What Is To Be

The brown-haired woman being wheeled down the hall doesn’t have much time left. She is fading away from grief, I think, seeing how tightly she is holding on to the tendrils of her past. She has interwoven the strands of her memory so tightly with every possibility of her future that it has been cut short. I look away.

My attention turns back to the nurse administering medication to the few other patients sitting in the common area. She perplexes me. A strong, vibrant portion of her path points her away from this place, flashing like a neon sign. But she determinedly continues to force her divergence from this path, walking a tenuous new line that reaches into a destiny-defying fog. I could tell her what her future should hold, but I can’t discern what it will hold.  

I lean back in my chair and look up at the sky through the window above my head. It will rain soon. If I went outside I could stand in exactly the right place for the first drop of rain to fall on my nose.

It has been four weeks since I came here, but the only reason I know that is because the nurse assigned to me has been counting the days in black permanent marker on the large, wall-mounted calendar in my room. Four weeks of the new you, he chirped, trying to lift my spirits. He means well, tries to understand. But it wasn’t that I needed cheering up. I can’t be sad about what I can’t remember.

I had been with someone when it happened, I think. Every time I try to remember anything more than a silhouette I come up against a wall. But I haven’t tried much. If they were significant to my future I would have seen it already. I have no need to dwell on past events or companions, especially since there is now so little to remember. What does the past matter anyway when it is unchangeable, immutable, firm and fixed as stone? And how can I live in the past when the impossible sprawl of the future of the universe is laid out in front of me?

Despite this, the doctor for my ward tries to make me remember the details of my “accident”, as he calls it.

“You said you were hit by something – a beam of energy? What did it look like?”

“It must have happened, if you can recall me saying it. It’s familiar, the same energy that flows along every path, forging and breaking connections. The same energy with which we both follow and deny our destiny. A shimmer, a glow, a beam, call it what you will. It is present in me and I can see it move through every point in time and out of time that is to come.”

“But can you remember what happened to you? Can you tell me?”

“I can remember everything that’s happened to me since my accident, but already it’s like going through old, distorted records of someone else’s life. If I try to return to that day that you tell me was four weeks ago, I see nothing but shadows. I feel the effects of the future, not of the past or present. I have no need to live in the past, so my memories quickly fade as if I didn’t. Yesterday, two minutes ago, four weeks ago, it’s all the same. I can’t see what you want me to see.”

He sighs. He does not believe me. He continues to press me for details I no longer possess.          

“For the first few days you were sort of drifting in and out. Screaming whenever you woke up, about an inevitable end or something, among other things. Does that ring a bell?”

“Of course. While I see an incomprehensible number of possible futures for each and every creature on this planet, they all end the same way. In the end there is only darkness, a boundless void waiting for all of creation. But I try not to say that to people anymore as I can see them becoming very afraid.”

  The doctor closes the folder in which he was taking notes and stands up to leave. He will write me a diagnosis for delusional disorder after this conversation. I see a bold blue branch of his path strongly indicating his likelihood to return later on and interrogate me further. But there’s nothing more I know or want to say. Everything I am now is everything I always will be, and what I was is no longer relevant.

However, I find myself wondering if the doctor has a point. Should I be trying harder to access the recesses of my shattered memory? Is it possible for me to regain my former self, as he is convinced it is? All the time around me I hear and see and feel remnants of the past, in the reminiscent voices of people longing for days gone by when life was easier, in the golden-framed photographs of exemplary doctors and nurses from different eras on the wall with their dates of birth and death proudly displayed underneath, in multiple generations of a family gathered together at a bedside and bonding over stories of the past and shared memories. I wonder if what I am missing out on is as spectacular and exquisite as what I have now.

I no longer have the gift of memories, but the gift of reaching into the elusive future. Everyone and everything has its own path and I can see them all. They are laid out before me, all at once, a dizzying array of colours and images and noises that are yet to be, so distracting that I can sometimes no longer see the people or objects they belong to. Everything is connected and intertwined in a spectacular multicoloured web of infinite shades and layers, constantly moving and changing. A vast, intricate network impossible for any mortal mind to encapsulate without breaking.

I live in a new reality, existing outside of both past and present, where swirling tendrils of chance and determination sweep me off my feet. They glide around my body and hold me like a partner in an otherworldly dance, filling my mind with astounding visions of what is to come. I see the entire life cycle of every bud on the spring trees, and every possible misstep that cuts their existence short. I see every conceivable twist in every conversation, watching the people around me divert and converge streams of possibility with words and gestures. I see my own path laid out like a mirage in front of me, ever-shifting in hue and texture but always leading me to where I need to be. And, I see the End of things. Inescapable, limitless. Every path, every fragment of alternate time, fades gently into the End. It frightens some and entices others. Some create stories about what lies within, while there are some who choose not to think about it until it is their time to enter. For me, it is simply a truth that I must live with. Burdened with knowledge that no one else can have and unable to share in the memories and reflections that make life so precious to those around me.

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I live in a small cottage now, a little way into the forest but not inaccessible to civilization. After all, I am highly sought after for the information I possess, providing peace of mind, long-awaited answers, and predictions both promising and ominous to the many people who pass through my door. Sometimes they almost feel like friends.

I enjoy living in the forest. Something about the endless cycle of death and renewal, end and beginning, that all its living components undergo reminds me of the human experience that I can no longer be a part of. When I look far enough into the future I see repetitions of a very similar kind. Observing the natural cycle of the earth, seeing how it has always and will always continue, it makes me wonder if I’m not missing out on the past after all.