By James McCurley IV
It’s strange to be able to divine, to see through time, because the threads of time get all tangled, the ones that were and are and will be and could be and could have been. It’s strange, because every stranger I pass has their life story spilled out. Because with a glance I can tell everything that has happened to them, tear their deepest darkest secret from their soul with a look, and see what could be, a million possible versions of the future that could all happen. I remember every face and future I see. Vividest of all I remember looking up one day at the grocery store, just at checkout, and seeing the cashier, a tall, smiling young man, a freshman at college, and I saw, like double vision a thousand times over, visions of his future, images of futures as a salesman, or a doctor, or a plumber, or the president.
And I saw a shadow among those futures, the shadow of death. That day, in a car crash right after leaving work, as he rams into another car on the highway. I wanted to speak out, to shout, to tell him what I saw, to be careful, or drive slower, or avoid the highway all together. But I was silent. I can speak if I wish, but I know that I can’t change anything. If I speak, then the threads get all muddy, and I don’t know if he’ll believe me. People very rarely do. You’d think that I was mad, too, if I claimed to see the future. All I can do is keep silent and pray. I’m like Cassandra, cursed to see and see and try to tell and never to be believed, until eventually I see everything I know, everything I love wither away, or withering, or about to wither, and I can’t stop it. And I just give up and shut my mouth.
Other Wizards like to say I’m lucky, that I’m gifted to be the greatest Diviner in the world. They don’t understand. How could they? They have to try to see, with tea bags and crystal balls and palm readings and elaborate ceremonies. They don’t just walk around, and see the death of everyone they pass a thousand times over, until they just want to curl in a ball and cry because there is nothing they can do, and hide themselves away in a dusty apartment because they can’t bear to see anyone suffer anymore. They just read in the newspaper about a tragic car accident taking the life of a young man driving home from his job at the grocery store.
