A Surge Of Certain Imaginary Death

So, my dreams are messed up. I mean really messed up. I always wake up wondering what the hell is going on and why I would fashion such atrocities. For some reason, most my dreams will include a nuclear explosion and end with me dying in the blast or contemplating long and hard about post-nuclear life in hell. This dream, ladies and gents, is not any different. I'll try and write down what I still remember, so if there are blanks, there are no explanations. Not that it would be explainable in the first place.

So, the details start that we're going to take a bus to see the country, but there's more to it in my mind. We're in this strange city and it feels like I'm inside a GTA franchise when I'm looking at the streets. It's dark and we're running to catch our transport. There's plenty buses, but all of them are going in the direction I'm trying to escape.  All in all, we arrive in the knick of time and jump on board, to escape from the busy city streets.

Our bus is Herentals bound, but it's taking a detour. It should be going to Ramsel, but I did not want to pass through there. My companions; being my mother, my brother and my girlfriend, are all quite pleased that I've decided to go through a scenic route, so we can see more country. At this point, I reveal my plans for all the rush. My answer to my companions is that you can't see a nuclear, mushroom blast while you're standing in it and I point them towards the fungus apocalypse. Behind the bus is a huge, and I mean gargantuan, mushroom cloud forming, destroying everything in it's path. Trees, buildings and any other tall structures we can see from afar are all getting swallowed and added to the dust racing to get us in its clutches.

At this point, it's safe to say everyone on the bus is freaking the hell out. The original gleam of contentment in my companions' eyes are traded in for glares of disbelief and fear. My mother and my girlfriend have a hard time coping with the fact there is doom rushing towards us.

But to make matters worse, the mustached bus driver is completely losing it. He's the persona of a guy I see at my gym from time. He's this seriously overweight and hairy bloke that is constantly rambling to himself while lifting weights. It's so freaking discomforting I can never continue my workout while he's doing his. Imagine Scruffy from Futurama, combined with Santa Claus, Cliff from Cheers and Moe Szyslak  from the Simpsons all rolled into one. Now, imagine this person on a ten year crack bender and violently talking to himself like Eleanor Abernathy, known as the Crazy Cat Lady from the Simpsons.

So, this raving lunatic is clearly upset by the advancing cloud of death and he takes his ramblings to overdrive mode. He's become a doomsayer and his actions towards us have become even more erratic than before. He starts shouting and laughing maniacally whilst driving into traffic, trying to hit other vehicles. From this point on, we rush to the front to try and talk some sense in this obviously psychotic, Spongebob acting, driving douchebag. Of course, he'll have none of it and decides to stop driving all together. This makes our bus slow down and makes the death cloud rush over closer.

I decide it's fair time to push this man aside and try and steer the bus myself. So, I stomp this mustached madman out of his seat and he rambles something about killing, blablabla. He disappears from my sight and from my dream, but I can only hope he jumped out of the bus and died a horrible death.

So, now here we are, with the bus under my control trying to outrace certain death. Of course, our plans have drastically changed from just going to Herentals as a first stop and I've decided to drive as far up as I can. The other passengers will have to concur or die, there isn't much choice in unwilling coercion. I try driving and meanwhile contemplate what life is going to be like from now on. For one, we won't be able to stay in Belgium, if we don't want to be radiated do death. Hell, for all I know the most severe damage is already being done while we're trying to escape. It's not like I can see radioactive particles.. Anyway, I've somewhat decided at that point to drive all the way to Sweden and live there.

Why Sweden? I don't know, I'm trying to cheat certain death here, my actions don't need serious thought at that point. Sweden is a nice country, with lots of nature, really friendly people, a decent economy and also a decent government. It's also as far away from any radioactivity as we'll be able to get. I think for a one second thought, that isn't all that bad. I'd like to see what you come up with, when maneuvering a device you don't know for the first time, with death trying to grab you as fast as it can. Perhaps I can enjoy a show from the kickass dudes in Big Deal and Values in my post-apocalyptic life. Maybe that's why we're headed there and not say, Finland. Forget Norway (10 points for reference)!

Now, for some reason, the roads start to become very winding, with lots of on ramps everywhere making you drive circles. And as we all know, circles are not straight lines leading away from imminent demise clouds. No no, quite the opposite they are. And for even stranger reasons, my dream knows that driving a car requires you to shift gears when accelerating or decelerating. I wouldn't even think of that in real life, I have no idea why I would imagine it now.. And even though you can get up to speed and such without shifting gears, it's bad for your engine and it doesn't go so well. Why do I know that? It's quite puzzling..

So, here I am trying to operate a vehicle I can't and all I can think of is that we're all going to die, because I can't drive a fucking car. Pardon my French, but it's become quite a stressful situation at this point. Every time I try to shift gears, I take away my foot from the right pedal, which in my dream is the gas and put my left foot on the middle one, which in my dream is the clutch. I know that's probably all wrong, but shut the hell up. It's already quite miraculous that I'm dreaming in such detail about it.

Shifting doesn't go well and is accompanied by a lot of hiccups and more importantly a lot of slowing down. I just can't seem to get the timing right and can't shift without looking to what speed I'm shifting. With all the circles upwards I'm driving, that's a lot of shifting I need to do and it's making the distance between us and the mushroom cloud shrink at troubling speed.

My panic sets in when we can actually see the head of the cloud rushing from underneath a bridge nearby, before the force of the main gust swallows it in its entirety. From then on I call for my companions to work the gear shifter while I try and drive away. Since none of these people know how to work a car either, I need to give them a crash course in shifting gears and its mechanics, while now really trying to get every second forward I can. It isn't easy to try and explain that you don't need to be in fifth to move forward. And in general our chances will be best if we shift somewhere between first and third most the time, since we're driving a lot of circles.

I get a few good forward motions in before we drive onto another on ramp and we slow down again. In all, I think the cloud is less than 10 seconds away when we accelerate again, with my girlfriend on the shifter and the dream ends.

I hope for the sake of all my imaginary companions that I've made the right decisions in that time of panic and that in the end, we beat the armageddon cloud to safety. I hope we're all safe and well in imaginary Sweden, trying to start a new life amongst the sun, trees and snowy nature surroundings.

PS: My sincere apologies for the seriously subpar writing skills, I wrote this as fast as I could to remember as much as possible. so, I had to trade in decent structured sentences and vocabulary for mundane sentences. I hope it's still amusing to read. If not, I'm sorry.