She Looks So Peaceful

Lionel Lorch sticks his pugnacious features in Sage Seer’s face.

“We’re gonna play good guy, bad guy. You’re the bad guy.”

“But I’m not even a guy,” six-year-old Sage replies.

Lionel looks around for a stick he can use as a make-believe knife.

Instead, he finds a rusty switchblade that one of the older kids lost.

Sage doesn’t have to pretend to be scared when Lionel comes after her with a real knife.

She runs right into the clutches of Worm, Lionel’s mutant-like, sub-servient companion.

“Die, evil witch!” Lionel yells, jamming the knife into Sage’s back.

The last thing Sage sees before passing out is Lionel running away and Worm soiling himself.

***

Braeden Sage paces across the waiting room.

His wife, Sybil, dabs at her eyes with a tissue, careful not to smear her makeup. Tears make the usually vivacious, petite brunette look older than her thirty-two years.

“You should sit down, dear. Don’t agitate yourself.”

Braeden reaches for a cigarette. Realizing where he is, he curses under his breath. His coal black eyes and tough-as-nails bantam-weight physique contradict his sympathetic nature.

Dr. Thurston Bey exits the operating room, a confident, capped grin spread across his sun-tanned features.

Braeden’s sister, Alma, a registered nurse, stands next to Dr. Bey, looking daggers at him, her arms crossed over her chest.

“It was touch and go for a while. Her lungs collapsed a few times, but your daughter refused to give up. She’s going to be fine.”

“We should sue the Lorch’s,” Sybil says.

“I’ve dealt with the Lorch’s. They don’t have two cents to rub together,” Dr. Bey says. “Leon treats his wife, Linda, like a punching bag. He has the liver of an eighty-year-old man and is living on borrowed time. Lionel will pay for what he’s done. At the very least, he’ll spend the rest of his childhood in juvenile detention, where he’s bound to meet a lot of kids who can out-bully him with ease. Lionel’s not very bright. He doesn’t realize the magnitude of what he’s done. I’m sure this incident will scar him.”

Sybil holds back Braeden. “What about Sage’s scars?”

“They’ll heal, in time. The important thing to remember is it’s a miracle Sage is still with us. Don’t occupy your mind with hate. Celebrate how special Sage is.”

Dr Bey shakes their hands, walking away proudly with his head in the air.

Alma pulls the couple aside. “Maybe you should sue him. I don’t want to alarm you, but Sage died twice on the operating table. But Bey’s right about one thing. She fought her way back from death. Would you like to see her?”

Braeden and Sybil hold each other up as they look at Sage.

“She looks so tiny, so fragile, but she’s a fighter,” Braeden says.

Sybil takes Sage’s hand. “I hope she knows how much we love her.”

Sage squeezes her hand.

“She does.”

“Look, she’s smiling,” Braeden notes.

Sage tightens her grip on her mother’s hand.

“She looks so peaceful.”

***

Over the next two years, Sage grows into a petite, freckled girl with a look of constant worry. Braeden and Sybil do everything they can to make Sage forget the trauma Lionel put her through. Trips to the amusement park, ice cream sodas, and parties seem to put the memory of Lionel’s assault in Sage’s rearview mirror.

That is until the night Sage wakes up screaming Lionel’s name.

“He can’t hurt you. He’s in a home for bad children two states away,” Sybil says, holding her tightly.

“I saw him! I saw him in a coffin!”

“It was just a bad dream,” Braeden insists.

“No! He’s dead! I know he is!”

“How do you feel about that?” Braeden asks.

Sage’s distress subsides. “Part of me is happy. But a part of me knows I shouldn’t be.”

When Sage finally closes her eyes again, she still whimpers Lionel’s name in her sleep.

“She hasn’t mentioned him since it happened,” Sybil notes. “Why now?”

“Maybe she saw somebody getting bullied at school, and it triggered the memory of what Lionel did to her.”

“She’s not going to let this go.”

“Then let’s get our princess some closure.”

Sybil follows Braeden downstairs into the sitting room. Turning on the computer, he types in Lionel’s name.

They stare at the screen, unable to frame their thoughts, as they read a newspaper entry from the Dubuque, Iowa, Herald:

Eight-Year-Old Delinquent Stabbed to Death

By Mack DeKnyfe

Lionel Lorch, an eight-year-old juvenile offender, was stabbed to death in the shower of the Dubuque School for Boys yesterday. Originally from New Harmony, Indiana, Lorch was charged with assaulting a classmate with a knife when he was only six years old. Lorch claimed he didn’t know the knife he found in a playground was real.

Lorch had a tough time adjusting to life as a juvenile offender and had been beaten up many times by older boys. He reportedly carried a switchblade, which he always kept with him.

He was alone when he was attacked and stabbed over thirty times. No suspects have been named.

“So, what do we tell her?” Sybil asks.

“That bad people get what they deserve.”

***

Braeden and Sybil promise Sage they will keep her gift a secret.

One afternoon, Braeden sees Sage sitting on the backyard swing, crying.

“What’s the matter, Sage?”

