My Worst Nightmare
By alancjsalisbury
- 1437 reads
There are five pretty girls of various shapes and sizes drinking, chatting, and soaking up the sun outside a pub in the centre of London.
In the distance the sound of an ambulance siren calls out. The sound rises and shortly an ambulance hurtles past them, breaking the flow of their conversation.
One girl, thin with a large mop of tangled ginger hair declares into the silence.
"My worst nightmare is to be smooshed between two cars." The group looks at her and takes in what she has said. After a moment another girl, smaller than the first and blonde joins in.
“My worst nightmare is to be trapped in the burning wreckage of a car.” The group is slowly warming to the new topic of conversation, and they lean in toward one another.
“Oh, please. It’s got to be drowning.” Throws in a third, rather plump but attractive girl.
There is a long pause.
“No, no, no. Mine’s much worse than all of those.” Number four declares this with a serious expression, sitting back and looking to the skies above. “My worst nightmare is to die in a plane crash.” She looks about the group making certain she has everyone’s attention, “That’s right, a plane crash. Everyone around you screaming. People being sick, puking and you’re panicking and thinking, what can I do? What the fuck can I do? But you can’t do anything, not a thing, 'cos some other cunt is in control. I don’t mean God, I mean the fucking pilot. That cock sucker up front, the fucking pilot is in control and there’s nothing I can do and the plane starts to lose pressure and I’m looking for the flight staff for help, for reassurance, for anything, but they’re crying and screaming like everyone else and one of them, she’s standing there, near me, and she’s pissed herself, and I realise, shit, I’ve pissed myself too. Everyone on the fucking plane has fucking pissed themselves. That’s when the plane hits the water like your car crash but like a thousand times worse and I realise that some people are already dead. There's fucking dead people all around me. This isn’t a nightmare, this isn’t something I can wake from, this is fucking reality. Men, women, children, old fucking people, whole families are floating about me, dead. Dead. But I’m not dead yet, I’m okay. Thank fucking God, I’m okay, but now the plane is filling with water. We’re somewhere in the Atlantic and the water’s so fucking cold and I want to get my life jacket out from beneath me but there’s a fucking dismembered limb in the way and I realise this is it, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna fucking drown and all my hopes, all my dreams, everything I wanted to do, all the people that I loved but will never see again, all of it gone, just worthless, blown out, extinguished. And why? Why me? Now the cold is taking me, darkness closing in around me, the depths of the sea tugging at me. I am the last one left. Everyone else is already dead, bodies float past me, faces contorted, frozen in horror and fear, and this is the end. I shut my eyes, feel my last jagged breath leave my lungs, my heart lets go. I am gone.”
There is a long pause amongst the group. The sun continues to beat down upon the square, the world about them quiet.
“Okay, calm down. Mine is way worse.” Number five, the prettiest of the group, breaks the silence. “My worst nightmare is to die in my sleep. Just like that, quietly, and not one fucking person notices.”
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Comments
This is a great
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That was intense. Held me
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Really good story. I had
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Hypnotic, breathtaking prose
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