The Taxi Driver

It was two years ago that the Taxi Driver first came to me. 

I was visiting an old friend in Florida and was sleeping on his couch. It was early fall, and I fell asleep listening to the wind rustle through the trees outside.

In my dream, I was in New York. I was wearing a tuxedo, and was apparently leaving some theater performance. Angela was at my side, still alive. She looked beautiful, in a black night gown that sparkled. 

Angela and I hailed a taxi cab, and as we got in, I ordered the driver to take us home. We smiled and laughed. I miss her, but I’ll get to that some other day. 

I’ve been to New York only once over a long weekend. I don’t know the geography. But in my dream I became aware that we weren’t driving the right direction. I asked the driver where we were going.

“There’s no time to explain,” he said, his voice quivering with fear as he glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. “I have to show you.”  

The driver looked old. In his sixties, perhaps. He wore a greasy cap with a short brim and had a grey beard. A cigar burned in the ashtray.  

Suddenly, everything outside the window looked very strange. It was a normal suburban street with trees and homes, but they seemed oddly foreign to me.  

I started to worry, and demanded to know where we were going. But the driver just shook his head.  

“I shouldn’t have done this,” he wailed, his eyes watering as he drove. “We’ve gone too far.”

“This isn’t your dream anymore,” he said.  

It was only then I realized I was dreaming. But I was captive and had no control.  

“I’ve gone too far, too fast,” he repeated over and over, looking in the rearview mirror time and again. Then he began repeating, “I have to show you. You have to see.”  

This is where the driver lost control of the vehicle. I don’t know why. It slid onto a curb and came to a stop. He climbed out and ran and I followed him. I don’t know what happened to Angela.  

As he ran, he looked behind him, and terror flashed into his eyes.  

I turned around and saw a figure, it had a female form but moved like liquid, all of its features oozing forward but in a halting pattern like stop-action photography. She was a blur.  

I ran as fast as I could but I suddenly felt as if I was on a treadmill. I turned around again and she was right there. She looked like she was made out of molten platinum. She lifted her forefinger and pointed it at me, and it extended like a baton until it touched my chest. 

I felt like I was falling, like my heart would stop and darkness would swallow me up.  

I bolted awake and shot off the couch. I was standing in my friend’s living room, heart racing, breath coming in shuddering spurts.