“I see things in my dreams I don’t wanna see. I dreamt I was standing at the bus stop with all the other kids. A cat was crossing the street. A car ran over the back of it. It was pawing at the air, throwing up blood and bones, then another car ran it over again. I saw it happen again, for real, this morning. Why do I have to see these things, Dad?”

“I don’t know, hon. Maybe dreaming about that poor cat getting hit helped you cope better when the real thing happened.”

“But why am I the only one who has to suffer?”

Braedon reaches for his daughter’s hand. “You’re not the only one, Sage. History is full of special people like you who saw things before they happened. Abraham Lincoln had a dream in which he entered a room filled with people in mourning. When he asked a soldier what was happening, he replied, ‘The President has been shot.’ A few days later, John Wilkes Booth killed him. In 1898, Morgan Robertson wrote a novel called ‘Futility’, about an unsinkable ship called the Titan. In his novel, the Titan collided with an iceberg and sank. Fourteen years later, the Titanic, which was considered unsinkable, struck an iceberg and sank.”

“You’re not cheering me up, Dad.”

“Sorry. How about this? Inventor Nicholas Tesla predicted in 1909 that people would be walking around with phones in their pockets. In 1865, author Jules Verne predicted we would land on the moon a hundred years before we did. He even wrote that the astronauts would be launched from Florida. So, you see? You have the same gift they did, and it can be useful.”

“But why me?”

“Because you’re strong enough to handle it.”

***

Sage twitches in her sleep.

She sees her father holding a spatula, flipping hamburgers on a grill.

Dropping the spatula, he clutches his chest.

Desperately waving his arms, he drops to his knees, crashing face-first into the ground.

Sage sits up in her bed, gasping for air.

Now that she’s fourteen, she doesn’t wake up screaming anymore from her nightmares, but that doesn't lessen the terror.

She walks down the hallway to her parents’ room. The door creaks when she pushes it open, but her father’s loud snoring overpowers the noise.

Relieved that her father is alright, Sage heads back to her room.

Before she gets back into bed, she prays that she doesn’t have any more dreams.

***

Sage forgets the dream until three weeks later, when she looks out the kitchen window at her father firing up the grill.

Her mother passes by, giving her a worried smile.

“Are you all right, dear?”

“It’s not me. It’s Dad. I’m worried about him.”

“You want cheese on your burger?”

“…Yes…”

She watches her father shake his head in despair as her mother speaks to him.

Sage exhales deeply, trying to erase the memory of her nightmare.

“…As long as they’re together, he’ll be okay…,” she says to herself.

Sage shivers when her mother heads to the garage to retrieve some patio chairs.

Veiled in smoke, Braeden turns to wave at his daughter.

He drops the spatula. Grabbing at his chest, he falls to his knees.

Sage runs to the telephone, dialing 9-1-1.

Sybil returns to the backyard. Dropping the chairs, she rushes to her husband’s side.

The EMS techs are already parked in the driveway by the time Sybil runs inside to call for an ambulance.

***

Braeden credits Sage with saving his life. She blames herself for not dreaming about his death when he has another heart attack and dies eighteen months later.

Years later, Sage has a dream about her mother’s death and wishes she hadn’t.

Sybil is still grieving over Braeden’s death and is not handling her daughter’s imminent departure for college very well. A teetotaler before Braeden’s death, she finds solace in cordials, which don’t taste like alcohol but still deliver its numbing effects.

Sage dreams she sees her mother pull into the driveway in a black pickup truck.

Her accountant mother drives a boring Volvo.

“C’mon, Sage, let’s go for a ride,” she shouts out the truck's window. “It could be the last one.”

“Maybe later, Mom,” Sage replies.

Sage is equally amused and confused by the dream. She can’t wait to see if her mother comes home from her job with Marty Motors in a new ride.

Sybil is two hours late when the phone rings.

The voice on the other end of the phone tells Sage that a drunk in a black pickup truck T-boned her mother’s car at a traffic light, killing her.

***

In college, Sage concludes that self-medicating is a viable way to suppress her dreams. She becomes known for self-deprecating party phrases such as “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor,” and “Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.”

The practice works until it doesn’t.

Sage dreams that her sometime boyfriend, Carl, is posing in front of a full-length mirror.

He’s wearing a checkered bandana around his neck.

He holds up a gun, pointing it at his reflection.

“You talkin’ to me? I know you’re not talkin’ to me!”

Still smiling, Carl is overwhelmed by a blue wave that knocks him to the floor.

The next morning, Sage stops Carl in the hallway outside his room.

“Don’t do it.”

“Do what?”

“I know what you're planning to do with that gun. It won’t work.”

“You’re trippin’, girl. Go have another drink.”

***

Two weeks later, Sage and two of her girlfriends are having lunch in McDonald’s when Carl enters the restaurant. A checkered bandana conceals his face.

The customers, including Sage, hit the floor when Carl yells, “Gimme two Big Macs with fries and all your money to go!”

Carl doesn’t see the two police officers sitting in the back having lunch.

Sage is about to warn him when one of her girlfriends pushes her head back down on the floor.

