Very early this morning, I was swept into a dream. See, right before the end of my parents' road (in my dream), there is another road. One of those twisting country roads that you only really travel down if you live there. Once upon a time (quite a long time ago, this original dream), I decided to stray from my path and ride down that road--on my bike. It was both exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating because I felt as if I was the only person who had ever actually ridden down that road--it had absolutely no sign of habitation; no mailboxes, no driveways, no nothing. All of the trees surrounding the road were monstrous and ancient and roped with grapevine and other vines and suchlike, and as I rode along, I could barely keep my eyes on the road for staring at everything around me. Terrifying, because it seemed the forest itself had noticed my presence, and was trying to decide what to do with a trespasser.

And then the road came out of the woods and I found myself on the road past my parents' road, and I rode home the normal way, past the house way up on the hill (again, existing only in my dreams), and all the way back home.

This morning's dream I was with Dad in the minivan. We were driving home from somewhere, perhaps an auction, perhaps somewhere else. As Dad is wont to do at times,  he decided to take a little detour, and drive down to the end of their road. When we reached the curve with the house up on the hill, it was flooded--impassable. I explained to Dad that it had been like that for a while. And the little road I went down was also impassable, choked with debris and fallen trees.

There was no way we could get through to the other side, so Dad turned the minivan around. For some reason, I was outside of the van at that time, and as I started to get back inside, I heard a very loud explosion. On the horizon (which really doesn't make a lot of sense, since we were surrounded by woods, save for the house on the hill, which in hindsight, did not look lived-in), an actual honest-to-goodness mushroom cloud appeared.

Now, I heard the explosion before I saw the mushroom cloud. As I turned to ask Dad what he thought had happened, I found him slumped against the steering wheel, presumably asleep. I woke him up, and we started driving home, discussing what it could have been. Obviously something had blown up. Was it a terrorist? An accident? Where was it? It looked really far away, but it was huge.

As we drove, we noticed people--strangers, some dressed in odd clothes, like hazmat suits and suchlike--poking through the garbage that was set out for the garbage men in a few yards that we passed. There was someone on the radio now, panicked, talking about nuclear bombs.

Oddly enough, neither Dad nor I were particularly upset or even frightened by this. It was almost as if I, at least, had anticipated something like this happening for years. And right before we pulled into the driveway, of course, I woke up.

I can only hope that someday, I will dream a sequel.

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