Early in September, I wrote about my recurring dream in my green notebook.
They are in Badger Coffee on Main Street in Bluffton. The walls are cherry red (not the coffee shop’s real color). Hannah wears a red cardigan sweater (she never owned that piece of clothing in her life). All that red? For blood?
What does red mean in a dream?
(For the purpose of this story, I googled it—Sorry for the internet use, Joey.)
Red is an indication of raw energy, power, vigor, passion, force, courage, intensity, and impulsiveness.
Other than the red, Hannah is just Hannah. Not dead but funny, sarcastic, pretty. They sit in the big window up front that looks out on the sidewalk. Isaiah is next to her. He’s himself now, not the turbulent asshole kid he was back when she died. They’re both drinking black coffee because they’re not into a bunch of sugary bullshit. Their conversation feels normal until Isaiah remembers something’s very wrong.
He turns to her and says, “Wait. What if I told you you’re going to die tonight, Hannah?”
“I wouldn’t believe you,” she says.
“You wouldn’t? But what if I’m right. What if I know you are? What if I know how? You’ll be in Ray’s Corolla.”
“I like Ray’s car. He keeps it clean. Dudes are usually so gross.”
“You’ll be out by Rewey.”
“No way. We wouldn’t go there.”
“On the way back from Blackhawk Lake.”
“Oh, maybe.”
“You’ll be going through an intersection.”
“Hard to avoid that. Roads cross, don’t they?”
“And you’ll be creamed—like smeared, so your body is destroyed beyond recognition. A sad guy in a pickup truck will hit you.”
“Wow, Isaiah. That’s a little dark,” she says, smiling.
“Don’t smile.”
This makes her smile harder.
“Will you still get in the car with Ray?”
“Tonight? No. I don’t think so. I guess not. Not if you know for sure.”
“Don’t get in the car tonight, Hannah.”
“I won’t.”
“Good call,” Isaiah says.
“You just saved my life.” Hannah laughs. Then she drinks her coffee. She looks out onto Main Street. An old lady walking with a cane is the only action out there. “What a boring piece-of-shit town,” she says.
“But what about tomorrow?” Isaiah asks.
“What, I’m going to die tomorrow, too?”
“Yeah. Maybe. That pickup truck could be coming tomorrow.”
Hannah turns from the window. She looks into Isaiah’s eyes. Her eyes are so blue, like the sea in the movie Mamma Mia, which she watched a thousand times even though Isaiah complained about it. “Dude,” she says. “That pickup could be coming every day for the rest of my life. You want me to stay in the house for the rest of my life?”
“Yes. Please?” Isaiah says.
“No,” Hannah says. “No way!”
“But you never got a chance to live someplace else, Hannah. You never went to Greece! You never got married! You never sang songs with your friends in a bar!”
“It’s okay, man,” Hannah says. “Hey. Fill up your cup. You’re empty.”
Isaiah looks down at his empty cup. He nods. He goes to get a refill. When he returns, Hannah is gone.
He runs out the door, spilling coffee, burning his hand.
Out by Rewey, Ray Gatos’s car flies through an intersection. A half second later, a pickup truck screams through from the other direction. So close, but there is no crash. The truck barrels onward, whipping dust into horizontal tornadoes. Isaiah is left alone, standing on the gravel shoulder, watching both the truck and the car continue on their merry ways, getting farther apart, into the future, while the sun sets red and orange in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area.
“Do the cars always miss at the intersection?” Joey asked after I read it to him.
“They never hit. But I know they’re going to hit someday. I wake up sweating my ass off, my heart racing, because I thought they were going to hit. But they didn’t. Don’t. Not yet.”
“We should go out there,” he said. “Stand right where you’re dreaming it. Pick up that energy. Don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t think so,” I said. “I won’t go there.”
“You never have?”
“No. Never. Can’t.”
“You have to face it, bro. See it. Be with it.”
I shook my head.
“It’s just an intersection. Just like Hannah says in your dream. Roads cross.”
“No,” I said.