The end of the road

I think I died in a car crash.

And I say “think” because I do not dare to express much certainty. It is the safest word, the truest word I can find. It’s like seeing it all played out through a blurry lens; I am in the dream, and I see myself, but I cannot do anything to stop what happens next. 

In the dream, I’m a kid again. I’m with my family in the car. We’re going to our countryside house. We always go there when the heat of the summer gets too hot to bear. It is always refreshing to feel the cool breeze kissing your skin. It’s sort of a refuge for us, this house. More like a home than any other place. The reason I am aware of where we are heading, is because I know the way like I know the car is moving forward. It is something I simply know.

There are no clouds, even though it is raining. My brother, strapped to his baby chair, draws a smiley face upon the humid window, while I trace the path left by a droplet on its wake. When I look again, the face has lost its smile, as well as the lines that were supposed to be its eyes. There’s just an empty circle. Outside, there is a lush forest, but the trees are all backwards, as if reflected in a pool of water. We are all silent, only the sound of the rain hitting the car breaks the eerie stillness. Usually, my mother would comment something on my father’s driving; how he had taken the wrong turn, or how he had driven too fast on a curve. This time, there’s nothing. My mother suddenly turns on the radio, but only a buzzing noise comes out of it. She doesn’t turn it off though. Both my father and my mother stare to the horizon. I have a book sitting on my lap, but there are no words written on the pages. I feel like something isn’t right; my chest tightens as if anticipating something bad. But I cannot speak, I cannot scream. There’s a lump in my throat big enough to suffocate my breathing. The buzzing somehow keeps getting louder and louder. 

Then, there’s white. Only white. I can’t see anything. When I get my vision back, and the ringing in my head has subsided, panic floods my body. We’re hanging over a cliff. My brother starts crying. His face goes impossibly red. I try to calm him down, to no avail. I shout for my parents to do something, but they remain quiet and still. Then, we are falling, and falling, and falling. And I am weightless. I have no ears, no eyes, no arms. Nothing.

The next thing I know, we have stopped. A pulsating light blinds me for a moment. The raindrops on the window flash crimson like dripping blood. I glance to my brother and I notice his eyes are different now, wrong. They look like slits carved onto his delicate skin, an unnatural smile straining his soft face. Like the smiley on the window. My parents aren’t even in the car. They are outside, their heads buried in the ground, their feet pointing to the cloudless sky. The rain dampens their clothes. Their arms are glued to the sides of their bodies. It’s as if the laws of gravity didn’t apply to them. It’s as if this isn’t real. But if this is not happening, why am I feeling so much fear? When I try to open the door so I can reach my parents, or rather what remains of them, I find that I cannot. The handle does not budge, no matter how hard I pull. Then I give up, and sink into the seat, as my mind spirals into chaos. 

How is it that I am alive, and they are all dead? I should be dead, right? It doesn’t make any sense. My parents, my brother, they deserved to live as much as I do. 

I am conscious of what’s going on, I can process it, and I shouldn’t be able to, if I were asleep. 

…

Some dreams you remember like they really happened. Others you forget the moment you awake. I’m sure you are thinking that it must have been just a dream. After all I am breathing, my heart is beating, and I am doing all things an alive person would do. But there’s something that you don’t know, and that may shock you when you learn of it. I am warning you, because I myself don’t like to be surprised.

I don’t remember the last time I ate. I don’t remember the last time I cried. The only water is in my dreams now, when I see that terrible storm once again. I have forgotten the screams of my mother, the stride of my father, the laugh of my little brother. I don’t remember their names nor their faces. It’s like when you read a book, where you can sort of imagine how the characters look, but you cannot know the precise color of their eyes, or the exact shape of their brows. I do not recall having gotten out of that car, I do not remember being rescued. I’ve been having this dream for the past ten years. Every. Single. Night. And every time I forget, until I remember. Until I remember that I am not really here, am I? Every time I forget that this is a dream. That this didn’t really happen, or so I believed. Now I think that it is living I forgot about, because I have not lived for a very long time. I think.

…

Where does the dream end and the memory start? Is there any line separating them at all? I wish I knew the answer. 

The only thing I know is, whenever I step into that car, I revive the horror. My breathing quickens. My heart stops. 

Over and over again, I’m in that car. Only this time, alone. 

This is my worst nightmare.