I have a reoccurring dream

In this dream I am in a vehicle, a car, a van, a bicycle, a motorcycle, whatever. Usually I’m not driving, but sometimes I am.

This time it was an old van, GMC, navy/gray, a little compacted, sorta like a Travis Millard van, but not so happy. It was packed with people, people who I knew in my dream. We were in a hurry, I don’t remember why, some kind of mission. We were dressed like hooligans from Operation Mayhem. Speeding through this complex weave of concrete overpasses, like entering Dallas, but more so. Everything awash in dirty slate, grimy and dripping. I remember I was buckled up in the back seat with two girls I think. I sat on the far left by the window. I gripped my knees till my knuckles turned white. We careened through traffic, the man driving was older, in a leather jacket, black shades and was in the early stages of balding. He jerked the steering wheel this way and that like it was a disobedient mutt on a leash. We lifted up on the right two wheels, then slammed back to the asphalt as he pulled it back. These maneuvers, I knew, were absolutely necessary, and I did not question our action. Nor did regret enter my mind when the van lilted, swerved, failed to correct, and tore through the symbolic gesture of a guardrail like a brick though a net of stringcheese.

This is the moment that all the dreams become the same. As we fell, I knew I had been here before, I was silent, my soul was silent as I anticipated my death. For an instant my mind projects forward to the crash, the metallic crunch, the crushing and slicing of my helpless body. I know this is the closest I’ll come to witnessing my death, for by the time we hit I will be finished before my nerves can respond. No time passes and I’m back. The fall is a only a moment, yet eternal. Everything I’ve done and left undone stacks up above a horizontal line and equals zero on the graph paper of my demise.

I recall all the other dreams I’ve had of this instant and ask if this is not also a dream. But it is real, I know without doubt. This is how I die.

I close my eyes. The fall is silence, the screams are silence. Only the force of gravity, the increasing pressure in my ears remain. Soon.

Now.

I gasp, swallow mouthfuls of air. Darkness is all around me. Am I standing? No. I’m one my back. Something warm is on top of me. Where am I? It’s a blanket. I’m in my bed. I’m not dead.

I’m not dead.