I rarely have nightmares. I remember being terrified occasionally as a child by the things that chased me in my dreams: vampires, dragons, barking dogs, strange mutations in crazy orange colored vehicles, and other things that have grown too dim for me to name. As I got older, nightmares became very infrequent. For a period of years from about 1985 until about 1997 I don’t remember ever having had a nightmare at all. Of course this changed when I had children. What parent hasn’t occasionally dreamed of finding his child in some terrible state, and awakened and found them safe and just held them and practically wept with relief? I know I have. One particular incident formed my most frequent nightmare subject, however. It was the winter of 1996-1997. I was going to work. When I stepped outside there was a light rain, and the temperature was in the upper thirties. At the time, that was not unpleasant, as it had recently been much colder. As I walked down the steps, I noticed they were a little bit slippery. I attributed this to whatever algae or fungus was growing there. I climbed into the police cruiser that I had driven while on duty with the Sheriff’s Office the night before. This morning I was headed to dispatch, to be there at six am. As I started down the road, I grew very comfortable, because the road seemed to be in fine shape. I was still careful with that big, heavy, rear-wheel-drive car in the rain, but I let it get up to about forty-five. Then, as I neared Bowen Elementary, the back end of the car decided it didn’t want to cooperate in the curve, and reacted by changing places with the front. I was a little taken aback. I came to rest in the middle of the road, with a deep ditch on one side and a sharp drop-off to a field on the other side. Much more cautious of the slick spots on the road, I turned back around and headed on down the road at a much slower thirty, slowing down to about twenty-five before each curve. About three sharp curves later the entire vehicle suddenly became disconnected. I had incredibly little control. Even at twenty-five miles per hour, I was in a serious skid. I used everything I knew about driving on ice to coax the car around the bend. I was almost to the other side of the curve when the front right wheel caught on the inside on some grass. Since this was the only point of real traction, it acted as a pivot point for the rest of the car. Suddenly I was going backward again, practically still just creeping along, down the edge of the road, which was reduced to a river of ice. I could not see where I was going, but I knew by that point that the car was way beyond my control. As I felt the rear of the car dip down into the inevitable ditch that awaited me, I just relaxed and went along for the ride. The impact was a lot more than I hoped for. I was just lucky enough to slam into a medium sized oak. The weight of the car was enough to bend the back bumper halfway around the tree, and the weight of me was enough to break the felon-proof screen away from half its anchor points. I was a little bruised, and a little scratched but otherwise not too bad off. Forever since then, in ninety percent of my nightmares, I am in a vehicle, trying to guide it and not finding purchase. It always ends with me slipping slowly off the side of a mountain, and accelerating rapidly toward my death.