Dreams and Nightmares 1: Driving throught Rabbits

Driving Through Rabbits 

My friend Denise and I had planned our trip from Cincinnati as well as we could. We both would need our cars in California so we decided to drive separately, together. We didn’t know how long it will take us to get to there, but we figured it would take five or six days. Looking back from an era when we have electronic supports for maps, planning, and finding resources along the route, it seems like a rather risky and difficult trip to undertake, but at the time it seemed ordinary. I can’t imagine now taking off and driving across the country not knowing where we would stay, or the exact path from day to day. But that’s what we did.
            We left on the morning of June 5, 1981, and headed west. Through the use of flashing our headlights and beeping our horns we signaled to each other when we need to pull over to go to a rest stop, or to get something to eat at a restaurant. There we would plan our next leg of our journey, including looking for a hotel to stay for the night. It was a system that seemed to work.
            Sometimes we would drive for a very long time and I used NoDoz to stay awake. No one ever told me that this caffeine supplement could also make me hallucinate. One night as I was driving, all amped up on the pills, I began to think that the hair on my arms were bugs, burrowing into my skin. That experience was enough for me to stop taking that particular drug.
            And no one ever told us about the strange rabbits we would encounter in the western states. It seems they were suicidal. At night when we were driving on the freeway, the rabbits, which had been sitting upright and very still along the edge of the road staring at the oncoming cars, would dart forward at the last possible second.  At first I thought it was another NoDoz side effect, especially the way they would stare, eyes glowing, just before diving under my wheels. But then, I wasn’t using the pills that night. After I hit the second one Denise flashed her lights and beeped her horn signaling that she needed to talk to me.
            “Mel, you hit that rabbit! I think you may have hit two of them!”  Denise pleaded with me on the side of the road.
            “I know, but I couldn’t avoid it. They jump in front of me.” Even as I said it, I realized how foolish I sounded.  At that point there had only been two of them, so I had not yet detected their pattern of self-destruction. We got back on the road. Within a minute another rabbit dove under my car, and then another, and then another. Denise was relentless with her blinking lights and honking. We pulled over.
            “I know, I know. But I think they’re suicidal,” I defensively explained. Denise, the animal lover, would have none of it. So, we decided for her to take the lead for a while and stop the slaughter. After a very short time when she had struck and killed one of the rabbits herself, we found ourselves on the side of the road discussing the situation again.
            “I guess you’re right,” she acquiesced, “but I don’t like being the one who hits them first.” With me in the lead, we charged ahead, rabbits be damned. We were on our way to our future!