The Future for Curious People

by Gregory Sherl

  I run back to the east bar. Bart has a new light beer. He’s crying.

  “Bart, what the hell? Jesus, I don’t have time for this. Pull yourself together.”

  “It’s been debunked by scientists,” Bart says, blubbering. “I’m not going to be rich! I’m going to be just me but old! The bartender told me. Did you hear?”

  “You need to get this guy out of here,” the bartender says.

  “Stop crying!” I say to Bart.

  “No, no, no,” Bart says. “These are happy tears, Godfrey. I’m going to stay me.”

  “I’m happy for you, Bart. Listen, I need your keys!” Evelyn has a head start, but I know where she’s going.

  Evelyn

  FUTURES

  The strip mall parking lot is completely empty. I’m standing in front of Chin’s, jagged with nerves. I want to lift a car, metaphorically, to save someone pinned beneath it. I think the person pinned beneath it, metaphorically, is also me. What happened in the bar? Who is Godfrey Burkes? Is Godfrey Burkes a liar? How did he know about the brooch? I asked Dot before I left; she had no idea and didn’t want me to leave, but I told her she had to let me be alone—that’s something Dot respects. The hardest thing is that he didn’t tell me anything about Madge—nothing at all. And then, poof, this woman and a ring and Godfrey standing there, his feet glued to the floor. I swam on a goddamn park bench for him. I was planning for a future with Godfrey while Godfrey was planning for a future with . . . Madge. Pathetic. I’ve dealt with closed eyes long enough. He pretended she didn’t exist. Like my parents with my sister. It’s too much. We all have closets, but he should have emptied his out before he threw rocks at my window.

  What happened in the bar doesn’t matter anymore. None of that matters. It’s already the past and the past is dead. It’s a shed skin. The present is worthless. It’s just a thin membrane between the death of the past and the endless offerings for living in the future. I pick the future.

  “ ‘People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome,’ ” I whisper. That’s some George Orwell. Was I only duping myself ? Was any of my envisioning real? It felt so real.

  I want the future only. Is this what Fadra would call shutting down? Maybe. But it’s opening up to something else—trading in reality for possibility, right?

  I prop up my bike with its kickstand but don’t take the time to lock it. Let some emo skate punk steal it. I no longer care. I walk to Chin’s front door. There, dead center, is an official sign. DO NOT ENTER. CRIME SCENE. The address and date are scribbled in pen and signed by an investigator.

  I need more futures. Just enough to restart my life. Tomorrow it might all be gone. Tomorrow I might not have another chance.

  I am going to break into Dr. Chin’s. I find a sizable rock in a fake garden outside the nail salon.

  I played softball in high school, but I was stuck in right field. I was referred to as the Girl Least Likely to Ever Touch the Ball. I can see the faded paint chips of the red dragon that was painted on the glass of Chin’s front door. How hard do you throw a rock at a glass door to break it?

  I cock my arm back and the rock goes. It hits the glass door and falls to the ground. It barely makes a sound—just a slight thud, like a firework with a bad fuse.

  I walk to the front door and pick up the rock again. I take ten steps back. I imagine Godfrey’s fiancée’s face at the door.

  I cock my arm back. It’s all in the follow-through. That’s what the sports movies tell you. Follow. Through.

  I do. I keep my arm stretched out even as the rock hits Godfrey’s fiancée’s face and bounces off the glass. It hits the ground with the same muted thud as before. I pick up the rock, grip it, knowing it’s not going to work a third time.

  I know this is crazy. This buzzing in my limbs isn’t good. My heart feels like a hyper-gong. My breath is ragged in my throat. None of this stops me. I can’t stop. “Desperation is the raw material of drastic change.” Who said that? My mind is a blank.

  I put the rock in the pocket of my trench coat and scan the entire strip mall. There are two benches on opposite sides of the double doors, potted plants covered in week-old snow. The benches have bars in the middle of them so the bums can’t sleep there. The entire strip mall is bare. Really, the only two things standing are me and the trash can down by the curb.

  The trash can. It’s settled in a steel bin so it won’t blow away, but the trash can itself isn’t secured to anything. I try to lift it. It’s heavy and my mittens don’t have any gripping. I get it halfway out when I lose my hold.

  “Fuck!”

