Read Online The Night Gwen Stacy Died by Sarah Bruni - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sarah Bruni
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packs, soft packs, filtered, unfiltered.
“I just want one,” the girl said. “I’m not really a smoker.” She reached out her hand,
and Peter placed a single cigarette between her fingers.
After that, he’d made a habit of coming in. The girl would have his pack waiting for
him. While Peter finished his cigarette in the station, the girl would tell him random
facts about foreign countries she thought he’d appreciate. “In Paris, you can bring
dogs everywhere,” she’d say. “Into restaurants and everything. Nobody cares, it’s
just the culture.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a health code violation,” Peter would say.
“You’re really arrogant,” the girl said, smiling, “if you think your health codes
are the same as everyone else’s.”
It was around this time the girl had started showing up in his dreams.
But more recently, there had been no French, no underwear. What Peter kept seeing
in his sleep—it had happened every night this week—could not exactly be called a dream,
and he knew better than to call it that. It was closer to sensing something while
awake—complete with smell and taste and touch. The things Peter saw weren’t always
the most important things. They were often isolated and individual, not enough to
affect more than a few other lives.
His mother called them nightmares. The first time it happened he was seven: he woke
up coughing, a mouthful of water lodged in this throat. His mother had been sitting
at his bedside, striking his back, trying to get his lungs to take in the air. She
thought that he must have reached for the glass of water on his nightstand in a dream,
and tried to drink. But Peter had not been the one swallowing water in his dream.
It had been quiet ten-year-old Henry Macy from the neighborhood whom Peter had watched
drown, and when two weeks later the Macys found Henry face-down in a flooded ditch,
Peter was afraid to tell his mother that he had seen it happen exactly the same way
and had done nothing to warn anyone. Most nights he would dream like any other person,
but there were a handful of things he saw around this time that could not be circumscribed
to his own dormant brain. He saw the grocer slip on a patch of ice and break his hip,
one week before he saw him lose his balance chasing a cart in the parking lot; he
dreamed his own dog running away from home and wouldn’t leave the dog’s side unless
absolutely necessary, until one time, they were playing with a tennis ball together,
and he could do nothing to stop the dog from bolting out of the yard, away from him;
for the past month he had endlessly dreamed two women he didn’t recognize fall asleep
at the wheel of their car and slam into a highway median in the middle of the night.
The women were so young. Girls. They looked barely old enough to drive, and when they
crashed into the median each night Peter watched their long hair rush forward toward
the dashboard as the car began to spin.
He told no one.
This week, six nights in a row, he had seen the same sequence of information each
time he closed his eyes. Always, it started with the girl. Peter would feel himself
giving in toward sleep when the girl from the gas station would appear there in his
bedroom beside him. She would be sitting on her knees near the foot of his bed, like
someone in prayer, when the warm feeling started to move around the room, when the
heat got under his fingernails, and then the heat became a warm breeze from an open
window in his taxi. The taxi was heading east on Interstate 80. The gun was in the
glove compartment. He was driving and the girl sat beside him in the car.
Just before he woke up each night he would get as far as the strange apartment. He
would watch the man swallow water. He would watch the man swallow pills.
It was the same way his brother had died.
But the girl had seen it too; she had been there in the bedroom, and somehow that
“I just want one,” the girl said. “I’m not really a smoker.” She reached out her hand,
and Peter placed a single cigarette between her fingers.
After that, he’d made a habit of coming in. The girl would have his pack waiting for
him. While Peter finished his cigarette in the station, the girl would tell him random
facts about foreign countries she thought he’d appreciate. “In Paris, you can bring
dogs everywhere,” she’d say. “Into restaurants and everything. Nobody cares, it’s
just the culture.”
“Hmm. Sounds like a health code violation,” Peter would say.
“You’re really arrogant,” the girl said, smiling, “if you think your health codes
are the same as everyone else’s.”
It was around this time the girl had started showing up in his dreams.
But more recently, there had been no French, no underwear. What Peter kept seeing
in his sleep—it had happened every night this week—could not exactly be called a dream,
and he knew better than to call it that. It was closer to sensing something while
awake—complete with smell and taste and touch. The things Peter saw weren’t always
the most important things. They were often isolated and individual, not enough to
affect more than a few other lives.
His mother called them nightmares. The first time it happened he was seven: he woke
up coughing, a mouthful of water lodged in this throat. His mother had been sitting
at his bedside, striking his back, trying to get his lungs to take in the air. She
thought that he must have reached for the glass of water on his nightstand in a dream,
and tried to drink. But Peter had not been the one swallowing water in his dream.
It had been quiet ten-year-old Henry Macy from the neighborhood whom Peter had watched
drown, and when two weeks later the Macys found Henry face-down in a flooded ditch,
Peter was afraid to tell his mother that he had seen it happen exactly the same way
and had done nothing to warn anyone. Most nights he would dream like any other person,
but there were a handful of things he saw around this time that could not be circumscribed
to his own dormant brain. He saw the grocer slip on a patch of ice and break his hip,
one week before he saw him lose his balance chasing a cart in the parking lot; he
dreamed his own dog running away from home and wouldn’t leave the dog’s side unless
absolutely necessary, until one time, they were playing with a tennis ball together,
and he could do nothing to stop the dog from bolting out of the yard, away from him;
for the past month he had endlessly dreamed two women he didn’t recognize fall asleep
at the wheel of their car and slam into a highway median in the middle of the night.
The women were so young. Girls. They looked barely old enough to drive, and when they
crashed into the median each night Peter watched their long hair rush forward toward
the dashboard as the car began to spin.
He told no one.
This week, six nights in a row, he had seen the same sequence of information each
time he closed his eyes. Always, it started with the girl. Peter would feel himself
giving in toward sleep when the girl from the gas station would appear there in his
bedroom beside him. She would be sitting on her knees near the foot of his bed, like
someone in prayer, when the warm feeling started to move around the room, when the
heat got under his fingernails, and then the heat became a warm breeze from an open
window in his taxi. The taxi was heading east on Interstate 80. The gun was in the
glove compartment. He was driving and the girl sat beside him in the car.
Just before he woke up each night he would get as far as the strange apartment. He
would watch the man swallow water. He would watch the man swallow pills.
It was the same way his brother had died.
But the girl had seen it too; she had been there in the bedroom, and somehow that
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