I have this fantasy. Actually, that’s not quite true as “fantasy” implies something that I would be happy to happen, and look forward to with unrequited longing. I have, then, more of a recurring vision; which, incidentally, I hope is also not a perfect description as “vision” to me means a portent of something inevitable to come, where this event is not something I’d at all be interested in.

So the fantasy.

I’m driving my car and talking on my cell phone (oh my God, that is, like, SO L.A.!). It doesn’t really matter who it is I’m talking to, as long as it’s not someone impersonal like Cingular Customer Service or Bill Jeffries calling about the LA Times. This first bit, by the way, isn’t the fantasy part. This first bit are the actual and real conditions under which this fantasy strikes me. I’m driving my car, talking on the cell phone (usually when I have these little interludes, I have the phone up to my ear instead of via my hands-free set), driving usually on the freeway (or somewhere similarly dangerous). I drift off a bit, mentally, in the conversation. That is not to say that I am no longer paying attention, it’s more that I do this thing (in these situations, and in many others), where part of me just floats out of my head and observes the conversation from a different angle… usually to the right, and slightly above and behind my head. My mind’s eye then usually pans in an arc on my right side, coming to rest even higher but more between my head and the person I’m addressing… or just in front of me in the case of talking on a phone. But I digress.

I’m driving, talking, paying close attention, and observing when (suddenly), the observing part of my brain begins to fantasize about what it would be like if I got in a horrible car accident right… NOW. And then… NOW. And… NOW! The thing is, though, I don’t consider this situation from my own perspective: screeching of tires, panic and quick reactions, twisting metal, shattering glass, perhaps airborne for a moment, etc, etc.

Instead, I think of it from the point of view of the caller: “So anyway, I told her that if she was going to go to the trouble of actually buying a futon, then she might as well just…” screeech, crash, screaaaam, arghhh…. eerie quiet, subtle moaning, ticking of hot engines “Hello? Ohmygod, hello?! Dave?! Call 911! Call 911!! Wait, no, ohmygodohmygod, hello?!”

and scene

The odd thing is that I actually enjoy this fantasy. Again, though, I don’t consider what might have happened to me, I just think about how absolute freaky it would be for the guy/girl on the other line. How everyone probably wonders if something like that ever happens, but never actually hears about it, and dear God, now it’s happening to me. I can’t imagine (or rather, I can, and do). As a variation, I sometimes think of myself on the other end of the line (though while I’m still, in reality, driving, inexplicably). This side is not nearly as entertaining, and thrice as rare.