  I look ridiculous. Me, in a dress and tan trench coat, mascara bleeding down my cheeks, frozen, trying to yank out a trash can. I’m also wearing the scarf—one that Dot pinned a stolen pear brooch to without my consent—one that made me believe, for a brief moment, that Godfrey and I were meant to be together. A brooch. I put that much into a brooch.

  I take off my mittens and stick them in the right pocket of my coat. I lift the trash can from its sides and breathe out of my mouth. I dump the remainder of the trash on the ground. The trash can is light now, and I’m able to lift it above my head. I feel invincible. This is a story I will tell my future children during a future envisioning session. I walk to the door, grunt while I throw the trash can at the glass door. It bounces right off the glass and begins to roll down the walkway. It’s coming straight for me. I step out of the way and the trash can keeps going down the walkway, over the curb, and right into the parking lot. It stops right in the middle of the lot.

  And then I figure, why not? I came this far. I walk right up to the front door and give it a push. It swings open and I’m hit with a blast of heat. Of course the door is unlocked. How could it not be? This is Dr. Chin’s—probably the shittiest envisioning center in all of Baltimore.

  I don’t waste any time.

  To avoid memories of past envisionings, I walk to an examination room I’ve never been in before. In fact, I’ve never been this far down the hall before. I lock the door. In case that’s not enough, I drag a chair across the room, and prop it on its hind legs. I shove the back of the chair under the doorknob. I’ve seen this in movies.

  The pills are locked in a glass cabinet. Then I remember the rock in the pocket of my trench coat.

  This time the rock goes through the glass like a punch.

  The pills are in a large, clear container. It’s nondescript—no label or anything. This shit is shady. The FCC should be on Chin’s ass. I unscrew the lid and dump half of the bottle onto the tray. I feel strangely calm, resolute.

  I pour a cup of water from the water cooler. I roll the tray over to the examination table. No gown for me, thanks. Why were they ever necessary?

  I type my name, date of birth, and Social Security number into the computer. The system starts. The machine knows it’s me. “Hello,” I tell it. “It’s just the two of us now.”

  The welcome screen I’ve seen dozens of times before appears. This time, though, it’s a little different. On the bottom right-hand corner of the screen is a tab labeled HYPOTHETICALS. I’ve never seen this before. Has Chin upgraded his software since the last time I’ve been here? I move the cursor down and click on it. The computer grumbles. One of those swirling beach balls spins in the center of the screen while I wait for the information to load. It feels like I’m on hold. The only sounds are the on and off spasms of the modem. Chin is cheap. This Dell is aged.

  The computer finishes loading. The screen is white. At the top, in all caps: WARNING! THIS IS A BETA TESTER! USE OF THE SYSTEM MAY CAUSE SEIZURES AND/OR INDIFFERENCE!

  The interface looks like Google’s homepage—a tiny box to type your question into. If I understand correctly, this program will allow me to ask it a question and it will play the scenario out. I could ask it anything: What if every book had a happy ending? What if the votes in Florida were counted correctly? What if G
odfrey Burkes goes off and marries his fiancée?

  But there’s only one question I am interested in asking. There’s only one question I’ve ever really wanted to know the answer to. And it has nothing to do with Godfrey Burkes.

  My hands are shaking. It takes four tries before I spell everything correctly. What would have happened if my sister lived? Next to the box where you type the hypothetical question is a link: Go! I swallow a pill and then one more for good measure, sip some water and click Go!

  Everything on the screen is crisp—beyond high definition, the realest real ever. Brand names aren’t fuzzed out. You can almost see the air move.

  The scene opens in a middle-class suburban neighborhood. The camera goes from the row of houses and manicured lawns to the street. I know this street. It’s my childhood neighborhood. Cars drive by, but there is no noise. It’s eerily quiet. I guess the beta version doesn’t have sound yet. The muted world gives me a chill; I shudder. The camera is pointed at an intersection, halted by a stop sign. I look at the names of the streets on the green signs crisscrossed above the stop sign. It’s the intersection of Maple and Bellington. I used to live right down this block, and I know exactly what day it is.

  Right on cue, there’s the bike. The camera starts at the spokes. Then a quick cut to the pedals—a little girl’s feet in loosely laced red Keds. My sister’s face. She’s breathing, her cheeks puffing, over and over again—like little bellows on her face, and I stare at her face. Her hair is longer than I remember from the photographs—her bangs are bouncing off her forehead. She’s flying down the sidewalk. She’s almost to the intersection.

  I grip my legs. She rounds the intersection. I want to close my eyes, but I can’t.

