2001-12-09 | 6:16 p.m.

I used to have this nightmare when I was a kid, like five years old. I'd have it over and over again all night. I don't remember when I stopped having it.

I am at an amusement park with my mother. We are the only people there and it is slightly run down. My mother is holding my hand and pulling me along. She is walking much more qickly than I am capable of walking. She is taking me to ride on a roller coaster. She is telling me that riding on the roller coaster is "the right thing to do" and that if I don't do it, some very bad things will happen to me.

I see the roller coaster in the distance and it looks as though it is about to fall apart. I do not want to go on it, but I am too scared to say this to my mother.

When we arrive at the rollercoaster, there is no one there to operate it and my mother has to crank it up herself. This makes me even more nervous because even though I am just a little kid, I know that my mother doesn't have any idea how to operate a roller coaster and besides, the rollercoaster is old and rickety and looks as though it could collapse at any second.

My mother gets into the rollercoaster car and motions towards me.

"Come on. Get in," she says.

At this point I am overwhelmed with fear.

"I don't want to ride this roller coaster with you."

My mother frowns ands gives me that special look she has honed-- the one that says how pissed and disappointed she is.

"If you don't get in right now, I am going to leave without you and never come back."

I stay where I am.

I do not want to get on this ride

My mother is true to her word. The rollercoaster begins to

"Wait!!!"

It is too late.

I panic. My mother is leaving me. I cannot let her leave me.

I try to jump on the back of the car, but cannot make it all the way on. I am hanging by my hands, being dragged up the first hill.

My mother turns around and shouts encouraging words at me, but makes no move to help me. She seems annoyed and put out by my antics.

"Come on! Get in! You can do it."

I cannot do it. As we get to the top of the first hill, I lose my grasp and fall back on to the tracks.

But instead of continuing on down the other side of the hill, the rollercoaster car containing my mother backs up and rolls over me.

And then it begins all over again.