My Grandma Insisted On Driving Me To School And Took A “Shortcut”. We Never Arrived.

I had this dream last night, though it wasn’t exactly a normal dream. It was more like a memory being presented in a dream-like state. I’ve heard that if you have many thoughts or problems about something specific tied to a place or a person, you’ll dream about them. It’s like your brain giving you a wake up call in a way, if that makes any sense at all.

 I’ve been thinking about my Nonna a lot for an unknown reason. It’s like the thought of my Nonna was heavy, it kept pushing against the bottom of my cranium, nagging me to think about her. Now, you might think I’m crazy, but please believe me, I am not. As I mentioned, the dream is more of a memory than an actual fabricated dream, so I’ll just dive into this memory first to give you guys reading a bit more context. 

My Nonno and Nonna didn’t visit me, my mum, and my stepdad all that often, so when they did, it was a real surprise. One ordinary afternoon, I just returned from school when my mum told me that Nonno and Nonna were dropping by for a visit. They arrived shortly afterwards and we all exchanged pleasantries, my Nonna kept nagging me, saying: 

“This young man grows so fast” and “He’s turning into such a fine young lad” while nodding enthusiastically, her curly white hair bobbing up and down.

Anyways, the pair end up staying for dinner, and let me tell you, when they stay for dinner, it turns into a guaranteed fun night. Nonno likes telling stories, and Nonna makes sure I always get a second serving of dessert. Afterwards they are too “whoozy” to drive back so mum ends up giving them the guest room to stay the night. In the morning I wake up and start getting ready for school.

 I’m about to have breakfast when my Nonna calls me, her voice is coming from the living room so  I stride on over.

Nonna is nestled on the plush couch, waiting for my presence. 

“Yeah? What’s up, Nonna?” I ask, stopping in front of her. She slowly raises herself off the couch and 
looks in my eyes, I see excitement and a childish glee twinkling within.

“Would you like me to drive you to school?” She asks, smiling.

This is my Nonna, and there’s nothing sinister about her. Nevertheless, I felt a little uneasy then.

“Er, it’s okay Nonna I usually take the bus, I’ll be fine.” I responded. Her face suddenly contorted into a mess of pain and sadness, like she was about to cry because her dreams were being broken.

“No please! This can be a fun little Grandma and Grandson moment. I never get to take you anywhere, and-and you’re growing up so fast! I can drive you to school, I can get you some snacks and stuff you can share with your buddies. I already asked your mother, she said it would be fine, she left to the mall by the 
way, to grab some stuff. Please Joaquin?” She replied back, with such profound sadness that my heart 
splintered.

She was almost quite literally begging me to say accept, and the thought of her begging me for something she really wanted caved me in.

“Alright, sure, why not?” I relented. Her face instantly resolved into relief and happiness.

“Let me just grab my bag and then we can head off, is Nonno coming as well?” I asked as I slipped into my room to get my backpack. 
“No, Nonno’s still sleeping, he’s an old man, he needs his rest.” She replied. I stifled a laugh, like she can be talking.

A few moments later, we were in the car and driving off onto the road. She stopped at a little petrol station on the side of the road a few minutes into the drive and purchased an impressive selection of snacks for me and my “buddies” to share at school. I was looking out the window, not saying much when I realised I didn’t know where we were. We seemed to be off road on a dirt trail that was hardly wide enough for the car, trees pressing in on both sides.

“Nonna? You do know the way right?” I asked hesitantly. She didn’t respond. What was happening? I knew my grandma was acting odd, was she kidnapping me? Was she about to murder me in the woods? Was she a part of a cult and was meeting up with the rest of the members in the woods and sacrifice me to a lord that didn’t exist?

“Nonna!? Where are we going?!” I asked again, louder. Nonna jumped in her seat, and snapped her head towards me, giving me such a quizzical expression, like she forgot I was in the car with her!

“I-I’m taking you to school, this-this is a shortcut.” She replied, she sounded confused, yet her voice was monotone in a way. I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t ask her to turn back, the trail wasn’t wide enough.

I was freaking out at this point, but I took a deep breath and calmed myself down. I was overacting, my Nonna was probably just a bit senile, confused on which way my school was. I took a few more deep breaths, telling myself to calm down because I was overacting.

“Nonna, where does this path lead?” I saw Nonna’s eyes swivel in sockets before they locked onto me. She didn’t reply. I was about to say something but she spoke first:

“Is that-” But she didn’t get to finish, because one of the car’s tires slipped on the dirt and veered abruptly into a tree. Both me and Nonna were knocked out instantly.

I woke up to a bright light shining into my eyes and something shifting beside me. My head was pounding and it took real effort to open my heavy eyelids. When I managed to pry my eyes open, I was baffled by the scene in front of me. The windshield was smashed in and broken shards of glass littered the dashboard and my lap.

I could feel cuts on my hands, arms, and face from the glass slicing my skin when the windshield first caved in. This scene inside the car is expected when you’ve just been in a car crash, but the outside was a whole different story. I was somewhere else entirely! The ground was green grass, but flat, neat, green grass.
 
