He Who Sees The Future

A/N Someone from another story makes an appearance. Can you spot who? :)

I can see the future.

I guess it’s better to start by getting to the point right away. I have never mastered the art of prolonging, and to be honest it irritates me when I have to wait before I find something out. So there, I laid it out in the open.

I don’t know how I got it. I don’t know if it’s genetic, something that runs in the blood, or maybe some tumor that lodged in the deepest part of my brain, making me see visions of what is to happen. No one in my family has it except me. I know, because I researched and traced the family tree. There was one distant great aunt who was admitted to the asylum because she was claiming to see visions from God, but I really don’t think we have the same situation. Besides, I’m sane as any man could be. At least that’s what I think.

It’s not a Nostradamus type of deal though. I can’t see how the world will end. I can’t predict who the next president will be, for one. I can’t predict when the Mt. Mayon will erupt next. Or whether Miami Heat will win this season or not. The scope of my skill, if you’d call it that, is a little bit limited to individual lives.

Like for example I meet this one person on the sidewalk. Just by looking into his eyes I could see the next few years to come for him. Whether he will lose or keep his job. If he’ll be sick in the following months because of all the lack of sleep. If he’ll finally meet or lose the love of his life. It’s like reading a book, but you get to know how it ends right there in the first page. I see it all, like a slideshow, a memoir of things that would someday be just part of his past. The longer I look, the more I know. Sometimes, if I look long enough, I could see the whole layout of his life, right up to his last breath.

 I lose interest easily, so I usually don’t look too long. I don’t even look at people that much anymore. You’d think having this kind of thing is fun and exciting, but after a while it gets tiring. You’d think every person in this world would be living his own remarkably unique life, and it’s sad how similar everyone’s life is to one another. It’s always the same damn things: love, heartbreaks, sorrows and pains, sickness and death, screw-up after every repeated screw-up. You’d like to think that there is so much in the future you’d get excited for. The reality though, is that for most of the people in this city—hell, in this world—there really is nothing much in the future to look forward to.

By the second decade of my life I learned not to stare at people too much. I rarely make friends, because knowing too much about their futures distract me from ever seeing them normally. I go around alone. Now please refrain from conjuring me into an image of a person who is lonely in life. I like being alone. It’s being around mediocre people that make me feel lonely.

Whenever I go out, which isn’t often, I just try my best not to meet anyone’s gaze. I sit in the corner of a crowded café, read a good book and mind my own business. People leave you alone that way. People leave you alone and take their stupid futures with them.

“Uhm, excuse me?” It was a woman’s voice. Mentally I shook my head. I’ve only taken a few sips of my coffee, someone’s already disturbing my peace.

I sighed heavily, and without looking up I said “Yes?”