A road (bad) trip

This dream happened just before 7:40AM on Monday.

Mike (my brother) and I go collect Garth and Ross Taylor. We haven't sen them in years. I'm driving mom's old Fort Cortina, the one we used to dread driving in Snobville.

We arrive in good time and they hop in. It feels like we're driving back home at this stage, and for some reason I'm incredibly nervous about my driving ability, especially having 3 peers in the car.

We stop off somewhere first, all get out, then get back in again. I feel terribly uncomfortable in my driving position. The seat feels awkward. My brother is sitting behind me yet it's Garth who's knees are digging into the back of my seat. He sarcastically remarks: "Yeah, it's uncomfortable hey?!".

We're driving through the back streets of Bryanston and Randburg. I'm driving slowly, perhaps too slow. Other road users behind me are upset, showing their disappointment in my rearview mirrors. I ignore them. My vision ahead seems obscured. As I make sense of the impairment, its a great big red model double-decker bus perched just behind my steering wheel (on the steering column). I try sit up straight and can only just see a bit further. By leaning to the left I can see much better.

I feel like I'm outside the car, but still in full control. The car is no longer mom's old Ford, but a corsa or some other hatchback. Even red in colour. I'm looking down at the car. We're dodging stationary cars, garden service bakkies and stopping for oncoming traffic. The road users behind me are getting incresingly irritated, one particular individual looks like a rough Harvey Keitel, shaggy jaw, scruffy hair. When I slip into the oncoming lane, the cars behind me surge ahead of our car in the left lane. Three cars pass, the Harvey Keitel look-alike first, another car and then an old man with thick glasses easily visible. When the old man passes he uses his hazards to say: "Thanks!", I sarcastically say to myself: "Pleasure old man" and pull a Banzaaai hand sign.

I've got an easy right turn ahead, one I've travelled many times before as it seems quite familiar. Our slow speed is actually too fast for the turn and I miss the apex. The car trips into a slide, by looking over my left shoulder I can see a house's gate approaching fast. The car stops spinning at 180 degrees but is still sliding backwards. I work the controls of the car and we stop centimetres from the gate. I knew it! I knew we'd miss it!

My passengers were obviously distressed but I blow it off, trying to act all confident, inside I feel terrible again.

As we head into the dip after resuming our course, the Harvey Keitel wannabe tries to tell me something from the side of the road. I can't tell if he's pissed off with me and wants a confrontation or if he has something to point out to me about the state of my car. (like it could have had a flat or a non-working tail light). I blow him off again and carry on with the driving. As we descend into the dip, I can see a huge sandbank on the right-hand side. Our road now has two choices, an early right turn up the embankment or continue on the left (which Garth and Ross reveal later was the better way to go).

I take the right turn up the sand bank and am outside the vehicle again, looking down at the car and the road ahead. Dodging the severe bumps and making my own road of the sand and grass. I reassure the passengers again by pointing out a dirt road ahead of us, headed in the right direction too.

I'm back inside the car again with my right arm out the window catching air. My hand touches an over-hanging power-line, I didn't feel any electrical current (thank goodness) just the cold steel. We're now at a cliff-top and there are powerlines everywhere, I grab onto another power-line and now all 4 of us are out of the car, dangling from the lines, worried about which cable to hold onto. The car feels like it's down in the water below.

A human ladder is the agreed best way off the power lines, but the powerline we're all holding onto starts to sag, we're headed for the water below. Fear overcomes me.

As we touch the water a massive surge of electricity courses through the line. I wake up.