Out on the Limb

Day 15 cont'd (the journey)

This day turned out to be quite memorable as in "harrowing".

Before I tell the story, let's backtrack a week to a particularly frightening nightmare. Here's what happened in my dream:

I was standing alone. A figure in all black was approaching me and I was gripped with intense fear. "Who are you?", I asked. The figure continued to get closer. "Who are you? Who are you?? WHO ARE YOU???", I demanded. I knew, though, that this was death personified. I was in full panic as the figure in black was so close I could feel a soft deathly exhale on my cheek. Then, suddenly, the figure turned around and began to drift away. It was now all white. I woke up sobbing.

Fast forward to my freeway experience in Salt Lake City. It's the weekend and traffic is moderate. There are five lanes traveling in each direction, and I'm in the middle southbound lane. I had been following a motorcycle for many miles as he and I maintained the same speed. At one point I had the sudden thought that I should not be following that motorcycle. I dismissed my thought as foolishness, but in retrospect it was my instinctive voice trying to give me warning.

A car slipped into the generous space I had provided between the motorcycle and me. I'm one of those drivers....I really really like enough space to brake if necessary; and so I slowed down to 70 to create some space. Most traffic was traveling at 75 or 80 which seems to be the norm now everywhere unless bottlenecks prevent.

Anyway, now there is a car between me and the motorcycle, but not for long. When the car changed lanes, my brain snapped to emergency mode as I realized the motorcycle was stopping. Rough guess is that he was down to 20 MPH when the car blocking my view changed lanes. All I had time to do was brake as hard as I possibly could without losing control. It was not possible to change lanes; and even if I had, the car behind me would have nailed the poor guy.

The motorcycle came to a halt, and I screeched in behind him just a few inches away. Two lanes of traffic on either side are flying by; and as I check my rear view mirror I see that another small car has managed to come to a halt directly behind me. "Good", I thought....."now if we get hit, I have a slightly better chance of surviving."

My hands are tight on the steering wheel and I'm shouting "Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" The motorcyclist is fiddling with his bike and miraculously gets it started. (reserve gas tank?...I don't know) We're saved! I head to the next exit and drive to an empty parking lot where I feel I might throw up....no, wait....I'm going to pass out....no, not yet, it's time to cry.

Even before I exited the freeway for my breakdown, I remembered the dream and knew that death had just paid me a visit and decided to let me live another day.
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Thank you, Briebanofsky, for making this picture available thru the CC license. I love your "Expression" set. Very nice!

Labels: journey, traffic