Wingbeat

You don’t know where you are or how you got here, only that there’s a mangled body at your feet and a trophy the size of a bowling pin in your fist. You’re not sure which one tips you off that this is your handiwork: the splash of crimson stark against the gold of the trophy, or the fact that your gag reflex responds by adding more bodily fluids to the crime scene. Evidently, you’re fond of chili dogs.

Like your composure, the trophy slides out of your grasp. THUMP. Going fetal sounds like a pretty good idea, but glass shards litter the floor like stars in the sky and the swivel chair by the mahogany desk looks too comfy to resist. You drag yourself over, melt into it, and just… breathe.

A clock lurking somewhere in the dim room marches to the pace of your heartbeat; two rhythms merging into an ominous countdown. You’re not sure how much time passes—three minutes? Thirty?—before you muster the nerve to drink in your battered surroundings and come to terms with your literal red-handedness.

A glass table, shattered. Books spilling out of a shelf, pages splayed. The blinds drawn, slits only big enough for slivers of light to peek in. Was all this… you?

A Colgate-white smile flashes at you from a framed portrait on the desk; you can’t quite compare it to the bloody pulp that passes for the corpse’s face, but the suit is a clear match. You’re also dressed smartly, at least under the rips and tears and blood—do you work here too? The name of a corporation is engraved in the frame, but there is silence instead of bells ringing.

Why can’t you remember? 

You rub your face, as if that will soothe the weariness in your bones—only to transfer the blood to your cheeks like warpaint. You’re too stunned to find that disgusting. Maybe if you just… focus. Deep breaths. In, out, in, out. Yeah, that’s a bit better. Try to think about something other than the stench of blood and puke. It’ll come to you, just—

The door creaks open. Not actually, but in your head, a crisp memory floating to the surface and bursting into clarity. Her voice is as meek as her tiny frame: “Mister Blumenfeld, here’s your Latte macchia—” Her eyes inflate like a pair of pufferfish when she notices the body. Then her skinny figure folds in an impressive imitation of a lawn chair; she hits the floor right after her coffee cup does.

But… where’s the girl now? How long ago did that happen? Did she wake up and call the police already?

Your stomach sinks. You spring over to the blinds and peek outside; you expect a horde of police vehicles three floors down, maybe a man brandishing a megaphone, but you only find a fire escape and a city strolling leisurely through a lazy afternoon. A butterfly with sapphire-blue wings saunters past. It’s funny that you still know how the world works, and yet you know nothing about you.

A sound snaps your gaze to the door. A small, soft-faced girl enters, paper cup in hand. “Mister Blumenfeld, here’s your Latte macchia—” She joins the man on the floor, the same way the coffee joins the other fluids, mingling in a repugnant mosaic.

You stare in slack-jawed amazement as the dots connect themselves.

Okay, palms on the desk. Deep breaths. In, out, in, out. That’s… somewhat better.

You’re not sure what to call the opposite of a memory. A… vision? Premonition? Prophecy? You want this to be a dream, but even nightmares have limits.

Instinctively, you latch onto the only thing left that tethers you to reality: the bodies, one dead and one probably alive, sprawled across the floor. You’d better do something about them before Number Three waltzes in and spills their coffee. Or worse.

You find a key in Mister Blumenfeld’s pocket—which takes care of the door. Progress. As you scour the room for a hiding spot, your mind hungrily anticipates another glimpse of incoming events. Nothing. No future, no past. Only the hellhole that is the present.

Footsteps. Shit. You grab the trophy; only now do you reconcile with the words CEO of the Year etched into it, and the sinking feeling in your stomach intensifies.

Three knocks. “Adam?” Another woman, voice muffled. The handle turns, then reverts back. Thank god for the key. “Is now a good time?” Fucking hell, why didn’t you get a glimpse of the future this time around? “Adam, look, I promise this isn’t about… about us. It’s just, Stacy went to deliver your Latte macchiato and never came back. D’you know where she went?”

There’s something disarming about her voice; your shoulders relax, and the trophy flops to your side. You feel like you know the person behind that door—which is impossible because you have no recollection of the past, and yet—

Again. Another memory—no, another Glimpse—bubbling furiously to the surface.

