I Dreamed the Exact Words on a Stranger's Sign

I do not usually remember dreams, but this one came in sharp and stayed. I dreamed I was stopped at a red light and, on the median, a man stood holding a piece of cardboard. He was thin, wearing a green army jacket, and the sign did not say the usual things. It said, in blocky marker letters, a strange specific sentence: "IT IS NOT AS BAD AS THE SKY LOOKS." I remember reading it twice in the dream and thinking what an odd thing to write. Then I woke up.

It stuck with me all day because of how specific it was. I even told my sister about it over the phone, the green jacket, the odd sentence, because it bothered me. She laughed and said I should write it down.

Three days later I was driving to a job interview across town, on a route the map had chosen that I had never once driven before. I came to a red light I did not know. On the median stood a thin man in a green army jacket, holding a piece of cardboard. In blocky marker letters it said, exactly, "IT IS NOT AS BAD AS THE SKY LOOKS."

I do not know how to describe what that does to your stomach. I sat at the light with my hands cold on the wheel, reading a sentence I had already read three days earlier, in my sleep, before I had any reason to be on that road at all.

The light changed. I rolled down my window and gave him everything in my cup holder and could not make my voice work to explain why. He said thank you and God bless. I did not get the job. But I have never doubted, since, that some things arrive before they happen, and that I saw this one coming.