It starts, as all dreams do, with the mist.
Or at least, that’s how all of mine start. A field of tall grass; could be anywhere. The terrain is uneven, rugged, a mountain in the distance. I’ve always thought of the Scottish Highlands. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is the mist.
Stretching like fingers from the frost-tinted grass, the mist has no end. It rises to the sky, which is a dull gray, neither night nor day, and you can make out where the sun is but you can’t see it. There is no wind.
This is the place where my dreams come true.
Before this year I’d only dreamt eight times in my life. Every one began in this field; every one then happened in reality, precisely as I’d dreamed.
Every one showing me an unspeakable tragedy from somewhere in the world. Tragedies you’ve heard of. Tragedies I foresaw.
Am I a prophet? I don’t know. No god has spoken to me. Perhaps if one had, I’d trust my dreams less, for then I could chalk this all up to delusion and institutionalize myself. But alas, it’s just the dreams, and they’re always right.
On the night of December 31st, before all the festivities began, I laid out some clothes by my bed, hoping to wake up (not too hung over, fingers crossed) and start 2024 off with a nice workout and a big breakfast. But when I woke up on New Year’s Day, I just stayed in my bed and wept. What else was there to do? I’d dreamed the mist.
The mist rose, and after a while I rose with it. My feet lifted off the tall grass, and up up up I went. I tumbled upwards, head over feet over head over feet until I landed in an armchair in some standard American living room. It was dusty, and obviously hadn’t been redecorated in decades. Everything looked old. I looked old. My hands were wrinkled and spotted with the marks of age.
Every joint in my body ached. The walls were covered in photographs of a young man with his wife. I could not remember her name. There were more pictures — the same pair, middle-aged. Even a few of an elderly couple, the man’s hands spotted just like mine. All surrounded by children and grandchildren. But in this room, in this dream, I was alone.
The TV was flickering, and the dream with it. Channels flipped of their own accord and I saw into years gone by, scenes that could not have possibly been filmed. An elderly man, strung up and naked in a dungeon. He was being threatened by a man much younger, wearing the robes of the priesthood. “Ritrattare!” the would-be torturer shouted — the Italian word for “recant.” I saw no further.
A university laboratory. A disheveled man in a three-piece suit, peering into an enormous device that must have been a microscope of immense power. I saw what he saw. Solar systems in miniature. Some larger masses, holding still, while other masses whirled about them, the smallest of things.
An impossible flash of light. Incomprehensible. A man in a coat with a haunted look stamped upon his face. He did not speak aloud his thoughts, that he had become death, the destroyer of worlds. He did not need to.
A firefight somewhere in the Middle East. Soldiers wearing the American flag on their sleeves. Screaming. Melting. Something had happened. The scene faded as another missile roared in . . .
Finally, the channels stopped moving; the television stopped flickering. I leaned forward in my armchair as an emergency alert blared on the screen.
WARNING. THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST FROM THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. PLEASE STAND BY.
WARNING. THIS IS NOT A TEST. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST FROM THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT.
A series of loud beeps followed. My sweat glands opened. I was conscious of every one. Then the voice spoke, robotic, unfeeling.
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST FROM THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT. A COALITION OF THREE SOVEREIGN NATIONS HAVE LAUNCHED A NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES.
Another series of beeps, and the message repeated. Then:
SOME MISSILES HAVE BEEN INTERCEPTED. OTHER MISSILES ARE EXPECTED TO STRIKE IN THREE TO EIGHT MINUTES. IF YOU ARE IN AN AFFECTED AREA, PLEASE SEEK SHELTER. DO NOT EVACUATE. PLEASE STAND BY FOR A LIST OF AFFECTED CITIES.
A map of my country appeared on screen, and all at once I understood that I sat in a living room in Philadelphia. The voice, still unfeeling, continued on as red dots appeared on the map:
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
DALLAS / FORT WORTH, TEXAS
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Well, then. I leaned back in my armchair. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. So this is how it ends, I thought. By the fury of fools. I looked to my wall, where a digital clock read the time and date: 11:21, 2/4. But I only had eyes for the photograph of the woman, laughing in her wedding dress. I’m coming, I thought, and the world was immersed in flame.
I spent all of New Year’s Day praying. Then I had the dream again. And again.
I stopped praying three days later.
I don’t understand all of what I saw. Was the old man . . . me? It felt like me. But the decor was from decades past, not decades to come. What to make of that?
I don’t know. I know, least of all, why these dreams come to me, and then come true. All I know is that on a February 4th, that age-spotted man’s time will end. I know it as sure as I live and think and feel. But which February 4th? This one? I don’t know. But it seems possible.
So many questions. But the one that returns to my mind the most is this: was it all worth it? The progress, I mean. The discoveries. The skyscrapers and the chapels and the cemeteries and the pain. The woman on her wedding day, the aching joints, the grandchildren and the smiles.
Was it all worth it, in the end?