I am in a car alone, driving a wide and busy freeway at high speed. The freeway begins to elevate in a long but pronounced parabola, upward as if toward the crest of a bridge.

I am climbing and accelerating and thinking, O boy, I hope there’s a great bridge coming up—while also feeling my childhood phobia of missing bridges.

And indeed, as I accelerate, it turns out just as I most deeply wondered: there is a sharp break—no bridge, only the void–and I strangely accelerate again.

Next thing, I am in my car bobbing around in the water, thinking, Well, I’m sure that plunge was observed and help is on the way. I’m not panicked.

Still, I calculate that this excellent floating might at any moment reach a point of catastrophic mass, and car and I will sink like a stone.

Next, I have indeed been pulled out of the abyss, car and all, and I am in a receiving area for people who plunge in their cars off the edge of the non-bridge into the abyss. There are workers in yellow rubber suits and rescue folks sort of sauntering around.

I am out of the car, and stridently declaring, “I’m going to sue the hell out of somebody for this!” The folks around me nod as if they’ve heard it before.

I realize that I am fine, actually, no worse for the experience. I am a fit, healthy woman. And the child growing in me, in my early phase of pregnancy, is no doubt fine as well. Actually, I’m feeling rather robust and invigorated by the whole experience.