The sun shown straight down on Main Street, sunlight glinting off of cars and windows. People strolled along the sidewalks on either side of the road, peering into shops and walking in and out of restaurants and stores.
Diana drove down the street in her small Civic on her way to restaurant to have lunch with a friend. She reached into her purse and took out her iPod. She turned it on, put the headphones in her ears, and put it on shuffle. The first song was My Heart Will Go On, one she hadn't listened to in a long time. She drove down Main Street, humming to the tune.
Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on
From out of nowhere, water rushed down the street. Eyes wide, Diana rolled down the window on her car and looked out. She was driving through a foot of water. She looked ahead and saw that water covered the road, rushing in waves towards her car. She couldn't see the source of the water, but it was midday and cloudless above.
Then her car started to tip- no, the world was tipping. Diana's car was driving uphill, water rushing down past the car. No one on the sidewalk noticed- they continued walking like they were on flat ground and not on a slope.Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
All of a sudden, it was night. The sky was dark and stars were shining in the sky. Streetlights flickered off and on. Diana still had her foot on the pedal, still trying to drive up the sloping road. People on the sidewalks were running and screaming. Diana saw that their clothes had changed- people wore old fashioned, white life vests, women wearing dresses and men wearing suits and hats. They climbed up the streets on both sides of the street, running alongside her car, paying her no mind.Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
The shops and business and even the road and the cars in front of Diana had disappeared. She was now driving her little Civic up the deck of a large ship. Black ocean and a sea of stars surrounded the ship that was sloping upwards. Diana took a sharp breath and shivered as she felt cold air blow through the open window of her car. She slammed the pedal to the floor, fighting gravity to climb to the highest point of the tipping ship.
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go till we're gone
Diana heard two voices above the screaming people.
Rose, c'mon, hurry.
I'm coming, Jack.
Two people rushed past her car, a young man without a life vest and a young woman with long red hair. They ran to the highest part of the ship, the aft, and swung themselves over the railing, gripping it with their hands, just as the ship flipped up ninety degrees in the water.
Love was when I loved you
One true time I hold to
In my life we'll always go on
Diana's car could no longer climb and fell down into the ocean, wheels up. The car roof hit the surface. Diana took a deep breath, trying to undo her seatbelt. The car sank, water coming in through the window and floor. Diana was panicked, frantically trying to unlatch the seatbelt in the freezing water that surrounded her. The tiny Civic sank upside-down in the black ocean. The car wasn't being sucked down by the ship, she noted, but sank on its own into the dark, churning water. Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Diana's lungs burst, the last of her oxygen used up. She sucked in water, coughing and choking. As she drowned in the water, she wondered how the ear phones had stayed in her ears and how she could still here the song though the iPod was dead and ruined in the water. But she realized that the music was in the water- the voice of Celine Dion ringing in the freezing ocean all around her.
You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
The last word rang out in the water, echoing in Diana's head as her body finally succumbed to lack of oxygen and the black, chilling, frozen sea. Her last thought was of the ship, the people, the black night, the freezing water, the two young people she had seen...
She sat up, gasping for breath. Medics surrounded Diana and watched as she retched up water on the ground. Shaking and shivering, she coughed up the last of the water in her lungs and felt a blanket being wrapped around her.
"What happened?" she managed to choke out, still in desperate need of oxygen.
"You sped down the road and went straight into the lake," one medic said, a young man with a familiar voice.
"But.. I was..." she stammered, "the ship... the ocean."
"Ma'am, what ocean?" another medic asked, a woman with crimson red hair.
"It was night," Diana said with a more stable voice this time," and I was driving up the deck of a sinking ship... and my car fell in and I was drowning..."
"Ma'am, have you been drinking?" the female medic asked.
"No," Diana replied," I saw... everything change, and..."
"Ma'am, we need to get you to a hospital," the male medic told Diana. To the red haired medic , he said, "Rosanne, we need a stretcher, she's still too shaky to walk."
"Right away, Jackson," the female medic replied. To someone else, she shouted, "Call Dr. Dawson, he'll need to know about this."
Diana sat in the bright sun, breathing very heavily, and looked over to see a crew already working to get her car out of the river. Everything was back to normal- the world flat, the sun shining, no water in the street. But she was sure that she had been there, somehow with her little car. Even if it had only been her mind that went and that her body and her real car had driven into the river, she had still been there, on the Titanic.