By Emi Gruender
I’m skidding down the interstate. My headlights have burned out long ago and the streetlights are flickering. I’m alone in the middle of a rural area: and the hill I’m cresting has just begun to flatten out. The car dips towards the other side as I gently press at the brake. But the car picks up speed despite the brake being pressed to the back of the wheel well. I’m speeding up, and I have no way to stop.
There’s a fork at the bottom of the hill. An unforgiving divide, sharpened to a tip, separates the two lanes. There’s an ancient white Buick on the left, next to the garish green sign that advertises where I need to go. But I’m barrelling down the hill at breakneck speed. Though I can feel the measly resistance the brakes are providing, it feels gummy. No matter how hard I push my foot through the wheel well, I’m not slowing down fast enough.
I swerve into the next lane, which drops into a clover-shaped entrance onto the highway below. My heart is banging against my ribcage, and I taste blood in my mouth. My tongue is bleeding. I just have to find a flat area to coast, I think. But the clover keeps turning and turning, getting steeper and steeper. I’m fighting against the wheel to keep it at the proper position, to avoid flying off the corkscrew’s edge. And the bank is getting flatter; my steering crutch is disintegrating.
I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it. And I have no idea what’s at the bottom. If there’s a bottom.
I’ve been plagued with nightmares like these since I first got my license in December of my sophomore year. As a result of doing morbid research on car accidents and having first-hand experience of my own, these terrors plague my unconsciousness without end. I shudder at the prospect of being crashed into in the middle of an intersection. I shiver at the thought of not braking fast enough and rear-ending someone, killing the occupants inside. I worry about the possibility that any damage to the car that I drive will raise my parents’ insurance rate for the next three years. I feel incredibly guilty whenever I accidentally cut someone off because they were in my blind spot. What if I wasn’t so lucky? What if I lost control and sent both myself and my passenger spinning off the road into a ditch? What if I ran into a pedestrian and killed them?
I’ve been told someone like me should not be able to drive. I’m too scattered, too anxious. And to be honest? Part of me agrees. But when I weigh these night terrors against the freedom I gain in my waking hours, I realize that my anxiety may be the price I need to pay to be a safe driver. Perhaps I need to live through the most terrifying simulations in order to scare me into good driving skills. That’s a price I am willing to pay.