nickel (the only coin in my pocket) and handed it to him. He then scooted toward the middle of the front seat and asked me to climb up front and drive the car for a moment.

I climbed over the seat and sat behind the steering wheel. When I tried to reach the clutch, brake and gas pedals with my foot, however, I was unable to do so. Since we were on an incline, the car began rolling backwards. Seeing cars behind us farther down the hill, I became frightened that we were going to roll back into them. I desperately tried to acquire the pedals with my tennis shoe-clad feet, but I couldn't reach them. Barely able to touch the pedals, I gulped, "I can't reach it. I'm scared."

The car seemed to be moving backward more quickly.