Jerry Scary Highway Dream #683

5/18/07

The last highway nightmare I shared publicly was
a few years back. That scary scenario: Midnight.
Stopped at the 241's Oso Pkwy exit toll-box minus
an extra quarter to let me off. Stuck on the 241, phew.

This time, my highway dream-scream is worse.

Myself and my (real life) Fix-5 Working Group crew
(wearing protective Orange) command a paramedic
emergency I-5 rescue station.

Jaws-of-Life R'us. Kiosked at the south I-5 off-ramp
to SC's yet to be finished Outlet Mall.

But in my dream, the Mall is finished - and flourishing.

That's why we're stationed there, road flares in hand.
Waiting for the next I-5 calamity as commuters race
south, cresting Ave. Estrella, gunning in down I-5's
XXX black diamond hell-on-wheels deep-drive
smack into the waiting line of taillights at Vista Hermosa.

Stalled Mall traffic - backed-up into freeway lanes.
Because?

Well you know. Who can pass up an Outlet Mall?

Mix retail "SALE" with 80-plus mph car traffic, a steep
downhill-poorly planned freeway exit strategy and you
realize why I woke up in a cold sweat.

Just then (in the dream) our Jaws-of-Life alert buzzer
screams its warning. We check our GPS Locater.

Ohmygawd, the worst has happened.
It's a deeper-south I-5 replay of Oakland's recent freeway
overpass gas truck holocaust.

NO!!! It can't be - At SONGS???

Where I-5 and the long battled toll road converge into
a multi level freeway behemoth.

Where San Onofre and Trestles used to be.
Replaced by the toll road's concrete and steel forever.

Sirens blaring we race there.
The multi-level freeway-to-toll road structure - fully engulfed.

Worse - the hellish conflagration has spread to the adjacent
nuke-plant, housing tons of stored nuke-waste ready to blow -
and like every bad dream, we can't slow our approach into
Dante's I-5, toll road nuclear inferno.

We speed closer.

But wait. I recognize a person. Now several people.
Standing by the road - silhouetted by the unearthly wall of fire.

We race by them, but in dreamy slow motion.

The first is a woman. I know her. It's Supervisor Pat Bates.
It's all of the Supervisors. Campbell, Norbey, the rest.

Supervisor Bates' lips slowly articulate these words as I pass,

"I h...a...d n...o i...d...e...a."

I woke up.