Homewards Bound

Caught in a nightmare, Jenni finds herself reliving the same event night after night. But why does she find herself dreaming of a burning car and how can she make it stop?

It’s impossible to ignore a car screaming fire and shrapnel as it smashes through your bedroom wall at three in the morning. Of course, my parents say it was my scream that woke them, or the thud as my body hit the floor, but I know they’re lying. They have to be. How can they not see the twisted metal wreckage, the shards of glass sparkling on the carpet? They go crunch crunch crunch beneath their feet as they pretend.

When they leave, I check the car. I do it every night, not getting too close, not daring to touch just in case I really feel metal beneath my hands. Or would feeling nothing be worse? I don’t know, so I just kind of crouch and squint.

Empty.

It’s always empty. Always a quarter past three and always empty. I heave a sigh of relief I don’t even realise I’ve been holding and slump backwards against my bed. I sit there, just me and a wrecked car, alone in the dark until I fall asleep again.

My back always hates me for it the next morning. Something, something, something what about when I’m 80, I’ll regret doing this then. Balls. I regret doing it now, but I still do it.

Pancakes make it better, dad in a plastic apron with ‘World’s Sexiest Cook’ tromping ‘round the kitchen in his enormous work boots and singing ‘B.J the D.J’, originally by Stonewall Jackson, now covered by Quentin Rivers feat. the Kitchen Crockery Percussion group. Mum’s sitting at the table, smiling and keeping time with fingers tapping on the tabletop. She looks a bit worn at the edges, ragged and fraying with dark circles under her eyes. But her smile is still bright and clean. In fact, we all look a bit under the weather - when I catch sight of myself in the reflection on the fridge door, I’m also pale and sport fetching bags beneath my eyes. A family of raccoons, we are, or maybe just a family whose daughter’s nightmares keep waking everyone up at three in the morning. Raccoons are cuter, though.

Not that we’re going to get much sleep this weekend. Mum’s sixtieth, and my best friend Jan’s throwing a mad pre-exam bash. Not that my ‘rents know about Jan’s do - it’s a ‘study group’. But I am hyped for it, even though I’ll have to skip out on mum’s party; it’ll be a snooze-fest if past form’s anything to go by, so no regrets from me. There’s only so much Scrabble and Fluxx I can stomach in one evening. Only so much alcohol too, I guess, but when everyone’s puking their guts out around you it doesn’t matter much that you’re crouched over the toilet bowl making gagging noises. Apparently informing family members of boredom by miming being sick is ‘impolite’ and ‘dammit Jenni, show some respect’. 

While I’m wolfing down delicious, delicious pancakes I can hear mum out in the hallway getting ready to head out. Partly ‘cause she walks loud, but mostly ‘cause she’s getting grouchy at not being able to find the car keys. Dad’s pockets are the first victims of the Key-Search Inquisition, but this time the spares are in my pockets, and I’m not owning up to that. They dig into my leg accusingly as lint, pens, handkerchiefs and three dollars sixty are scattered over the floor before dad finds the main set of keys by the front door.

It’s when we get out to the car that things start going really wrong. Sweat’s already sliding down my neck and sticking my shirt to my back, summer cicadas wittering away in a hazy chorus from the bushes. Heat waves make everything shimmer, even me as I walk towards the car, it’s bright blue paint more vivid than the sky. I’m trembling, shaking, the sweat’s icy on the nape of my neck. The cicadas are a long way away suddenly, but there’s a roaring in my ears.

I can’t even reach out to the handle of the car door. Can’t bring myself to touch it. Instead, I curl my hands into fists, feel my nails nip against my palms. I can taste blood. Probably bitten my lip or the inside of my cheek; and the roaring in my ears is louder now. Maybe it’s a fever; at least, that’s what I tell my parents as I stammer and sweat my way through excuses so thin they’d be considered inappropriate material even for an erotic negligee. Mum’s forced smile hurts the most; we always go out for lunch for her birthday.

But I can’t. I can’t go near the car.

In the living room, the hands of the clock crawl around the face, spinning my thoughts into a sudden maelstrom. My ‘nightmare’ comes back to me, a sudden sinking certainly sitting leaden in my stomach. A car, fiery and mangled - a premonition? I don’t believe in magic or anything like that, but anxiety and dread hollow out a comfortable pit in my stomach and hunker down for the long haul. 

I call my parents. Mum never has her phone, so I call dad. For a few moments, measured by eyes fixed on the clock and tremors shivering across my hands, the regular ringing is soothing. 

The automaton voice of the missed call lady is like nails screeching down my spine.

‘Try again’ she says, and I do. Shaking fingers make it hard; I can feel my teeth starting to ache as I grind them flat against each other, a dam struggling to keep the sudden flaring anxiety locked up tight within me. It’s stupid, I never get worried about anything. I try again. Again. Again says the lady with the nails-on-a-chalkboard-claws-on-glass voice. It’s not until I’m fumbling mum’s number into the keypad and water smears across the screen that I realise I’m crying, worry finding another way to squeeze out my body.