You frown. Something’s… different.

In one scenario, the woman threatens to call the cops when the door never opens; she finally leaves when you convince her that Adam isn’t dead and his murderer isn’t in the room with him.

In another, you decide to unlock the door. Pristine eyes gaze up at you, and they are beautiful even as they fill with fear. She collapses at your feet. You figure dead bodies and blood have that effect on women.

But it’s the third scenario that you’re drawn to like a moth to a flame. You unlock the door, but instead of conveniently swooning, the woman opens her mouth to scream. Somehow you anticipate this and clamp a bloody hand over her. She bites down, hard, so you return the affection with the CEO trophy, but then she starts shrieking and making an even bigger fuss so you hold her down by the windpipe and watch the life drain from those beautiful, beautiful eyes...

“NO,” you bellow when the Glimpse passes. “Please, no.”

“Adam, sweetie, you’re worrying me. Should I call the cops?”

Oh no no no no. Anything but that. You clear your throat and pray the door will muffle you. “Everything’s fine; just taking a call. I think Stacy went down to the… uh... HR department.”

A beat. “Oh. Okay, that makes sense; she did want to file a complaint about noise in the office. Thanks, Adam.”

Footsteps fading. Phew. Your fingers choke the trophy; hearing her mention Adam’s name makes your blood boil, and you have no idea why.

Three Glimpses, simultaneously, and you chose one like cheese from a platter. The very same moment in time, with different outcomes based on... what? Random chance? Conscious decision-making? Divine intervention? This is going to take some getting used to. The other two scenarios sit snugly in the back of your mind—two timelines forever out of reach, and knowing that makes the R-rated one somewhat less upsetting. 

Anyway, you catch something in the Glimpses where you let the pretty woman in—the door of a garbage chute, embedded in the hallway. You hope to god no one else is coming to see Adam as you drag him outside and stuff him headfirst into the rank depths. It’s probably where he belongs anyway.

Now for Stacy. You go back and lock the door again, just in case, but before you can turn around another Glimpse has you in its clutches:

An unseen force knocks you to the floor and turns your vision crimson. You crane your woozy head up to find a skinny figure looming over you, brandishing the trophy you left on the desk.

The Glimpse passes in a flash. You don’t hesitate; the trophy slams into the door the moment you duck, adrenaline blasting through your veins. You lunge for Stacy, one hand wrenching the weapon away and the other shoving her backwards...

...onto a puddle of blood and puke and coffee, which has about the same effect as an ice rink.

Crack goes her neck as it meets the mahogany desk. She twitches on the floor like a dying insect before all goes still. Only now, crouching before her, do you realize how young she is, and how young she always will be. 

Fuck.

Fuck Fuck Fuck FUCK FUCK.

You console yourself with the realization that you can change the future like a fucking time traveler. You tell yourself that you only acted in self-defense, that it was either you or her. That you could never have foreseen this.

It doesn’t stop the tears from falling.

More footsteps. You jolt yourself lucid and hoist Stacy over a shoulder; she’s a child compared to Adam, so bringing her to the window and climbing out onto the fire escape is, well, child’s play.

Sunlight spears your eyes as you hurry down the steps, going as fast as humanly possible while carrying literal dead weight. You’re not sure where you’re going, or whether it matters; the secluded alleyway beneath your feet will have to do. You hope those dumpsters aren’t full.

A darkened window stops you dead. Staring back is a blood-streaked face, haggard and warped, eyes dancing with sparks of mania. And suddenly the pretty woman’s reaction is somewhat understandable.

Who are you? you wonder as you step out into the alley behind the building. Why do I feel things for you when we’ve never met outside of a Glimpse?

There’s no one here, thank god. Or so you think.

Her line of sight is perpendicular to yours, so there are only so many heartbeats before she registers the unorthodox spectacle on the fringes of her vision. She tilts her face up, allowing a finger of smoke to curl forth from her lips; even that gesture is elegant.

Your knees threaten to buckle under the weight of the next Glimpse.

It’s not a window into a single isolated moment like past episodes, but a lifetime’s worth flooding your brain like a tsunami:

Two limp bodies drowning in garbage.

