How Not To Be A Groupie

Chapter Two: Impossible

No, not even that. More like, "Oh, fuck, where the hell am I?"

In front of me was a city. An average everyday city with cars and people and bikes and buildings. Only something was off about this scene. My thoughts were scattered and I couldn't focus. I took deep, calming breaths but my heart continued to race. I backed up into the alleyway again, hoping nobody could see my incoming anxiety attack. 

I was alone in a new city and no way to call home. This was fine. Everything was just peachy. 

I couldn't kid myself. My cellphone was at home and even if I had it it wouldn't have done me any good. It was a hand me down phone with an unstable battery life. It'd be useless to me here. I curled up on the ground and put my head between my knees, rocking. 

Calm down, calm down. You haven't been transported to Amphibia or anything, just a regular city in the US. 

This is the US, right?

I stood up again a little unsteady and peeked out again at the street. I noticed the signs, although in English, weren't spelled the way I was used to. Billboards promising to change your life by changing the color of your hair said "colour" instead. And I noticed the cars driving around were all driving on the left side of the street. 

That narrowed it down a bit. I could be in England. Or Ireland or...somewhere else. My best bet would be to find someone to talk to and just ask them. But then they'd think I was a drunken lunatic asking what country I was in. Maybe a newspaper could tell me?

Just my luck, none in sight. I could buy one with the spare change I had in my pocket but I wanted to save it for emergencies. And this wasn't an emergency yet. Not to mention it was American money and probably wouldn't have been accepted anyway.

I took a little walk down the street hoping to find something that could tell me where I was. Keeping my eyes open I snooped around for shops with city names or street signs with something I recognized. On my way around town I kept asking myself how I even got here. What the hell was that tornado that swept through my house without any warning?

I passed a couple people on my way down the street and I took notice of what they looked like. One was a young man in bellbottom jeans and the other was a young woman in a floral dress. Her brown hair was very long and parted in the middle. Of course that meant nothing. I myself owned several pairs of bellbottom jeans and always parted my long hair in the middle. 

It couldn't be...

More and more people passed me by and I noticed each of them had something about them that raised my suspicions about where...or when I was. One man had enormous eyeglasses. A woman wearing platform shoes. Plenty of young teenage girls all with their hair in the same fashion except one who had it feathered like a young Farrah Fawcett. 

No. Impossible. Outrageous. 

The cars that drove on the left side of the street were rather old looking. Or should I say vintage? None of the bells and whistles that modern cars had, and some of them appeared to be lacking any seat belts in the back seat. I clenched my fists and kept walking, probably looking like a total goon. A newspaper would have been a godsend.

After wandering aimlessly in any old direction I stopped to think. 

When Marty McFly went back in time, what did he do?

He met his parents and got hit by a car.

But before that he went into a diner. A diner, perfect! There'd be at least a clock on the wall to tell me the time and maybe I could ask a nice person a simple question? One that wouldn't get me thrown in the nearest psychiatric ward?