Let’s talk my dreams again. Maybe dreams isn’t the right word. A vision.
On Memorial Day 1998 I was struck by a drunk driver. He ran a stop sign, smashed into the rear of my car (about two feet behind the driver’s side door). The resulting impact spun the car around twice, broke the rear axle, and left my car in a ditch beside the road.
I wasn’t injured. Oh, I had a cut on my head that bled like a mother-fucker, but no bones were broken, no limbs severed. The ambulence came, took me to the hospital, they x-rayed me, and released me about four hours later.
Occasionally, I have flashbacks to the accident. I tense up, my breath catches, and I’m there. Then I’m back, and suddenly I’m there, again. I hear the sounds. I feel the spin. I’m there.
Last night, in bed, I closed my eyes, and I was there. Memorial Day, 1998.
And it was brutal. Over, and over, and over. I couldn’t relax. My body would tense, my arms would jerk. If you could measure last night’s mental trauma on the Richter scale, we’re talking somewhere about a 9. It was that bad.
Today? Aftershocks, not nearly so bad.
Bed beckons. I’ve some reading to do. And I’m looking forward to listening to Weekend Edition with Scott Simon tomorrow morning — I just realized today that, not working Saturday mornings, means I can listen to Scott Simon every Saturday! This makes me happy.