The grass wasn’t just a normal green grass, it was a super healthy green, like the grass was the healthiest grass could possibly be! The field of green seemed to stretch on endlessly! No matter where I looked I could see nothing in the distance, no trees, no buildings, no sign of civilization, just green grass! It was seemingly an endless grassland!

The sky was clear, and pleasant blue, a perfect mix of light and dark blue. There was nothing in the sky except the sun, it seemed brighter than normal, it seemed to make everything way more vibrant than the boring, bleak, everyday scene in other places. At this moment I got the sense I was somewhere special, somewhere important, where I didn’t deserve to be, and I felt there was something else here in the grasslands that felt the same way.

Something wanted to get rid of me and chills ran down my spine just thinking about that, I was in a paradise that I wasn’t meant to be in. It was hot, but not hot at the same time. When I was reaching the point of burning up, a nice pleasant breeze would freshen me up, at exactly the right, drifting in through the windshield. I heard a click to my right and jolted in my seat, sending ripples of pain into my head.

Nonna was there to my right, unscathed, she had just opened the door and was getting out of her seat.

“Oh shit, Nonna…” I groaned out weakly, I wanted to say more but I was too weak. How was Nonna completely unscathed? How did we even get here? How and why is any of this even happening?

Nonna just got out of her seat and… Started walking away. What the hell was she doing? She’s probably super confused right now and suffering a major concussion from the crash.

“Nonna!” I called out weakly. Nonna didn’t even stop, just kept walking slowly, but steadily into the distance. 

I tried to call out again, but at this point she had covered too much ground to even hear me. I unclipped my seatbelt with bloody fingers and stumbled out of the car. I noticed in the distance that Nonna had paused, and I just stood there, waiting to see what would happen. 

I felt like a fool just standing there, but I had a feeling something would happen.
She stood there in the distance, motionless for a while before I saw it. For a split second, a figure appeared. Tall and lanky, looming over Nonna. For the tiny moment I saw the figure, I thought I ought to know what it was, like it was familiar. 

The figure was shadowy despite the intense brightness, its arms were elongated, touching the ground, and just looking at the figure brought on a nostalgic yearning, but also uneasiness at the same time. 
Reflecting back, that mix of emotions is a horrible thing. It’s like your nostalgic childhood is tainted with dread, and that’s not a pleasant feeling, trust me.

I blinked, and the figure was gone, and so was my grandma. I thought I ought to feel way more worried that a creepy figure appeared and then seemingly disappeared with my grandma, but I wasn’t. I felt that my grandma was in good hands now, that she was somewhere she loved. Then, everything kind of went hazy and my vision started to fade.

You know when you’re dreaming, and you realise you’re awake? Sometimes instead of disappearing instantly your dream slowly fades along with yourself. Gee, I don’t know how to explain it, like your body and consciousness was chopped into pieces and chucked in the blender with your dreaming mind, to be blended all together into one? I promise I’m not crazy, I’m just trying my best to paint you a picture here.

So there I was, myself, and everything around me slowly fading away, until I fell into the abyssal depth of unconsciousness.

Now, just to clarify, I didn’t remember this part straight away, but it slowly came back to me as I recovered, here it is:

“Hey, can you hear me?” I wake with a start, and look around wildly, a police officer has his hand on my shoulder. I am in the car somehow, and back on the dirt trail somehow.

“Wow, calm down, you’ve been in an accident. Can you stay still for me?” The officer asks with a calm and steady voice. I look around groggily and see other officers walking around the car and examining the scene and the sound walkie talkie beeps and chatters fill my ears. Once the ambulance arrived, I was helped onto a stretcher and rushed me to the ER. I remember my mom crashing in the ER and sitting by my side, sobbing. 

I heard faintly the doctor tell my mom that I was going to be alright and that I had whiplash, a concussion, and moderate bruising and lacerations. 

“He’ll be fine, it’s just gonna take a while for him to recover.” My mom was relieved. That’s about all I remember in the ER, I remember taking it easy for about a month afterwards until I recovered. Lacerations on my arms left some faint scars, I was actually happy about that, it made me look cool and tuff. But while I didn’t have trouble recovering physically, it was more a mental recovery that I struggled with. 

I had been knocked cold in a car crash, obtaining injuries. I woke up somewhere I can’t find to this day, a sort of paradise that shouldn’t exist. My Nonna is gone, taken by something I can’t explain. None of what I experienced should be real or even possible. Yes, the police questioned me, I told them the truth, and they were polite about it, but they basically told me that I was lying, but I knew what had happened was true, and I was certainly not lying.

 “Unintentionally lying”, they put it, “Given your state”. My stepdad, and mom were the same. So yeah, that’s it, that’s what I remember. About the dream, it changes my view on everything and…

 Well, I think I changed my mind about sharing the dream, I don’t want to be made fun of for being crazy or anything. For now, that’ll have to do.