The air was cold and the silence was eerie.  One could only hear the running river if one stood on the wooden bridge that connected the two sides of the river. A pair of headlight beams sliced through the darkness. The black Ford Model T made its way onto the bridge. There were two young people sitting in the front seats. You couldn’t hear what they were saying from outside the car but it didn’t look like it was a friendly conversation.

      There was a young woman sitting in the passenger seat. She looked to be in her early twenties. Her short, wavy chestnut hair was starting to fall flat. The flashy gold dress could be seen under her wooly brown coat. She was yelling at the driver, a young man about the same age as the woman. He was wearing a sharp black suit and built like a Princeton football player. The top buttons of his shirt were undone to show a little of his chest. He was doing his best to keep his eyes on the road as he yelled back at his passenger. The young couple looked like they were out to a nice dinner in the city.

      The car abruptly stops in the middle of the bridge as the voices got louder. The woman stepped out of the car and wrapped her coat tightly around her body.

      “No, wait,” the male called out right before the woman slammed the door shut.

      The woman’s heels clanked against the ground as she walked away from the car. She didn’t seem to have a planned destination. She refused to wait to see if the man followed her and continued to walk away.

      The young man finally stepped out of the car and followed her down the bridge. The woman noticed the man behind her and picked up the pace. She wanted as much distance between her and her male companion.

      “How could you,” she cried over her shoulder as she continued to walk away.

      “A man would do anything to survive,” he answered.

      “But, he was your brother,” she shouted. The woman abruptly stopped walking and turned ot face the man. “He was your only brother!”

      “He was always the favorite,” the man said. “I thought he could try to live my life for once to see what it was like for me!”

      “What are you talking about?”

      “I have always lived in my brother’s shadows. You know that! Nothing I’ve ever done had been good enough.”

      “So you killed him?”

      “No, he wasn’t supposed to die. But, that wasn’t my fault.”

      The woman had backed against the railing of the bridge. “You may not have been the one to kill him, but he’s dead because of you!”

      “Me,” the man said indignitly. “Don’t give me all the credit, my dear. You could have saved him from that place, but you were too stupid to know any better.”

      The woman slapped the man hard across the face. Her chest was heaving up and down and her hands were balled tightly in into fists. The man just looked back at her with a delirious smirk on his face. He didn’t look upset like he should.

      “You’re going to regret that,” he said in a low voice before he lunged at her.  

       Victoria woke up in her twin size bed screaming and thrashing around in her sheets. It took a moment for her to take her bearings and remember where she was. She was in her bed, in her dorm room which she shared with her roommate, Sarah. She was not on that bridge with that angry man. Her heart was still thumping against her chest and the adrenaline was pumping through her system at the prospect of dying. The whole thing was just a dream, a horrible nightmare. And, yet, it felt so vivid. She hadn’t had a dream like that in so long. The longer the college senior stayed awake, the fuzzier the dream became.

       The whole thing didn’t make sense, but then again, dreams were not supposed to make sense. Victoria couldn’t help but wonder who the young man in her dream was. She had never seen him before. And why was he so mad? The only thing that could be explained was why they looked like they lived in the 1920s. Victoria had an obsession with the decade ever since she read The Great Gatsby in seventh grade. Perhaps her undying love of the roaring twenties slipped into her unconsciousness somehow.

      The alarm clock sounded off and Victoria jumped. She quickly turned the clock off before she lay back in bed under the covers. Victoria knew she should get out of bed, but she wanted a few more minutes of sleep. The nightmare stole some precious minutes she could have used. She was no good at dance class if she was tired. She peaked out of her covers to check on her roommate, but she wasn’t in her bed. That wasn’t a surprise to Victoria. Sarah never slept in her bed most nights.

      The two girls had completely opposite personalities, but they were able to get along despite their differences. Sarah was the peppy, blonde cheerleader in high school and she hasn’t lost any of her pep in college. Victoria was the quiet, reserved old soul. Anyone looking at the girls’ rooms would be able to tell how different they were.

      On Sarah’s side of the room, there were posters of popular male actors and celebrities. A photo collage of Sarah’s high school friends was on the wall by her bed, and a separate photo collage of her college friends was right next to it. There was a corkboard on the wall over the desk. Menus from local take out places, a class schedule, and old movie and concert ticket stubs were posted on the board. Magazine cut outs of designer dresses, shoes, and bags were pasted together to make a collage of Sarah’s wish list.

