That night, Pippa dreamed she was driving into a dense cloud of white moths, thousands of them beating their wings against the windshield. Then she woke up, and she was driving inside a cloud of white moths. She felt blinded, claustrophobic. She stopped the car. But how would she get out? What if she was in the middle of the road? Someone would crash into her. She crept along, panicking, disoriented, trying to see the edges of the road so she could figure out where she was. She wondered if this could possibly be real. Had she had gone insane? Was she dreaming? Or maybe she was dead.
At last the creatures were thinning out. She could see through the fluttering wings, into the night. She was driving along her own narrow road, toward the intersection. She could see the convenience store across the road. It glowed with the cool blue light of a Hopper painting. So that’s where she’d been headed. She tapped the gas pedal, rolled the car across the road tentatively, pulled in, and parked. She could see Chris inside. He was alone, leaning back, arms crossed, staring out the window, his skin stark white under the fluorescent light. She looked down at what she was wearing. Sweats and a T-shirt. Thank God, no nightgown. She got out of the car. The sound of tree frogs outside was shrill, continuous. She walked up to the store, swung the glass door open. As he saw her, his eyes followed her, but he didn’t move, his expression didn’t change. She walked up to the counter. They looked at each other. ‘I’m awake,’ she said.