“FREEZE!”

Carl turns to face the officers, his eyes wide in horror.

Carl’s mind tells him to lower the gun, but his body reacts differently.

He points the gun at the officers and is torn apart by a volley of bullets.

That night, Sage switches from beer to vodka to quell her dreams.

***

Through a combination of a medicine chest of drugs, copious amounts of alcohol, and all-nighters, Sage graduates with a degree in computer science. She lands a job with Samsung that allows her to work at night from home and sleep during the day.

But the dreams don’t go away.

They return whenever she hears Capricorn’s song, “I’m Ready to Die,” on the radio. It gets to the point where she changes the station before the lead singer, Rock Rolle, can utter a word.

When she turns on the television, an advertisement for Capricorn’s new album blasts, “I’m Ready to Die.” She hears it blaring from a passing car and leaves the line at Dutch Brothers’ House of Coffee when it’s played on their stereo system.

Desperate for relief, Sage contacts a psychiatrist.

Dr. Clara Fortune has more letters behind her name than the alphabet but openly admits she’s skeptical that Sage’s encounters with “I’m Ready to Die” are no more than a coincidence.

“I hear that stupid tune twice a day myself without even trying.”

“But I need help. I can’t sleep. I can’t think.”

Dr. Fortune crosses her long legs. At six feet tall, with large brown eyes always covered with heavy makeup and a relaxed speaking voice, Clara Fortune gives the impression that the awards on her office wall are well deserved.

“What is it you see in your dreams?” she asks.

“When I was a little girl, if I dreamed about something, it came true. I could see it. I could understand it. Now, I dream in abstracts.”

“Could be the vodka.”

“I see Rock Rolle, the singer, flying like Superman…”

“Does he have a cape?”

“No.”

“Then he’s not Superman.”

“He’s flying, and he tries to land. He bounces off the ground a few times, tumbles into a swamp, and drowns.”

Dr. Fortune bites the eraser on her pencil. “Could be just your frustration with hearing his group’s song so much. The dream represents you. Instead of Rolle crashing, instead of him drowning, it’s you. Turn off the radio, the TV. Stay away from places where you might hear the song. I’m going to write you a prescription for Doxepin. Please don’t abuse it. And pleasant dreams.”

***

Sage’s next eight days are restful and devoid of dreams. She’s even able to sleep at night. Her confidence soars. Then the latest copy of People Magazine arrives with Capricorn on the cover.

Tension rushes through her veins like a burning stream of molten lead. She envisions an airliner in distress, diving toward the ground. The plane turns into Rock Rolle. He cuts through trees, snapping off branches, then slams into the ground, bouncing into a swamp.

Sage darts to her computer. Accessing Capricorn’s website, she sends Rock Rolle a message… DON’T FLY! She repeats the message a dozen times.

Taking a fistful of Doxepin, she collapses on the couch, reliving the dream until the drugs render her unconscious.

***

The following morning, still groggy, Sage is driven by curiosity to turn on the news.

A grim newscaster says, “Seven members of Capricorn, the number one rock group in the world, perished this morning when their private airliner crashed in the Florida Everglades. The group's sole survivor, singer Esteban ‘Rock’ Rolle, missed the flight.”

The broadcast cuts to a visibly shaken Rock Rolle hiding his tears behind sunglasses.

“An anonymous fan saved my life. I got a dozen messages from a fan telling me not to fly. Normally, I’d ignore a hysterical message like that. But I got a bad feeling when I looked at the plane. I told everyone I felt nervous and didn’t want to fly on our plane, and they shouldn’t either. They laughed it off, and they died. Wherever you are, whoever you are, thank you. I’m going to honor you by donating a million dollars to the Science of Precognition Institute.”

Dr. Fortune dismisses Sage’s dream as a coincidence, saying, “Rock musicians and airplanes don’t mix.”

Sage’s expression droops.

“On the other hand, your gift saved Rock Rolle’s life. You changed it, too. He’s donating money toward research that will help people like you. That should make you happy.”

***

A few nights later, Sage falls asleep while watching a tribute to Capricorn. In her dream, she sees herself sleeping peacefully on the couch. A voice says, “She looks so peaceful.”

She tells Dr. Fortune about the dream.

“You saw yourself in real time. It’s rare, but not unusual. Did you recognize the voice?”

“I thought it was my mother. I’m not so sure now.”

“I think it’s her way of telling you you’ve finally found peace.”

“Then… Then I’m finally cured?”

“If nothing happens in the next few weeks, I’d say so.”

***

Sage reclaims her life over the next three weeks, going to movies, having dinner with her co-workers, and dancing like a dervish in nightclubs.

After a night featuring too many Zombie Cocktails, Sage calls an Uber, stumbling into her apartment.

She takes a fistful of pills. Feeling dehydrated, she goes to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Forgetting if she’d taken her medication, she takes a few more pills.

***

Dr. Fortune is one of the people on Sage’s contact list. When she arrives at Sage’s apartment, the paramedics are preparing to remove her.

Dr. Fortune looks down at Sage’s body.

“She looks so peaceful.”