Test drive

I’ve got this job; I’m a journalist or some sort of research person. I’ve been given an assignment that largely consists of travelling - and that seems to be all it is. The time of year is winter. There’s snow everywhere. Thick layers of it covers the ground, but I don’t seem to have any difficulties walking through it.

I get on a bus, having too much change in my hand for the ticket. Still I put all the money on the small counter. The driver swipes them all into his little bag of coins. I want to start an argument but I’m thinking, «waste of time». I sit down next to the driver, and the bus starts off.

We approach a mountain range. There’s a narrow road towards the top. The driver drives recklessly. I manage to ignore him, and instead I try to enjoy the scenery. The whole place is known to me - it’s from where I grew up. Black rocks and perfectly white snow.

The bus stops. I get off, and now I realize that I’m late for an excursion of some sort. In the distance I can see lots of people with ski equipment and heavy backpacks. I try to run and catch up with them, but it’s useless. Instead I stop, walk across the road, and down a staircase into the ground, where there’s a subway station. I get on the first train. There’s only one passenger besides me; a woman. She’s motionless in her seat. The train shoots out from the tunnel and into the open. Again, snowy mountains.

I get off the train. I walk into a phonebooth, as I want to call a taxi. I do this by standing inside the booth, waving through the window at passing cars. One of them is a taxi and it stops. I get in, and the interior is that of a rally car. My father is in the passenger seat. I laugh at this situation. My father tells me we’re doing a test drive, and the driver is one hell of an experienced guy. I’m excited.

We drive through the snow, the speed is amazing and I feel free, I’m perfectly relaxed and I enjoy the safety of the fact that my father is in the car with me. From time to time we perform some long, beautiful jumps, they seem to last forever. I can see the car from outside as well during these jumps. I feel completely happy.

My father reminds me that I have to get a new ticket for the bus ride home, so we pull over next to some other cars by the road. I get out, and then I run into the snowy fields, sometimes looking back to see if the car is still there. I arrive at a bus stop in the middle of the field, and here I buy a ticket from a vending machine - again using too much change. I run back to the car. It’s been damaged. I get in and ask what happened. My father tells me they got hit by a passing car. I get a short glimpse of what happened: A car approaches at great speed and hits the trunk of this one, which makes it levitate, spin around in the air, and land back on it’s wheels again. All the other parked cars are left undamaged.

We start up again, but now I don’t feel safe anymore. The driver seems to have lost his concentration. Also, he’s speaking on the phone, frustrated; it seems we’re following the car that hit us. The landscape has changed. The mountains are now made of red and black sand, and there’s dust instead of snow on the roads. In a long right turn the car goes into a spin and we’re headed right for the mountains. My father shouts «Watch out!». I’m scared as hell, and I picture the car smashed against the mountain side. I scream in panic.

At an amazing speed, we simply cut through the mountain, skidding sideways. The driver manages to somehow steer the car to the right at the same time. Sand gushes out in every direction. I look behind us, and I see that the sand doesn’t fall back to the ground - we’ve made an impossible, permanent hole in it. I can’t help to think, although scared witless, that this is just incredibly cool. As the car finally make it back out of the sandy mountain, I calm down, and wake up.