I was six years old, all over again. This wasn’t the first time I’d had this dream. This wasn’t the first time that the feelings of dread and terror engulfed me, the darkness tangible as it wrapped its velvet self around my stretched throat tighter and tighter, until it was so tight I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream.

I was in the back seat of the car, seat belt stretching against my chest and holding me against the seat. The car smelt of patchouli and jasmine and talcum powder, from my mother, who wore the essential oils constantly. She always said she liked them so much better than all the pre-packaged perfumes, and the powder kept her hands soft. They reminded her of being out in our garden, a huge expanse at the back of our house that she had loved to spend time in. I remembered her holding my hand, the green watering can in hers mirroring the miniature one in mine, and she showed me to water the “feet” of the flowers, and “not to drown their heads.”

We were going to the doctor. She had bought me ice cream from the shopping centre – vanilla, my favourite, and now we were going to the doctor. My mother smiled a lot, but only when she had her medicine, and the doctor was a nice man who gave me candy and gave my mother hers.

The Beatles was playing on the radio, and my mother was humming along to “Strawberry Fields.” She loved that song, but I hated when it made her cry. Sometimes my daddy made her cry, too, but after he coaxed her out of her room they would hug and laugh and we would go sit in the garden together, and she would make me tea so I would stop crying too.

My ice cream slid off its conical throne, landing on my lap. I cried out to my mother, and she turned back to look at me. Her deep green eyes took in the white, steadily melting sticky mess on my shirt and pants, and she sighed. Her black hair was tied up on top of her head, with a few wispy strands hanging down by the sides of her tanned face, a beautiful Italian flower. One hand still on the steering wheel, she reached next to me in the back seat for the tissues, attempting to mop up some of the mess.

She didn’t see the red light. She didn’t see the truck. She didn’t see it coming closer, didn’t hear its blaring horn, didn’t know that she was about to die.

I did.

But I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t die.

Yet when the velvet hit me, a pitch black blanket of infinite proportions, my screams were muffled and I choked, suffocated. The sight of my mother’s eyes widening, first with terror, and then with tranquillity, played over and over in my mind, as did the truck tearing her away from me. Metal and glass screeching, shattering, and blood, red like the roses I watered with her.

The velvet, soft and sensuous, the never-ending dark of midnight and terror and complete utter absence of light, doused in patchouli, jasmine and talcum powder, covered my eyes. Everything was gone.