It rings out.

By the time the front door opens I’m empty, wrung out and stretched like a flannel on washing day for all that I’m curled up into a ball as tight as can be. I think the police are supposed to ring the doorbell first, before they come in to announce the news. Maybe they did. Maybe I missed it. Either way, I’m ready. I feel like I’ve been preparing myself for eternity, although a watery glance at the clock shows it’s only been twenty minutes. Bring on the solemn faces, the condolences - maybe they can fill the gaping space where my internal organs used to be.

My dad’s face pokes around the door frame - he wants to know what’s up with all the missed calls, am I okay? But before he can even finish his sentence I’m bawling again through sand-papery eyes and he kind of finishes in a mumble with his mouth full of my hair and his shirt full of tears. 

It turns out, as I stumble up the stairs mumbling excuses, that dad did a quintessential ‘mum’ and left his phone charging when they went out. I guess it makes sense; no need to have it when we’re all together. Everything’s my fault. Already I feel stupid, my face hot and sticky with the residue of tears, but I tell them I’m just over-tired. I tell myself that, too, but lying in my bed, scrunched up between the shadows and the blanket, I can still feel my heart racing, my brain whirring like some demented clockwork thing gone horribly wrong. Feels wrong, trying to sleep when the sun’s still poking curious fingers under my curtains, but I try anyway.

There’s tiredness and then there’s *tiredness*. My body’s buzzing with restless energy, like a toddler forced to take a nap. It feels stupid to be lying here, fully clothed, in the middle of the day. But the earlier worry has hollowed everything else out, leaving just... tiredness. I should probably sleep - mum and dad said we would do the lunch next weekend, instead, and I should try and get as much sleep as I can so I’m not too tired and grumpy. I also don’t want to ruin the mood at Jan’s, either.

Jan’s party’s tonight. I’ll have to sneak out, but I also think just maybe I don’t want to go. I can’t bring myself to even touch the car door; how can I get to the other side of the city without driving? As the tired empty feeling in my chest unfurls and reaches dark tendrils up to my brain, I think that I could just stay home. It’s mum’s birthday, too, and it’ll be boring as anything, but maybe that’s okay.

I wake up to watery sunlight streaming through my open curtains, warming my back where I’m sitting propped against my bed, staring at where the car was. All the times I’ve been woken up by the screaming sound of wrenching metal and shattering masonry have started to blur together; I can barely recall the specifics of last night’s visit. Empty car, 3:15AM. What’s there to bother remembering?

As I scarf down pancakes at the kitchen table, I can feel a buzz of excitement tingling in my fingers and toes. I give mum a huge smile, and when she returns it the bags beneath her eyes seem to disappear in the light of her excitement. It’s always cheesy as anything, but mum loves her birthday and all the little customs we do together as a family. The lunch, the party, the long night spent playing all her favourite games. I don’t even have to try to lose at Scrabble to make her happy - haven’t won a game since I was small and QVRTYUU was a legal word. The spare keys are digging into my thigh, thanks skinny jeans, but at least no-one’s noticed them by the time we head out to the car.

It’s hard to open the car door, but I can’t stand to see my mum disappointed. I can imagine her expression, incredibly vivid in my head, the tight smile hiding her disappointment as I stutter some excuse, and I don’t want to see that. So I force my shaking hand to grab the metal, so hot in the searing sunlight that it feels like it burns down to my bones, and yank the door open.

Once I’m inside, I feel strangely... floaty. Disconnected, like I’m drunk as a skunk. Drunker. What phrase does my mum use? Six sheets to the wind? Feels like I’m the sheets, filled with ten Limey Seabreeze cocktails. I really need to drink some more water if the heat’s making me this lightheaded, geez. Or maybe it’s relief at having overcome this sudden, stupid, irrational fear of automobiles. So I just close my eyes and let dad drive us to the restaurant, feeling the car rumble beneath me. At least I’ve stopped feeling straight up panicky and sick.

I’m on my third glass of water, still feeling a little blergh, at the restaurant when it starts. Someone’s car backfires horrifically somewhere outside; it’s so loud, so visceral that I can almost imagine the black smoke belching from the tailpipe. Probably needs more oil or something. Mum and dad don’t even comment on it, and why would they? It’s just a car.

Dad uses his straw to shoot its paper wrapper at my face, safe in the knowledge that I can’t retaliate because my straw’s already denuded and plunged into my drink. Instead, I give him a grin and pinch a cookie off his plate. Chocolate always tastes sweeter when it’s stolen. Everyone’s laughing, now, mum’s eyes are brimming with tears as dad alternates between spluttering indignantly and giggling helplessly. His shoulders are shaking like he’s caught in an earthquake.

Actually, everything’s shaking.

