We suppose, as children, that dreams do not disappear. That they exist out there waiting for some day when we catch up with them.
What if that weren’t true for everybody? What if dreams do expire?
Welcome to Selenova, a place where people are born with clocks above their heads. But not for their lifetime, but for their dream. The moment one dreamed, a countdown began.
They must get it done ahead of their clock expiry; otherwise, their dream might be stuck forever in a world that nobody could ever see.
The Reality of Timed Hopes
In Selenova, people soon found out that timing is all that matters. Those who lost all hope and did not want to experience the pain of its downfall were individuals who hurried through life pursuing dreams that they never sat to realize. The pressure never ceased, and its tales echoed through the city with might-have-beens.
Lana, who dreamt as a child to become a painter, saw her clock lose its steam as she used her days to toil towards office hours that kept her family going. When she resumed with her brushes, they were muted by colours that faded. Her dream did not end with a flourish — nor did most in Selenova.
When Dreams Die
At zero hour, it wasn’t noise and melodrama. No alarms sounded, nothing flashed on and then off again. Simple, quiet change — an abrupt loss of passion, a spark that began but never came through. People never stop working; they just lose that spark.
In so many ways, life itself emulated. Deadlines, burnout, and peer pressure all push us away from what once meant so much to us. Selenova is fictional, but shortness of time is a shared condition.
The Rebels Who Would Not Obey. But a few disregarded the rules. Rumor held that some “reset” their clocks — rebels who attempted to reinstate earlier dreamscapes. They were scant and largely sneered at, but were there in any case.
And among them was Arif, a former architect who lost his zeal to create sustainable homes. Ten years into his countdown clock, he left his office job and started fresh. Friends said he went mad, yet he constructed a house that produces its own energy and water, and gave life to something. Several more did as well. The ticking clocks over their heads never returned, but they lived again.
What This Imaginary City Teaches Us
“City Where Dreams Expire” is more than fiction. It is commentary. We don’t tattoo clocks on bodies, but society allows its timeline on you: 24 to go to grad school, 25 to acquire that secure job, 30 to be secretly engaged, and be a success at 35, a house at 40, have a retirement plan, and much more! We get behind and begin questioning if our dreams ever even exist.
But suppose that we overthrew the concession? What if we applied dreams neither as consumables nor as perishables but as renewables?
Selenova is a fictional town, but runaway dreams do exist very strongly. The city makes one raise the following query: do our time horizons exist, or do they exist as society does not wish to develop at a sluggish speed? Maybe now it is time for all of us to be a little more Arif, to dream again despite everyone else telling you that the game is over.
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Writer,
Maliha Mahbub
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE