Premonitions. They always happen at the strangest time, always out of nowhere. One second, everything’s all right, the next I witness someone’s terrible demise.
My friend Paul and I were sitting on his living room couch having a few beers. Suddenly, his drunk face was replaced by an empty, blood covered mask. At that moment, I knew something terrible was going to happen to him.
For the second I saw it, my body felt hot. Sweat broke all over it and fear gripped me.
“Yo, man,” I spoke up when the vision was gone. “Maybe we should call it a night. I think we’re both pretty drunk and I should get-“
“Fuck that, man! You promised you’d go with me. I told you, that bridge was where Julie and I went on our first date. Just want to get some closure, all right?”
I sighed.
“I just got the feeling something bad will happen.”
“Like what? You think I’m going to cry?” he asked. Then his face changed to an expression of slight outrage. “You don’t think I’m planning on jumping or some shit like that?”
For a moment, I was quiet. I knew I could never talk about those silly premonitions of mine. Not ever, not to anyone, not even a friend like Paul. Instead, I just shook my head.
“Nah, nothing stupid like that. I just think it’s not the best idea, is all.”
For the next half hour, I continued trying to convince Paul, but it was futile. Fueled by sorrow and alcohol, he was steadfast in going. So eventually, we set out.
As we made our way through the town’s dark and empty streets in the early morning, the premonition’s nagging feeling continued to linger in the back of my mind. Paul, however, didn’t notice my anxious and thoughtful expression. Instead, he lamented over his breakup with his ex-girlfriend. I only listened with half an ear. I’d heard it all before, had heard it many, many times over the past weeks.
As I trudged along after him, I couldn’t help but wonder when those premonitions had started.
The first one that came to my mind was the one about Polly, our family cat. I was no older than ten. One second I was playing with her, in the next I saw her dead and broken body. When it was over, I cried and cuddled Polly, a Polly that was very much alive. I didn’t understand what had happened. That’s until Polly’s dead and broke body was lying on the front porch.
From that moment on, I could always tell something terrible was going to happen when I had these premonitions, as I came to call them. Sometimes it happened as soon as I saw a stray in passing, sometimes when I saw the pets of other people, and in a few rare cases, even when I saw people themselves.
I thought back to grandpa. I’d tried to warn him, tried to keep what I knew was about to happen at bay, but it changed nothing.
My head was a mess, as the terrible images of so many other similar premonitions came back to my mind. There had been so many over the years, so many terrible things, and yet, I’d never been able to prevent a single one of them.
With a heavy mind, I soon saw the big bridge at the edge of our town. It was a monstrosity of steel and cement and spanned the wide valley and river below.
“Paul, I think we should just head home. It’s cold as hell and I’m tired,” I said, trying once more to stop him.
Yet, he didn’t even seem to hear me and trudge on, undeterred. Then, after a while, he stopped and jerked around to face me.
“Fuck that man. We went all the way out here. Let’s just have a cold one, see the dawn and then you can go back home. Fucking hell!”
I opened my mouth to say something, to put the anxiety that was flooding over me into words, but what could I even say? For a few more seconds, I merely watched him before I set out to follow him.
When I made it to the bridge, Paul was already standing at the railing, and took two beers from his backpack.
“Told you we should have a cold one out here!” he said with a wide, drunken grin on his face.
With that, he popped open the bottles and handed me one of them.
For a while we just stood there, taking sip after sip in silence. Both our heads were full of our own worries. Paul’s with his girlfriend and the break up, mine with the terrible, haunting premonition I’d witnessed.
“It’s beautiful up here isn’t it,” Paul eventually brought out, staring at the valley and the horizon where the sun had started dawning.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty nice view,” I agreed, mumbling.
“So, why didn’t you want to go? It’s not like anything bad will happen if we’re just standing here.”
My hand tightened around the bottle I was holding. I took a deep breath, opened my mouth and finally told him.
“I saw you die,” I said, my eyes focused on him.
“What?”
Paul furrowed his brow, and didn’t seem to understand if I was fucking him. For a moment, I thought he was about to laugh, but the seriousness of my expression made him stay quiet.
“A premonition,” I eventually answer after another sip of beer.
“What the hell are you-?”
Before he could even finish his sentence, I’d reached him, and before he could do anything in the drunken state he was in, I’d pushed him over the railing.
For a second, a high-pitched scream cut through the air before a hard thud followed. As I leaned over the railing and stared down, the sun was slowly coming up. It really was beautiful, I thought, as I stared down at Paul’s bloodied body and face.
Finally, my anxiety and worries ebbed away. It was done.
Premonitions. Whenever I see them, I knew I had to make sure they came true. I had to make sure every single time.