In the dream, I miss the bus.

Sometimes I am an eight-year-old girl with flailing arms screaming for the bus driver to stop the bus. But he doesn’t and I am left heaving in a cloud of exhaust while gravel rains down on me.

Sometimes, I am early for the bus. My backpack and lunch bag sit on the curb at my feet. But since no one has told the bus driver to stop for an overweight, middle-aged woman, he speeds past. I am left prostrate on the street.

Sometimes, though, the bus just doesn’t come at all.