The enormous glass windows that stretch from the floor all the way up to the ceiling three storeys up are trembling, so are the struts and escalators and the big banners splashed with the latest sale items are slamming against glass and metal like they’re caught in a gale. The entire room - no, it feels more like the whole world - is tearing itself apart at the seams as my parents sit at the cafe table laughing and smiling. The nausea returns, slamming into me like a fist to the gut, but if I stand I know I’ll be shaken off my feet and swept away. So, I sit, clutching my knife and fork in white-knuckled hands and hope like hell it’ll all be over soon. 

It’s a weird sensation, because over the pounding of my heart and the howling scream of metal on metal I can still hear my parents perfectly. Dad’s grumbling about his stolen cookie while mum laughs and passes him some of her brownie. I struggle to keep the smile on my face - it feels fixed and faker than a plastic mask - because they don’t seem to have noticed me sweating through my shirt in my chair. The whole room is shaking, it seems impossible that they can’t here it. As hard as I tell myself that it’s not real, screaming it in the silence of my skull, my brain doesn’t care. I can taste blood over the sweet remnants of the pilfered cookie, starkly real in contrast to the imagined din rattling the crockery.

With an ear-splitting revving sound, the car soars through the window in front of me, everything smashing into a prismatic spray of glass and fractured sunlight. Briefly the sun hits the car’s windscreen just right, and I see my reflection in the glass. I look terrified - pale, eyes wide. Then it’s gone and the empty car slams into a concrete supporting pillar, crumpling into a tangle of metal and flames belching black smoke.

My knife and fork rattle loudly on the plate, but now the car’s mostly just a smouldering ruin squatting on the opposite side of the room the adrenaline’s starting to go down. By the time I’ve finished shovelling the last of my cake into my mouth, chewing furiously to avoid having to talk, I almost feel normal again.

Still, I’m thinking about that damn car all day, half expecting it to leap out at me from every corner. This is getting absolutely out of control; I’ve never seen anything during the day before. By the time evening comes around, I’ve made my decision - there’s no way in hell I’m gonna drive to Jan’s when I can’t even think straight. Scrabble it is, I guess. Or maybe we’ll play Catan, I stand a chance of winning that at least.

Three in the morning and I’m wide awake. There’s the tiniest bit of moonlight filtering under the curtain, just enough to muddle the shadows into unrecognisable shapes, but not enough to wake me. Not sure why I’m awake, actually, but I doubt it’ll make a difference in the end.

Spoiler - it doesn’t. The car still arrives squealing in agony, its blue paint barely visible beneath the flames. Oily black smoke fills my room in defiance of the open window, making my chest burn and squeezing my lungs. It careens sideways, tires shrieking as they try to find grip on the carpet and then in slow motion it flips. Rolls once, twice and then it smashes into my bedroom wall, coming to rest on its roof. I don’t want to check it, I know nothing good travels in this car, but I still can’t help myself.

It’s empty, because of course it is. It always is.

The rest of the day passes without incident, which is nice. I’d hate to ruin mum’s birthday with my stupid hallucinations. I even feel guilty slipping away to go to Jan’s; in fact, I make more of a production of it than I originally planned. The original plan was a strike of ninja precision, a silent and unnoticed vanishing, but instead I wish my parents goodnight, telling them I love them even as I fake being too tired to stay. Though, I’m not faking, not really. All these sleepless nights have really trashed my sleep schedule, and I’m bone weary. But I’m not missing Jan’s party. 

The weirdest sense of deja vu assails me as I extricate myself from my mum’s embrace, wiping away the residue of her kiss on my forehead as I climb the stairs. Feels like I’ve done this before. Of course, I have. Loads of times. But this isn’t like normal. Feels more real, like a premonition, like I’ll actually trip over dad’s discarded shirt outside their bedroom.

The hallway’s dark, but it’s also straight and I’ve lived here for twenty two years, so I’m not about to get lost. My door’s a little ajar at the end of the hall, and I can almost smell the nighttime breeze wafting through my open window as I stumble, something tangling around my feet. Not quite a face-plant, I smack into the wall instead, which is nearly as embarrassing but thankfully not as loud. But as I reach down and untangle a striped button-up shirt from my feet, the feeling of deja vu crystallises into a strange detached certainty. The spare keys to the car jab into my leg as if to emphasise the point.

The climb out my window is easy, I barely even register it. It’s like I blinked and suddenly I’m on the lawn looking at the car parked in front of me. Everything’s taken on a serene feeling, my vision’s so sharp I’d swear someone’s turned on the HD function on my eyeballs. Weird and surreal, like being in a really highly-rendered video game - just a little inexplicably off from being real. What is real, though? I mean really. Not this, for sure.

The car engine turns over easily, quiet as a kitten. No-one will even notice I’m going. As I pull out of the driveway, I know I’ll get to Jan’s party. That I won’t be coming back home. And that’s not okay, but it’s how it is and there’s no getting away from it.