There’s a nightmare I used to have.
In my dream, I found myself traversing along a narrow, serpentine road, barely wider than my car. Sometimes, a tempest raged around me, rain lashing down and wind howling, while other times a dense fog obscured everything beyond the car’s headlights. Occasionally, my journey of uncertainty commenced just as the storm relented, casting an ethereal glow upon the saturated landscape with raindrops glistening in the dazzling sunlight. The road itself was a chaotic mess. Jagged potholes lurked like hungry mouths, and rubbish littered the asphalt- sometimes the remnants of a forgotten party, a tangle of streamers, crumpled beer cans, and soggy birthday hats. Other times, it resembled the aftermath of a construction disaster, the road choked with broken sinks, shattered marble bathtubs, and shards of colourful tiles.
As I navigated that sinuous road, a sheer cliff face loomed to my right, a constant reminder of the deadly drop-off that awaited any misstep. The knowledge of that deadly drop-off made every swerve a potential plunge, every bump a brush with oblivion. In my sleep, I’d frantically grip the steering wheel tight, knuckles white, neck stiff with tension, my gaze glued to the road ahead.
Like clockwork, the dream always reached a jarring but familiar halt. Halfway through the dream, I always came across an obstacle- a hulking shape blocking my path. My headlights cut through the darkness, but the image remained blurry. Inch by agonising inch, I’d brace myself to get closer but the image of the obstacle refused to come into focus.
One night, I was awoken by a soft whimper drifting down the hall. It was my daughter, sitting upright in bed, tears already streaming down her cheeks. I nestled next to her small body and held her close until her trembling subsided.
“We were high up on the mountain, Mummy, on a skinny road” she hiccuped. “It was raining really hard, and you stopped the car because there was something big in the road. I didn’t want you to get out, but you did. You shone your flashlight and there was this big, white, shiny thing”.
A knot of unease formed in my stomach. The details felt oddly specific. Had I ever recounted my recurring nightmare to her? I traced calming circles on her back, murmuring “It was just a dream, honey”.
As I tried to make myself comfortable next to her, drowsiness washed over me. My eyelids fluttered shut momentarily, but a sudden flash of light jolted me awake. Disoriented, I opened my eyes to find myself gripping the steering wheel, instead of my daughter’s soft hand. Panic clawed at my throat. This wasn’t a dream.
I had buried this memory so deeply, that even the most vivid nightmare couldn’t fully unearth it. Now, nestled next to my daughter’s tiny frame, the dream and the memory intertwined, demanding to be understood. Perhaps facing this buried fear would be the key to calming the storms within both of us.
The memory flooded back in a torrent- a summer storm years ago. On our way back from a trip to the petting zoo with my daughter, I’d stubbornly opted for the scenic mountain road, to avoid highway gridlock. Pine-covered slopes pressed in on my right side, while the other side dropped off into a sheer cliff that plunged towards the unseen sea. The rain pummelled the windshield, reducing visibility to a few blurry feet. Pulling over wasn’t an option as I couldn’t find a safe spot to wait for the storm to pass. I kept on driving slowly, listening to the shrieking symphony of the wipers and the clapping sound of the thunder. Feeling desperate, I started singing at the top of my voice to distract my daughter from the chaos unfurling around us and to mask my own rising fear.
At some point, the headlights briefly pierced the curtain of rain, illuminating a hulking shape blocking the road just ahead of us. I jammed on the brakes, the car fishtailing precariously on the slick road with a heart-stopping screech. Rolling down the window, I stuck my head outside to get a better look. Rain lashed my face like needles as I craned my neck, peering out. Through the blurry deluge, I could make out the vague outline of something immense and white, an unsettling fluorescence emanating from it in the storm’s glare. My mind raced with possibilities. A fallen boulder? An old fridge someone had tossed off the cliff? There was not enough room to turn around on this narrow road. My only option, it seemed, was to push the obstacle off the edge, sending it plummeting into the unseen abyss below.
Shielding myself against the tempest with my arm, I grabbed a flashlight and ventured out of the car, towards the obstacle. I had only taken a few steps when a pungent, nauseating smell hit me- the smell of blood, decay, and something disturbingly primal and animalistic. Swallowing hard, I flashed the light directly on it.
There, sprawled across the asphalt like a monstrous fallen angel, lay a magnificent white horse. It looked eerily majestic, its body like an ancient Greek marble statue. One leg remained outstretched in a final, defiant kick, while wide, vacant eyes seemed to hold a silent scream.
Grief settled over me like a shroud. How had that beautiful horse ended up here? Did it break free and succumb to hunger? Had it been abandoned? Or perhaps it mis-stepped and plunged from the mountainside? I was about to return to my car and call for help when I heard a guttural growl. My blood ran cold.
Two hulky shapes emerged from behind the colossal horse, their dark forms stark against the pale flesh they feasted upon- wild dogs. Alert by my presence, they had abandoned their gruesome meal, ready to safeguard their prey against a potential predator.
A primal terror gripped me. Adrenaline flooding through my system, I raced back to my car. Mud squelched under my shoes as I flung myself behind the wheel. My daughter. My daughter was peacefully slumbering in her car seat, blissfully unaware of the dangers lurking around us.
Thinking only of escape, I threw the car into reverse, ignoring the screech of protest from the tires on the slick road. My heart hammered against my ribs as the car lurched backwards through the rain, each foot away from the horse and the dogs feeling like a maddening eternity. Finally, I found a wider section of the road where with a yank of the steering wheel, I executed a frantic U-turn. Only when a safe distance separated us from that gruesome sight did I dare to slow down. We were safe.
The macabre encounter on that mountain road left an indelible mark, despite my subconscious attempts to repress any memory of it. It came as no surprise that I had steered clear of mountain detours for years; the highway, with its gridlock and predictable monotony, had felt strangely comforting.
Perhaps the most peculiar consequence of the resurfacing of that odd memory was the cessation of the narrow road nightmares. It’s as if confronting that buried fear –both mine and the unsettling echo of it in my daughter’s dream- exorcised the growling ghosts and the fluorescent statue that haunted us both.
DoubleSpeak 