The same bodies adorning front pages everywhere—accompanied by more questions than answers.

Her, obliterating box after tissue box as tears gouge ravines into her face.

You, wrapping her up in consoling arms, which she snuggles into like an abandoned puppy.

Her, shedding a different kind of tear as she discovers that a smile can still reach her eyes.

You, kneeling in front of her because you want to wake up to that smile every single day.

Her, holding up a smaller version of you to blow out a crown of candles.

You, counting the wrinkles on her face and deciding that none of them did any harm to her beauty.

And it’s only when destiny rightfully embeds itself in your soul that you realize the things you’d do to be with this woman. The tears you’d shed. The years you’d lose.

The competition you’d eliminate.

The next step is easy: head back before she sees you, and dispose of the body when she’s gone.

But you don’t. A part of you wants her to turn around and catch you in the act. A part of you wants her to smile and give you a hand with the corpse. A part of you wants her to accept you for who you are.

And maybe she will. No Glimpse is set in stone, after all. You’ll carve your own path, earn her love the only way you know how. You might be missing your memories but all you need are the ones you’ll be making with her.

Fuelled with newfound hope, you search the Glimpse for a name. 

When her eyes meet yours, you remember to smile. You wait for her to fall into your arms, to admit that she preferred you over Adam all along. Because that’s what all this is about, isn’t it?

But it’s not you she’s staring at. You frown. What’s so alluring about Stacy? She’s not exactly alive and kicking. Or available.

The cigarette tumbles to the pavement. “Jerry?”

That’s… not how you expected it to come out. The fantasy melts with buttery efficiency as you watch about a hundred long-overdue realizations dawn on her like a blood-red sun. It might as well be Adam slung over your shoulder.

She bolts for a door. Another Glimpse pounces on you, as if it had been lying in wait for this moment:

Two women in uniform, pulling a suit-clad body out of a trash heap.

Your face plastered on front pages everywhere, and the look in your eyes is… lost.

The horror of this new future causes you to drop the body and make a beeline for the door. You pull her hair, wrap fingers around her beautiful neck, and you weep through it all like the last maudlin soul at a bar. Anything to shut her up. Anything to make the police sirens blaring in your head stop. Anything to make the bite of cold metal around your wrists go away.

It’s not until you’re getting herded down the alleyway into a waiting police car that you realize this isn’t part of the Glimpse. Was it someone from across the street that caught you scurrying down the fire escape, a dead girl flopping against your back?

The last thing you see before being spirited away is two bodies in an alleyway, equally inert.

🦋

“Get moving, Dreamer,” barks the guard shoving you back home. You don’t bother with names—they’re nothing but tasers and bad breath.

After the bars ring shut and silence returns like an old pal, you lie across the bunk and rest your eyes. A smile creeps across your face as you relive your favorite lifetime for the third time today.

The first few weeks were hell; having women on your record is like being dipped in blood and thrown into a shark tank. Or having a sign that says “Insert here!” held over your butthole every waking hour—though your Glimpses helped you wriggle out of most encounters. Who knew convicts stuck to a moral code?

Like a hermit crab with its shell, you learnt to retreat into your headspace, where there would always be sunshine and decent food and laughter echoing through a house. And soon life imprisonment became… life.

There are a million beautiful scenes you can step into, all just as dreamlike in their perfection as they are in their incorporeality. And yet you muse over them with fondness, as if they happened to you and not a version of you that has been erased from this plane of existence. You can always gaze into her eyes, twinkling like gemstones behind a white veil. You can always enter her for the first time again, the spice of her breath lingering on the tip of your tongue. You can always fall into her arms when you can’t take it anymore.

You decide to visit your favorite moment, where there is dew-kissed grass instead of a rock-solid mattress whittling away at your spine. A butterfly with sapphire wings hovers curiously overhead. Pine and lemongrass adorn the breeze, just like her hand adorns yours. You watch two small figures romp around in the distance, their giggles filling you with golden pride.

To this day you’re not sure whether the Glimpses are a curse or a blessing. Are they taunting you with missed potential, or are they letting you have a nice, long swig of it? Maybe both. Not that you‘re complaining.

After all, you get to spend the rest of your life with her.