I picked up my Uber passenger near Lake Minnetonka, the kind of place where the houses sit so close to the water it almost feels like you’re on an island.
Right before I picked her up, I had been driving another passenger around this same lake.
Looking out at the water, pointing at houses, imagining a different life.
“Yeah, I’d live there.”
“Oh that one? I’d be down by the water every single day.”
“I’d get a dog just so I could walk it along the shore.”
“I’d have a boat. Not even for anything important—just vibes.”
And then, out of nowhere, they said:
“My worst nightmare is getting hit by a tsunami. Like imagine if one of those buildings fell and just—boom—wave comes right at you.”
I laughed at the time. It sounded dramatic. Almost like a movie.
But the image stayed with me.
My next client got in.
She told me she was originally from Japan, living in Minnesota now.
We started talking about why she moved.
“I came here for work,” she said.
“And you like it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “My favorite part is the four seasons.”
I laughed a little.
“Really? Why would anyone want to live in Minnesota?”
She smiled. “Why?”
“Because of the weather,” I said. “It’s cold like six months out of the year. I’ve lived here my whole life—I’m kind of over it.”
She laughed at that, like she understood both sides of it.
We were driving along the water again, the same stretch, the same houses.
So I brought it up.
“You know, right before I picked you up, someone was talking about tsunamis,” I said.
“They were saying like, what if one of these buildings fell into the water and caused a wave.”
She paused.
“That’s strange,” she said.
“I actually had a dream about a tsunami recently. Back in Japan.”
I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror.
She nodded.
“Yeah. It felt very real.”
Then she let out a small, almost surprised laugh.
“And now you’re telling me someone was talking about that today…”
“I know,” I said. “They were pretty convinced it could happen here.”
That’s when she shook her head, more certain this time.
“No,” she said.
“That wouldn’t happen.”
“That wouldn’t?”
She smiled slightly.
“No. I used to live in Japan. A building falling into a river wouldn’t cause a tsunami.”
She wasn’t dismissive. Just… sure.
Then she looked back out at the water.
“My parents live on a hill in Japan,” she said.
“So they’re safe.”
A pause.
“…but if something bigger came… higher than expected…”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
She didn’t have to.
It made me think about how the passenger I had just dropped off had been sitting in this same seat, looking out at this same water, talking about their fear of a tsunami—and now she was responding to it without even knowing that conversation had already happened. They were almost talking to each other through me. I like moments like that, when one ride carries into the next and people end up connected without realizing it.
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