As the previous story among my mind’s flights segued into a new image, the face of the man who had sat behind the wheel suddenly morphed. I saw a Satanic figure. He shared the previous character’s clothes–pink suit and pink derby hat–but had a face of wild rage. He roared but also laughed as he sped toward me in his car–an old-fashioned hot rod with flame details painted on the hood. I heard him. No words, only roaring. I intensely remember that I smelled gasoline. Possibly fire but definitely gasoline.
This is far more significant than any story my mind imagined that night in my hospital room Was I being tormented by visions of Satan? I don’t believe so. Christ would not have allowed that, because I am His child: a Christian, redeemed and adopted into God’s family through His son. My interpretation is simpler: my mind was expressing that it sees the real-life speeding car as my personal devil. A tormentor. I keep wondering whether I expected to die, because if I thought the car’s impact was going to kill me, that would somewhat explain why I have interpreted it as my tormentor. My memory of the accident has gone completely blank, which I’m told is a common mental defense mechanism; so I can’t have any real memories of the car approaching and hitting me.
Yes–that was the accident. A speeding car ran my crosswalk and hit me. I was then hospitalized for at least a week; and one night while I suffered for hours from symptoms of panic (and simultaneously a terrible heartburn), my mind wandered in unusual directions, imagining stories it wouldn’t normally produce, which may or may not have been fiction.
I have refrained from discussing the story that precedes my satanic image, because it is ultimately not relevant to the demon I saw; but the fact of the previous character’s eye-catching clothing, shared by the demon with no change, may puzzle the reader or even provoke the reader not to take my dream seriously; so I think I must explain that story. It’s one of the inexplicable stories my mind normally wouldn’t have imagined but for my trying to sleep
In an old but not particularly low-class section of town (I couldn’t tell whether it was my own city) lived and cruised a hypocritical if outwardly pious Christian, a smug seducer and abandoner of women who nevertheless publicly proclaimed the gospel. At least one of his discarded women angrily confronted him, but he laughed her off. He wore a pink suit and pink derby hat. He drove an old-fashioned hot-rod. The story ended with the man cruising off in his hot rod, just before he became my demonic figure with no warninge, as an obnoxious rock theme using electric guitars played. A title had appeared at the beginning: I remember it too vaguely to say what it was, but I believe it extolled this hypocritical Christian’s evangelistic zeal.
I have no idea why I imagined that story, where it came from. I wondered whether it was based on a local or universal myth, because I can tell you its revolting character wasn’t based on any “Christian” I’ve met; but I’ll probably never know.
