A Life Saving Dream

A Story by CMaxwell

Do coincidences exist? Are they random? Or is there a greater purpose driving them towards what one might call destiny? Read this near death tale and decide for yourself.

"Can we choose our destiny? Our own path for our life? Or is our life already destined for one purpose, for one plan? No matter what path, what road we choose, will we always end up arriving at the predestined place we were meant to? Is coincidence a real thing? Do things happen by chance? Or are the things that seem to be coincidences really destiny lining up in a way to speak to us, to let us know everything is falling into place as it should be and we are on the right path into fulfilling our purpose in life? These are the..." Beep, beep, beep, beep. Distorted at first, each chime becomes louder and more clear. Awakening to my badgering alarm clock incessantly going off I open my eyes. With blurred vision I rapidly blink to see more clearly. As I start to gradually acquire more perception of my surroundings, I raise my head from its comfortable slumber. Towards my right lays the alarm clock on the desk adjacent my bed. I distinguish the time, '6:15 A.M.'

'I'm so tired.' I think to myself, 'but I have to get up'. A short sigh reveals my unwillingness to sit up in bed.
As clear as my dream, I recall the questions of destiny and coincidence as they come into remembrance. Most of my inspiration for writing comes in the night when I wake up and cannot fall back asleep, or from a dream. I reach for the pen and notepad I always leave sitting on my desk. I grab the notepad, the pen is knocked off falling to the carpet below. Annoyed but too tired to dignify a response I let out a long sigh and bend down quickly off the edge of my bed. Still half asleep I clumsily smack my head on the desk so hard that I see little stars.
"Son of a gun!" I yell out loud in pain.

I reach my hand to place it over the area of my head that hurts, rubbing it as if to alleviate the pain. After a few moments I crawl out of bed, grab the fallen pen and write down the words that came in my sleep. After quickly inking them down I go about my morning routine of getting ready for work.

While I'm eating breakfast my head starts to pound. It progressively gets worse until I cant stand it any longer. I decide to browse inside of the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. So I leave the kitchen table and head for the bathroom. After arriving I raise my hand over to the light switch and flick it on. I find myself staring into the mirror of the medicine cabinet. I take a long look at the man staring back, then I slide it open in search of the headache relief. After scanning various bottles and toiletries my eyes lock in on the medicine. I seize it, but immediately I discern that it's most certainly empty by the impression of the weightlessness it holds in my hand. I shake it, hoping something would rattle inside, just silence.

"Awesome. Of course there isn't any. Why would there be?" Mumbling under my breath with disdain. I optimistically open it and find that to my disappointment it is utterly empty just as I had presumed. I look down at the little trash can on the floor near the sink and toss the failed bottle into it.

I finish getting ready for work and head out the door to my car. As I'm sitting in the car in my driveway I unwillingly force myself into thinking, 'I have to go to the pharmacy.' So I detour from my normal route to work and head to a corner drug store.

After a few minutes of driving in silence I turn on the radio, flipping through a couple of stations I find nothing that catches my ear so I decide to turn it off. I finally reach the pharmacy (After what seemed like hours of torturous thumping in my head when in reality it had only been 7 minutes.) I make haste inside and upon returning to my car I quickly open the bottle of headache medicine. Tilting the bottle into my left hand three pills come crashing out. I cup my hand, slap it to my mouth, tilt back my head, and the three pills go tumbling down my throat. I feel relieved as I swallow them know it's only a matter of time until they kick in.

Before wasting any more time I head to work from the pharmacy. While I'm driving I think about what I wrote down earlier and with the notepad resting on the seat next to me I decide to re-read it cautiously while I'm driving, glancing up every couple of seconds so that I don't crash. Well, the cautious part didn't really work out as good as I thought it would. The car in-front of me slams on their brakes and in an attempt to not plow right into them I stomp on mine. I brace myself and glance in the rear-view mirror, preparing to get rear ended. I see that a few cars behind me someone crashed right into the back of another person's vehicle. I was fortunate enough not to get into a crash myself.

"Freaking amazing drivers around here. I love living in this dump of a city!" I sarcastically vent my frustration angrily throwing my hands out in front of me.

Putting that incident behind me I drive the rest of the way to work without any problems. I finally arrive and pull into the monstrous parking lot of my workplace. After making a sweep around the lot of parked cars I finally find my car a temporary resting place. My watch confesses that I am 8 minutes late, as I glimpse down at it. Feeling stressed out I power walk in the direction of the entrance to my office building. The door swings open as I push it and walk through. I head straight towards the elevators, push the button and tap my foot a few times as I impatiently wait. The elevator finally reaches ground floor and the doors retract. I step in and press the button next to the number 4. The doors close and the elevator commences its short journey up to the fourth floor.

