PREVIEWS

In the first dream, she saw wings flapping in a confusion of black feathers at the street corner — vultures trying to get at something on the pavement. She was 13 years old. The next morning, minutes after she told her family about it, they all heard a crash. Startled, they went outside and ran in the direction of the sound. Everyone moved toward the corner she had seen in her dream. There had been an accident. A bus had collided with a truck. Eight people were killed instantly, and dozens more injured. She felt dizzy as she recalled the vultures in the vision-dream, while her family stared at her horrified.

The second time, she dreamed of a house with no front wall. Inside were two coffins, one big and one small. The next day, the radio news reported that a truck driver had lost control of his vehicle and went through the front wall of a house, killing a mother and her child in the living room.

The third time was different. She was much older, married with kids. She had a series of dreams for a full week before her brother was killed in a boating accident. In the most disturbing of those dreams, she saw a person dressed in black standing in water. She walked up to the person. When she got closer, she realized that she was knee deep in the water, while the person in black was on top of it. She reached up and pulled the robe to get their attention. The figure turned around with a fleshless face — empty eye sockets looked down at her.

One night, years later, she saw her sister-in-law struggling to say something that no one could understand. The next day, she learned that the woman had a stroke that affected her speech. This had happened at exactly the same time she had the dream. She could account for the time because of her habit of glancing at the clock every time she got up in the middle of the night. She had awakened because of the dream, heart pounding. Then, a few days later, a distant relative, whom she hadn’t seen for some time, just popped up in front of her dream’s eyes with a mouthful of blood. The next day, he was hit by a kid on a bicycle, and lost several teeth.

Tonight she sits on her bed staring at the shadows in front of her. She doesn’t want to sleep. A few minutes earlier, a dream woke her up. She saw a gushing of blood spurting upward like a fountain. It seemed to come out of a crater-like space on the floor. She doesn’t know whose floor. She also got a glimpse of a face, she doesn’t know whose face, yet it seems familiar. She doesn’t wish to know more. She waits in the dark, willing the sun to rise soon.

Published by Untamed Ink #3 2009