I swerved suddenly and yelped, blaring my horn as I passed the car that had pulled out right in front of me. I saw the driver through his window—he looked surprised. I drove another 300 feet, still fuming at the ignorance of the common driver when I realized that I had forgotten to turn my headlights on. Embarrassed, I flipped them on quickly, thankful that I had noticed it when I did.
I was already distracted. My music was loud and I was slightly bothered that the fast food restaurant I had been heading to was already closed for the night. I probably should have already known—it was late, past midnight. But still, I was hungry and was going home now to raid my pantry.
I crossed a bridge leading to my neighborhood and noticed I was going well over the speed limit. This was normal for me; the police weren’t very strict on speeding in my town. But I was still slightly shaken from my almost-wreck a minute earlier, so I tapped on my breaks.
Nothing happened. I pressed on them again, hard. Still, nothing happened. My car was actually gaining speed, hurtling down the bridge with no way to stop it.
I was flying now, my foot like lead on the brake pedal, doing everything in my power to stop just stop if my car would please just stop…
With no other choice, I banked a sharp curve in the road. My tires lost traction with the road, and the body of my car hit the median.
I was soaring through the air now, positively flying, but not the sort of flying you picture when you are a child. I was pinned to the bottom of my car by the sheer voice of gravity; it was pitch black and I could see nothing. This is happening, I thought to myself. This is real. This is it.
And suddenly, I was struck by the sheer loneliness of it all. This was how I was going to go? Starkly alone, in the dead of the night, with no one around to witness it? No one would know how my last few seconds felt; there was not a soul with whom to share my inevitable fate. I realized that I was far too young to go—that I had so much left that I could do. That when my car finally hit the ground and I died on impact, it would be a tragedy like no other. It would happen any moment now.
I prayed—frantically. Screaming over the blur of my music, tears streaming down my face at the unjustness of it all, trying to convince God that I was too young, too young, too young….
I woke up. It was as dark in my room as it had been in my car. I took a deep breath. I wiggled my toes. I prayed. I was alive; it had been a dream.
I was alive.