One of Those Dreams

“I had one of those death dreams last night.”

“What was that? Oh, you mean where you die at the end?”

“Yeah, except that you always wake up before death actually occurs.”

“I’m glad I never get those.”

“Anyway, it started with me driving, only I was still sort of asleep, so I was in a reclining position with the seat all of the way back, and I could barely reach the steering wheel. I tried to sit up, because I couldn’t see over the dashboard, and we were going really fast. It was on the highway, at night.”

“Was I yelling at you?”

“You’re always yelling at me when I drive, so yes. It was hard to sit up. It felt like trying to do sit ups with an anvil on your chest. I could finally see a little, but only a little, over the steering wheel, and it was very dark out, and the highway was wet. I wanted to stop but we needed to get off an exit first.”

“So then what happened?”

“I pulled off of the first exit that came along. We had to be doing eighty, and I could see that at the end of the exit was some kind of embankment, made of earth or stone. It was at least ten feet tall and right across our path, in back of a road that was perpendicular to the exit. I tried to apply the brakes, but the other thing about driving in a dream is that brakes only work when they’re pressed practically through the floor boards. I’m trying to get the car to slow down and it’s not really going slower at all, really like it’s speeding up.”

“Maybe you were like an old person who thinks that the gas is the brake.”

“Maybe, but I can see that I’m not going to make it. I’m going to go right into the embankment, so I turn hard to the right. The car fishtails, totally out of control. The driver’s side rear end hits a chain link fence that’s somehow there and we go right through. Now we’re going backwards, kicking up all of this dust and dragging chain link, and suddenly the car tilts backward with its nose in the air, and I can’t feel the ground any more.”

“Why?”

“Well, I realize that we’re falling, like we’ve gone over a cliff. A couple of seconds go by, and it hits me that we’re falling a long way and that we’re going to hit really hard. I say, my God, we’re going to die! I turn to you and I say, because I realize that it’s the last thing I’ll ever do or say, and I say, I love-, and then I woke up. I felt like I was actually starting to say the words, and the noise of the panic just woke me up.”

“You have some pretty fucked up dreams.”

“It has to be a real vivid one, like that, in order for me to remember them.”

“But it was nice, that you wanted to tell me you loved me, as your final thought.”

“Hey it’s the least I could do. After all, I killed you, right?”

“Yeah, that does take a little of the romance away. So, if you were to die before me, would you wait for me?”

Wait for you? Wait where?”

“You know, on the other side.

“Okay, first of all, I don’t believe in an “other side”. Second, even if there were one, how do I know what I would be capable of? How do I know if I still have free will, or the capacity to remember anything that happened in my prior life? I might not be able to “meet you”, or know who you are if I did.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Look, Ben, all I’m saying is I can’t answer a hypothetical like that. I’d be lying if I gave you a definite answer on a hypothetical like that.”

“No, Jack. You’re an asshole, because I would wait for you, and now you’re making me think that you don’t love me like you say you do.”

“Jerk, I told you I loved you with my dying breath.”

“Yeah, right after you killed me. Asshole.”