Subject: Imaginary Dog 
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 1995 18:40:11 -0500 (EST) 


Driving at night. Sheets of rain. Two-lane country road. Fifty miles
an hour. Wipers and headlights both on high. Michele beside me
snoozing. Suddenly, in the middle of the road, a little black dog. No
wait, it's just a reflection. No, it's really there! I swerve to avoid
it, off into the shoulder. Turns out it really was just a
hallucination. Michele wakes up. "What? What?" I pull back towards the
center of the road. "Sorry," I say, as the car begins to skid. It's a
rental. "Sorry," I say again, voice calm. I'm in a fishtail. I'm in
the oncoming lane. There's no oncoming traffic. No problem. "Alex,
what's going on--?" I don't want her to freak out. "Sorry," I say one
more time. It's all my brain can spare. I'm occupied. I come out of
the fishtails by accelerating forward like all those times in an icy
parking lot in high school. 


Finally, I'm steady. I turn to Michele: "I'm in control." Only then do
I feel the adrenaline tang behind my teeth. Only then do I realize: I
could have died.


Our entry in the Road Trip Log Book: 


"12:14 Alex narrowly avoids hitting an imaginary dog."


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 1995 Alexander D. Chaffee (alex@stinky.com). All rights reserved. 
See more at http://www.stinky.com/almanac/