a blue car on a hill

When I was little, I used to have a recurring dream.

It would start with me in the back seat of an old blue car; sometimes my little brother would be with me, and sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes he would be there at first, and then later he would be gone. The car was parked at the top of a very big hill. There was a lot of traffic at the bottom of the hill, but not much at the top. We were in the back of the car, buckled in, and we were waiting. Our mom had left us there, and she had been gone for a long time. A very long time.

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Suddenly, I realize that the car is moving. It rolls, slowly at first, then faster and faster. I have to stop the car, or we'll crash! We might hurt someone; we might even die. I am trying to unbuckle my seatbelt. If Kyle is there, he is looking back and forth between me and the window, and screaming. If he's not there, the screaming is only in my head, as I fumble with the buckle that will not unclasp. Finally, finally I am free of the seatbelt and I climb into the front of the car that is rolling rolling rolling down the impossibly big hill. I know we should be at the bottom by now, but somehow, thankfully, we are not.

It is hard to see over the steering wheel, because I am so small. I lean over and grab the emergency brake, trying to yank it up. I know you must push the button, and pull at the same time, but it is so hard to do! My hands are too little. I am not strong enough at all.

Still we have not crashed, but we are almost there. I can hear the cross traffic now. I slide down the driver's seat and put all my weight on the brake pedal. It eases to the floor with agonizing slowness. We are in the middle of the intersection by this time, I know, though I can't see anything from where I am; I can only hear the squeal of brakes and the other cars scraping against eachother, and the drivers' angry shouts, slowly fading away, because the car I'm in is still moving, still hasn't come to a stop. And I push and push on the brake, with everything I've got, and I hope and hope that the people outside will know it's not our fault, it's our mommy who shouldn't have left us there in the first place, in that rickety old car.

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Sometimes, in my dream, the car would go so fast that we would crash right into the other cars before I even made it to the front seat, and then I would wake up with my heart beating much too fast. Sometimes the car would roll backwards down the hill, or flip at the bottom. Sometimes Kyle would jump out and run after mom, and that's when the car would start to roll; I would see him getting smaller out the back windshield, his mouth a frightened O.

Little things would be different; but always, always, there were the bad brakes. Always, always, despite my best efforts, I could not make the car stop.