Odd Journey

It wasn't a dream: my father in the back seat of the car -- a sense as I turned and he said I should watch my back. 

He was the color of late January rain mixed with early February snow, ghostly, the color of bathtub steam. A blirp on my screen.  A non-happening, a blur in my vision coupled with a mind quick to figure -- and mine so full of him he couldn't not be the first explanation my mind met. I wanted him so to be there instead of dead.    

But "Watch my back?"  Where in my head did those words climb up out from?  "Watch my back?" was never my father's chant except maybe once when he taught me how to drive.  

So now I'm waiting.  I tell myself I don't believe in messages from the dead.  I tell myself that watching my back is going to solve something when I least expect it but I'm pretty sure I don't know how to watch my back.  I've been paying special attention to my driving, though, that's for sure.  

And I'm looking for the metaphor.