My Worst Nightmare

ADDED LATER: The day I dreamed this, a man Husby knew in the motorcycle community died riding his bike. He was leading a group of riders to give blood for another man who had recently had what they call "a bad getoff." A woman in a car missed a stop sign, and turned in front of him. When Husby broke a throttle cable in the desert, this guy came and towed him 60-miles or so, fixed Husby's bike, and sent him on his way.

People often ask me why I 'let' my husband ride a motorcycle, knowing how dangerous it can be. I tell them it is because I know how much he loves it, and I would never take that away from him. In truth, I don't believe it is mine to disallow. He rode when I met him, he's ridden most of his life, and it is as much a part of him as he is of me. I know he takes every possible precaution, and that he is a very skilled rider. Of course I worry, I fret. However, deep down, one of the reasons I was able to be low key about it is because I have never allowed myself to imagine or contemplate his injury or death on a bike. Last night, this most horrific of possibilities entered my dreams in extremely vivid detail, catching me completely off guard. I rarely dream of Husby in the first place, which I find strange. If the dream had been as realistic as it was detailed, I would have been in the hospital this morning in the psych ward. This bit of nightmare was bizarrely tacked on the end of another vivid dream which had nothing to do with him, me, or motorcycles. But suddenly, there was a huge crowd of people shouting in panic at the door of the house I was in. The crowd was carrying three people above them, forming a massive human stretcher, almost as in worship. They laid them down on the floor. One was my husband's friend Derek, one was an old friend from Texas Stewart, and the third was my man. It was a young him, skinny, with shaggy shoulder-length dark brown hair, a white T-shirt, blue jeans, and riding boots, no other riding gear. In the dream, I start screaming and push my way through the people to kneel at his side. I saw that Stewart's arm was completely pink with blood, with rocks and gravel embedded in it. I couldn't see Derek. Then I saw him. Although his legs were bent at a strange angle, there were only a few smudges of blood on his otherwise pristine shirt. It was his face. There was black-red congealed blood in his mouth, it had matted his hair, and dark blood had oozed in rivulets from the back of his head to stain a cream-colored carpet. The pupils of his eyes were completely dilated; gone were his warm brown irises, only black on white. I was now holding his hand, and silently crying. I heard the buzz talk around me of people: it happened so fast/they piled up together/we couldn't do anything to stop it/he was in front/it happened so fast/it was a blurr/somebody do something/somebody call the ambulance... I leaned over to him and said, It's okay, baby. Don't move. I'm here. I love you. It'll be okay. He turned his head toward my voice, and his adam's apple moved as if he wanted to say something, but those actions made fresh blood gush out from under his head onto a cream-colored carpet.

Husby says I started thrashing and moaning and crying in the bed. He says he woke up, and tried to hold me, tell me it was all right, to get me to wake up. The next thing I remember, I am awake in bed, holding onto him tightly, crying in jagged gasps because I can't breathe and my heart is on fire in my chest. I remember asking why? why now? After a bit, I forcibly tried to breath. I was terribly disoriented. He asked if I was okay, and I started crying even harder. No. I've never dreamed that before. Why now? Why do I dream this now?

Even after my panic attack subsided, I told him that if there was a drug that would render me unconscious and erase these images from my mind, I would take it. I've been shaky and hardly functional all day. Why? Why now, after almost 17 years?