science fiction meets nostalgia

In my rear view mirror I could see a girl behind me in the night. She was clicking her lock button so the car headlights would flash. In the dark it looked like a giant primordial spark of flint. She must of kept clicking her lock button because the flash would happen again then again, like a whip crack that she commanded. Looking into the mirror felt like looking into a story book. I am eight and reading about a cold boy on the wooden floor of an inn. He is about to place firewood in the furnace but until then he is honest, virtuous, and freezing to death. Meanwhile this girl in my mirror is calling the light out of no where and I want follow her, if she goes, to some house surrounded by palm trees. But also I want the light to keep ringing out as if it were hitting me each time. I wonder who is in control of the universe and if this girl is in the center and if this is a story of the safe or dangerous variety. Is this the future or the past that I see? How can it feel like both at the same time?