      Victoria’s side of the room was a trip back to the twenties. There were movie posters from Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chapman, and Buster Keaton. Her movie stubs were from the local movie theater that showed old films for a dollar. A worn copy of the Great Gatsby sat on top of her nightstand. Most of Victoria’s pictures were in black and white. She thought it made the pictures more beautiful and moving if there were no colors.

      The cellphone rang and Victoria groaned as she threw off the cover. She looked at the clock as she climbed out of bed. She didn’t get any more sleep since her alarm went off five minutes ago. As much as Victoria loved the 1920’s, she couldn’t live without her twenty-first century technology. Perhaps that was one thing she had in common with her peers. Victoria checked her phone and it turned out to be just an email notification. It was from her dance professor who was letting the class know the class has moved to a different dance studio.

      The room change was a standard occurrence for a dance major. There were only three practice rooms that had to be shared between seven different dance classes. The only thing that didn’t change was the time. Victoria checked the time again. She had about an hour to take a shower, dress for practice, and eat breakfast. Victoria sighed as she gathered her things. It was just another day and the dream she had had completely disappeared from her thoughts. 

      Across the country, a graduate student abruptly awoke on his couch. His laptop was on top of his dissertation notes, which were spread out all over the coffee table. The screensaver of green water pipes were dancing on the screen. Andrew McKinley was working on a paper to submit to an academic journal his advisor was an editor for. The article was more of a hassle than anything else. However, his advisor told him that he needed to publish more things if he wished to win more grants. Unfortunately, Andrew was a natural procrastinator. He liked putting things off until the very last minute, and writing this article was no different.

      Apparently, as he dozed off, he was typing up the paper. Andrew reached over to his laptop and touched the space bar to take away the screensaver. His paper was no even on the screen. It looked as if he was looking through Facebook, one of his favorite procrastinating helper. He must have been really tired to pass out and not remember looking through Facebook. Andrew closed the window and looked at his half attempt at a paper. It was not even halfway done.

      Andrew closed the laptop after he saved his paper and got up from the couch. He still felt a little groggy as he crossed the living room into his kitchen. He turned on the coffee machine as he opened his fridge to find something to eat.

      The dream he had still lingered, but he could not remember all the minute details. He remembered being on a bridge with a woman he did not know. They seemed to be arguing about something he didn’t understand. All he could remember was how angry and scared he felt. What could have made him feel like that? What were they arguing about that could have been that bad? Andrew rubbed his face with his hands, trying to erase the remaining traces of the dream.

      It was time to start some work. This paper had to get done one way or another. The coffee was finally ready. There was some left over Chinese food from last night in the fridge. Andrew took out the white container of noodles and placed it on the counter. He closed the fridge and then poured himself a cup of coffee; he added two sugars and just enough milk to make his coffee look like caramel.

      As he drank his coffee, Andrew tried to put together the sequences of last night. The dream bothered him, but he was not sure why. It was not as if this was the first time he had a scary dream like that. He was able to shake them off, or forget about them the moment he opened his eyes. But, this dream stayed with him. It was the mysterious woman in his dream that lingered. Andrew couldn’t remember what she looked like, but he remembered she was a brunette. Any other details were lost.

      The anger also lingered behind. Andrew never thought of himself as an angry person. In fact, he rarely got into fights or raised his voice.   He had never felt that mad his entire life. It was hard for him to describe it because he had nothing to compare it to. He started eating the noodle from the white container as he tried to his push the dream out of his mind. He didn’t have time to waste pondering on a dream that probably meant nothing. Most dreams were pointless. They were nothing but traces of his subconscious. However, if that was true, why did he dream about arguing with a woman he never met?

      Andrew checked his phone and was surprised to see there were four missed calls and ten text messages on his phone. How long was he out? Was he that tired that he couldn’t his phone ring at all? He checked his voicemails first. The first one was from his professor, reminding about the article. That could be deleted. The second and third voicemails were from his parents asking him to come home for dinner for the weekend. He would have to call them back later. The fourth and last message was from a sales representative who wanted to make sure his health insurance was up to date. The text messages were just from random friends who wanted to grab lunch or hang out. He quickly texted back a response before he put the phone back down before he finished his coffee and noodle breakfast.

      It didn’t seem like he missed too much while he was passed out on his couch last night. Andrew tossed the empty Chinese food take out container away, and then headed to the bathroom for a shower.