When worlds collide.

I was driving along a major two-lane highway when I heard 'bang!-thump-thump-thump' come from the right passenger side. Great; a blow-out. I put on my hazards and began to ease over onto the shoulder.

I woke up with my forehead resting on the steering wheel. I gasped, adrenaline surging through me at the thought that I'd fallen asleep at the wheel. Ohmygod - where am I, did I hit anyone, is anyone hurt - and why can't I see anything out of my windshield?

I looked around me, looked out the side windows. Scrub grass, wild foliage, an occasional glimpse of dirt in clods the size and consistency of gravel. Okay; I ran off the road. Right, I was pulling over, and I must have run off the road. At least it doesn't feel like I'm hurt badly... Got the seat belt off and shoved my door open against all the wild growth, then began to skid downhill. Huh?

Once I got about thirty feet away, I was able to turn and see that the car had not only run off the road, but ended facing the highway - perpendicular to the lanes rather than parallel - and was on the bank of a hill at roughly a 35-40 degree angle. No wonder I'd skid. And holy shit... Oh crap what did I hit?!? The entire front end was crumpled like a piece of paper, the hood scrunched towards the cabin so that it was now only a quarter the length it should have been. The sides and back end weren't in great shape either, but nothing like the front. Whatever I'd hit, I figured I'd hit it head on and the rest of the damage came when I went off-road.

I was lucky to be alive, and even luckier to be able to self-extract from a wreck like this. I began to frantically look around for other vehicles, other wreckage, desperately hoping that anyone else involved had been covered by the same cosmic insurance policy I'd benefited from.

There were two other vehicles - a new, shiny black and silver pick-up which seemed to have been traveling the same direction I had been and who'd pulled over well before the accident, and an old green sports car that seemed modeled after the Delorian, only lower rent and hungry for rice instead of plutonium. They'd been traveling the opposite direction and were also on the shoulder, untouched.

"Hey! Hey!!" I began to wave my arms at the drivers of these vehicles. "Is anyone else hurt?"

The woman in the pick-up stayed in the cab, her ear glued to the phone. I wouldn't begrudge her that; maybe she was on the phone with 911, calling the State Patrol over to the scene. The man in the green car began to ease towards me from his end of the road. I could see that he'd moved the debris from the roadway and collected it into piles, probably at the risk of being run over. Rubbernecking out here meant flying past at about 70 miles per hour. Considerate.

"He's long gone," pseudo-Delorian began to explain once he reached my side of the tarmac. "I don't know how. Half of this-" he gestured to the automotive baubles, "-is his."

"I... Hit and run?" I blinked as my head whirled in confusion. Christ, what was it? A rig?

"Nope. Some red car, like a Firebird or Camaro or something. We didn't get a plate, but he can't be hard to miss."

"A red... car?" That just wasn't sinking in. "A car did this?"

"Yeah." Delorian Man approached the remains of my vehicle, reached a hand under the crushed passenger side fender, and peeled a large portion of the fiberglass body off the chassis as easily as if it had been a candy wrapper, or an orange peel. "See?" He held the skin of my car out to me. "Bright red, wadda they call it? Candy apple red?"

My eyes went unfocused and it became hard to breathe all of a sudden. I began to sink to the gravel underneath me as I passed out...

I woke up with a jerk, sitting upright so suddenly that my feet swinging over the edge of the couch almost kicked the dog in the head. I was breathing heavily and covered in a sheen of sweat. I looked around - home. I was at home.

Wow, what a fucked up dream. I mean, who could peel part of a car off like that? Rip it off and splinter the fiberglass if it had barely been hanging on, but peel it? C'mon... Feeling that instinctive need to reassure oneself that nightmares have no basis, I made my way to the windows facing the driveway and looked out at my car.

Which was nowhere in sight.

My stomach sank like a stone. Oh shit, where was my car?? Had I really been in an accident? Oh no, that meant my car was totaled out, I had no vehicle, how would I get to work-

I woke up on the couch. This time I stayed still, opting to stare at the ceiling as I forced my thoughts to stop circling around my brain. Was I awake? Asleep? At home? Hallucinating on an ER table somewhere?

I listened to the sounds around me to help me decide. A t.v. was on somewhere. So was country music. One roommate was asking the other to take the dogs outside to potty. Their son was asking if dinner were ready yet. Judging from the smell, they were cooking chili.

Okay. All reassuring signs that I was, in fact, at home. I slowly got up, noting distantly the odd sensation that I was moving before my body was, and that the dense physical shell was coming along reluctantly. I went to look out the windows.

My car was there, in its appointed place, with no evidence of mishap.

I went outside and lit a cigarette, pondering the theory about the world splitting off into separate reality tunnels each time a choice is made. Had I just visited one of these alternates, one in which there had been a catastrophic accident which had destroyed my car?

Nah. After all, who the hell can peel fiberglass like it's Velcro?