how do you deal with tragedy?
My nights have been filled with horrific dreams and last night was no exception. I'm only going to write about the most vivid part because I'd be writing for days if I told everything.
I was in the backseat of my friend, J's car, he was driving and my sister was sitting in the front beside him. We were coming upon a huge intersection in Western Pennsylvania and the light turned green as we approached. We were about 10 cars from the intersection when we looked ahead and saw that there was a police officer frantically waving his hands for all of the cars in our three lanes to back up as quickly as possible. Although we didn't understand what was happening, J backed-up and everyone in front of us went into reverse and backed-up as well. I looked behind us and saw several more cars approaching rather quickly, but fortunately, they saw what was happening and slowed down and eventually went into reverse and backed up too.
Within a minute, all of the cars going in our direction (the 3 lanes) were allowed to proceed through the light, however we were all merged into the far left-hand lane. As we slowly approached the intersection we began to see what the problem was.
On the pavement to the right were giant swathes of red smeared upon and drenching the ground and around it were a few stopped cars. There had obviously been a very bad accident and my sister was panicking from all of the blood. She said something about there being so much blood that someone must have been flattened into mush. Neither J nor my sister wanted to look at the scene. I couldn't see much as we passed and then I turned to look behind us as we drove beyond the scene.
What I saw was probably the most horrific thing I've ever dreamed. There was a woman lying on the pavement who had obviously been a pedestrian trying to cross the intersection before the light changed, but she didn't make it. She was laying on the ground covered in blood, but her right leg was sticking straight up in the air as if it were stuck in that position. Her leg was mangled, her arms were mangled and the handles of the shopping bags she had been carrying were still in what was left of her left hand.
I thought that she most certainly was dead until I looked at her face. She had a contorted and terrifying expression on her face that showed shock, pain, horror, disbelief and every emotion that you could imagine. I felt so torn apart and so helpless by the look on her face because I knew that she couldn't possibly survive and would probably be dead before the ambulances arrived.
My sister was freaking out and asked me if I had looked and I said yes and I told her what I saw. We were all in shock ourselves and decided to get off of the highway and pull into a parking lot in order to stop the car and calm down.
That was the end of that part of the dream. My dreams are so fucking realistic and colorful and terrifying sometimes. However, in most of my dreams, I can tell myself that it's not real, but it doesn't change the enormity of emotion that rushes through my mind and body.
I am quite sure that this dream was influenced by the images I've seen of the victims of the Asian tsunami and my feeling of shock and helplessness was the same as how I feel about it. In my dream, I knew that there was nothing I could do to help because the police were already there and the ambulance was on its way. I was like everyone else in the world, a witness to a terrible tragedy, yet isolated and protected from it...by the car in my dream and by distance in reality.
I was in the backseat of my friend, J's car, he was driving and my sister was sitting in the front beside him. We were coming upon a huge intersection in Western Pennsylvania and the light turned green as we approached. We were about 10 cars from the intersection when we looked ahead and saw that there was a police officer frantically waving his hands for all of the cars in our three lanes to back up as quickly as possible. Although we didn't understand what was happening, J backed-up and everyone in front of us went into reverse and backed-up as well. I looked behind us and saw several more cars approaching rather quickly, but fortunately, they saw what was happening and slowed down and eventually went into reverse and backed up too.
Within a minute, all of the cars going in our direction (the 3 lanes) were allowed to proceed through the light, however we were all merged into the far left-hand lane. As we slowly approached the intersection we began to see what the problem was.
On the pavement to the right were giant swathes of red smeared upon and drenching the ground and around it were a few stopped cars. There had obviously been a very bad accident and my sister was panicking from all of the blood. She said something about there being so much blood that someone must have been flattened into mush. Neither J nor my sister wanted to look at the scene. I couldn't see much as we passed and then I turned to look behind us as we drove beyond the scene.
What I saw was probably the most horrific thing I've ever dreamed. There was a woman lying on the pavement who had obviously been a pedestrian trying to cross the intersection before the light changed, but she didn't make it. She was laying on the ground covered in blood, but her right leg was sticking straight up in the air as if it were stuck in that position. Her leg was mangled, her arms were mangled and the handles of the shopping bags she had been carrying were still in what was left of her left hand.
I thought that she most certainly was dead until I looked at her face. She had a contorted and terrifying expression on her face that showed shock, pain, horror, disbelief and every emotion that you could imagine. I felt so torn apart and so helpless by the look on her face because I knew that she couldn't possibly survive and would probably be dead before the ambulances arrived.
My sister was freaking out and asked me if I had looked and I said yes and I told her what I saw. We were all in shock ourselves and decided to get off of the highway and pull into a parking lot in order to stop the car and calm down.
That was the end of that part of the dream. My dreams are so fucking realistic and colorful and terrifying sometimes. However, in most of my dreams, I can tell myself that it's not real, but it doesn't change the enormity of emotion that rushes through my mind and body.
I am quite sure that this dream was influenced by the images I've seen of the victims of the Asian tsunami and my feeling of shock and helplessness was the same as how I feel about it. In my dream, I knew that there was nothing I could do to help because the police were already there and the ambulance was on its way. I was like everyone else in the world, a witness to a terrible tragedy, yet isolated and protected from it...by the car in my dream and by distance in reality.