One Weird Day

Weather Forecast - Part 3

--- 2050, June ---

It's quiet in the studio. Multiple spotlights blind and heat the set.

"Tomorrow it's going to be cloudy in Tampico, humidity quite high but no rain." I say to the cameras. "In the afternoon the sun will come out..."

"Tampico is in..?" the host interrupts.

"Mexico." I say. "At seven thirty in the morning, a school bus driver will fall asleep at the wheel, hit a car, and the bus will fall off a bridge. Four children will be killed in the accident, another eight injured. The driver will be hospitalized and will later die in hospital."

"Tam–pi–co," the host repeats, nodding to the cameras. "I guess a lot of kids will not be taking the school bus tomorrow in Tampico, Mexico..."

"Jonathan Smith, age eight, lives in Great Britain in a village called Sling. Tonight he played in a forest about a mile north of his home and fell down an abandoned well. Search groups should concentrate on that direction. He broke his arm, apart from that he's OK."

"Jonathan Smith, Sling, Great Britain," the host repeats. "Let's hope the boy will be found soon."

"Irina Vorontsova, Russia, Tver. About an hour ago began to experience discomfort, pain in both hands and shortness of breath. She intends to visit a doctor in the morning, but her symptoms actually signify the beginning of a heart attack, and without immediate medical intervention she will not survive the night."

"Vorontsova, Russia, Tver."

The studio is packed with viewers, but they keep quiet and look rather scared. Each time there are different people, and each time they turn into same mass of pale faces, wide eyes and arms crossed on chests.

The show used to last half an hour. It was the highest rated show in the world, and it still is, even though it was cut to five minutes. Now it's transmitted live to all countries by all TV channels, radio stations, the Internet, regardless of time – somewhere it's midday, somewhere else it's midnight, but everybody wants to know if something is going to happen to them in the next twenty four hours, if there's going to be an earthquake, or maybe a train they bought tickets for is going to derail. Sometimes I just tell them about the weather. The papers say that power is making me cruel. But the truth is—I just know it's impossible to save everyone.

When I began to gain access to more and more information, it felt like I was going crazy. At first it took some concentration to get answers, but with time, information learned to creep into my brain without much of an invitation on my part.

One morning I was standing by the window, warming my hands on a cup of coffee. It was gray outside, and the crossing near the house was full of children heading to school. Some waited patiently, others ran the red light, cheering each other on. Their colorful outfits revived the dull morning somewhat. Cars crawled at an even slower pace than the people walking by, and every minute horns beeped impatiently.

One of the children caught my attention. He looked like a first grader, wore a blue jacket and was being dragged by the hand by a tall man, probably his father. Something about him seemed different. The atmosphere around the boy looked strange to me, the air seemed denser, like some kind of aura was surrounding him. Almost involuntarily I concentrated, trying to figure out what it was, and got the answer right away.

He was seven years old, the younger of two siblings, his mother pregnant with a third. After school he usually went home, had dinner, did homework and then was taken to a pool for swimming lessons. After each lesson, he played with his friends in the water, jumping in from the pool deck. They looked admiringly at the high diving board, but none of them ever had the courage to jump from it. They egged each other on, and the bravest climbed up when the coach wasn't looking, but the fear was too strong. As I watched the boy, I knew that today he was going to climb the diving board and jump down. He was going to fall badly, pass out as he hit the water too hard, and his friends were going to try to resuscitate him instead of calling for an adult.

He was going to die.

I don't even remember how I made it onto the street, still in my lounging clothes and slippers. Pushing aside kids that were getting in my way, I ran to the place I had just been watching from the window. But I couldn't see the boy anymore, and blue, grey, red jackets flashed before my eyes, confusing me, making me feel lost. I ran in one direction, then the other, then I just stopped and tried to concentrate on the question – where was he?

And then, suddenly, I got showered with a multitude of answers, instead of just the one I was looking for. It seemed like concentration had opened the door to incoherent, patchy information. A girl of about twelve went by, and I found out that she hadn't done her math homework, and that her mother was a nurse, and when she worked night shifts something very bad was happening in their house. A teacher of forty went by, and I learned that her husband wanted a divorce and she was planning to have a facelift. A boy of fifteen went by, and I discovered that he had a knife in his backpack and if that guy from the other class said something to him again, he was going to use it.

People went by, bumping me with their shoulders, pushing me with their problems, with their information. To distract myself, I looked at a building on the other side of the road, only to find out that it would be demolished two years later and a mall built in its place. And the old house next door was going to collapse during an earthquake in another fifteen months.

I looked under my feet and learned that a million years ago this place was covered by sea, and in another million years it will be under the sea once again.

That's when I realized it's impossible to save everyone.

TO BE CONTINUED...