Two long hours pass of staring at my computer screen, answering e-mails and returning phone calls when my stomach starts moaning, annoyingly informing me that I need to eat something. Finishing up some paperwork I decide to head to the cafe for a little snack.

In the elevator I think back to my dream earlier this morning. 'Is there such a thing as coincidence?' I ponder the possibilities of that question while on the short journey to the lobby. Reaching the lobby the elevator doors open. Straight ahead I see a man bent down frantically trying to gather together a mess of papers on the ground by his brief case.

He seems quite stressed out and in a rush. Putting myself in his shoes I felt embarrassed and so I cross the threshold of the elevator and walk over. I bend down and start to help him gather his things. He looks up at me with a very surprised expression lingering on his face. I gather that he is wondering why I am helping him and so I introduce myself to him.

"Chris." I voice, half smiling as I reach out my open hand extending an invitation of greetings to him. Shaking hands the man depressingly replies,

"Jason, and thank you for helping. This has been the worst morning. I'm two hours late because some jerk slammed on his brakes a few cars up and I ended up crashing into the car in front of me. I had to wait for the police to tow my car and took a taxi here."

I felt lousy, being the one that slammed on my brakes causing him to crash, but I didn't want to make it any more awkward than it already was so I left that part out and instead said,

"That sucks man. Seems like it really just isn't your day. What time do you get out of work and where do you live? I could give you a lift home after."

He was appreciative but too prideful to accept my offer saying, "No, it's fine I'll take a cab. It's not that big of a deal."

After a minute I convinced him, only to make myself feel better about the whole situation, in a way of making up for the grief I caused him. He told me where he lives and we made a plan to meet up in the lobby after work.
Five o'clock rolls around and I head to the elevator to take me down to the lobby. Before reaching the ground floor I once again briefly camp on the word coincidence. The elevator stops and I hear, "Ding!" informing me I have reached the selected floor. The doors slide open and I see Jason standing near the exit that lead outside.

As I leave the elevator and walk towards him his eyes connect with mine as he nervously half smiles. I'm guessing he's uncomfortable but also happy because I'm actually following through with my offer. I reach him and we stand in silence for a few seconds. I break the awkward tension and greet him, reaching my hand out towards his to shake it.

"Hey Jason."

He accepts my hand into his weakly shaking it. "You really don't have to give me a ride home. I'd be fine with taking a taxi." He looks down at his shoes.

"Nah man, don't worry about it. It's not even really that far out of the way." I didn't want to give him a ride in the first place but something in me was calling me to.

"Alright, well I really appreciate it." He picks up his briefcase that had remained on the ground next to him and we head outside to my car.

Sitting in my car he refreshes my memory of where he lives and we head off. I've lived in this city for a few years and think that by taking my normal exit off of the highway we can get to his place quicker. I ask him as we are approaching my exit,

"This is my normal exit anyways, and I think we can take this one to get to your place."

"We could but take the next one, it's quicker."

I move over into the left lane. We are about to pass my normal exit when an 18 wheeler comes cruising by us in the right lane and blasts through the car beside us. The car is launched towards the right side of the highway then another car smashes into it.

"Dear God!" I shout.

I pull to the left, swerving and I just barely miss clipping the back of the trailer, as it's hitting its brakes hard. My heart is racing and adrenaline is rushing through my veins. I pass the horrible scene and pull off ahead in the breakdown lane. I put on my hazards and just sit there speechless, my trembling hands covering my face.

Jason is freaking out from the near death experience. His words fade and all that comes to my mind is the word coincidence.

If that never came to me in my sleep, I wouldn't have written it down. If I never wrote it down I wouldn't have slammed my head on the desk. If I never slammed my head, I wouldn't have gotten a headache. If I never had the headache I wouldn't have needed pills. If I never needed pills I wouldn't have went to the pharmacy. If I never went to the pharmacy I wouldn't have taken the detour, I never would have slammed on my brakes, and Jason wouldn't have crashed. He never would have been late to work. I never would have met him or given him a ride. I would have went my normal way home. Taken my exit and the car that was smashed by the big rig then smashed by another car would have been me and I'd be dead right now.

I would be dead if I never had that dream. This can't be real. This can't just be a coincidence. I now think to myself, 'There is no such thing as coincidence, there just can't be.'