  There’s no car this time.

  My sister makes a sharp turn down Maple and takes her first breath from her second life. And she keeps going, keeps breathing. She stops pedaling and coasts up the driveway to the house I grew up in. She hops off the bike and lets it fall in the yard. The grass looks like it was cut yesterday. The camera follows her through the front door. My father is on the couch, reading the paper. My mother is in the kitchen, dropping berries into a blender. They’re so young! So vivid! They look at my sister. My father puts down his paper and motions for her to come to him. He opens his mouth.

  The screen skips in five-year intervals. Now, my sister, at seventeen, is in the back of a truck. She has breasts. Her bangs are tucked to the left. She’s with a boy. They’re lying in the bed of the truck, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. I guess it’s cold—their breaths crisscross. It’s dark, but you can see three constellations I can’t name. My sister laughs into them.

  The screen cuts again. A large auditorium. It’s a college graduation. My sister walks across the stage in a red robe. The tassel, the fake diploma, the real handshake with the dean—it’s all there. The camera pans around and up, into the balcony. My father is pointing a video camera toward the stage. There’s an empty seat next to my mother. She rests her purse on it. I’ve never seen them smile so purely. I look at the empty seat, my mother’s purse. I’m not here. I was never supposed to be.

  And then a shrill ringing. I think it’s the fire alarm, but it’s coming from the screen. The screen goes black and then back to the auditorium. The ringing gets louder. The screen keeps flickering, like the power can’t decide if it should go out or not.

  I’m not there. The camera focuses on the empty seat. It’s taunting me. Everything blurs. My cheeks sting. I wipe my eyes. I’m crying. I didn’t even know. How long have I been crying? The screen stops cutting in and out. The image starts to bubble and darken as if it’s being cauterized.

  I hit the panic button on the joystick. Nothing happens. I press the button and hold. The ringing stops. The screen goes black. I’m still crying. A second later it’s back to the main page. The Hypotheticals tab is back on the bottom right corner of the screen.

  I’ve known that if my sister hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be here. I’ve known since I was in middle school and pieced it together. So why do I feel like I’ve been gutted? My parents were so happy. It has been confirmed and for some reason I can’t bear it. I wouldn’t even have been a thought. Living in an alternate future feels right. It’s my destiny.

  The blinking cursor on the screen. Whom do I want to spend my future with? Now is the time. The future can swallow me whole. A lifetime of infinite futures . . .

  What about twenty-five years from now. The fifties are the new thirties, right?

  I take another pill. Maybe the extra pills will make things better. I bring the cup of water to my mouth, but it’s empty. I chew the pill and feel dizzy and lost and hungry and sad.

  I grip the joystick tightly until my knuckles turn white.

  It should’ve been me, not my sister.

  I hit Enter.

  Godfrey

  NOW

  I turn into Chin’s parking lot too fast, and there—lit up in the headlights—is a metal trash can. I swerve, but I’m not fast enough and I clip it, hard, with the corner of Bart’s grill. The garbage can rolls and then spins to a stop. I pull into a spot, crooked, and jump out of the car, but I don’t look at the grill of Bart’s car. I know it’s whacked. I know this will go on my permanent record with Amy: shit Godfrey’s done. And I don’t care.

  I see Evelyn’s bike, propped on its kickstand but unlocked.

  The building is quiet and dark. An official notice hangs on the door—CRIME SCENE.

  To my right, I catch a light coming from one of the examination room windows. Colors flicker. It’s the envisioning screen. Evelyn. She’s already started.

  I run the length of the building to the lit window. I wipe mist from the glass and look inside.

  The screen flickers—people I can’t make out, voices talking. Evelyn is lying on the examination table, curled on her side. She’s still wearing the dress and trench coat. The tray is dotted with loose pills. Her water glass is tipped and empty.

  Is she asleep?

  I bang on the glass. “Evelyn!” I shout.

  She’s asleep, my brain tells me, but I’m also jolted with fear. “She’s asleep,” I say aloud. I shout her name and she doesn’t move.

  She is asleep. She is. I tell myself this, but I’m covering my fist with the sleeve of my jacket, and I punch the window, breaking it. Glass shatters and litters the tiles inside the room. I knock loose the jagged edges of glass with my elbow and climb through the window.

  “Evelyn!” I grab hold of her arm. “Evelyn. Talk to me.”

  She murmurs, but I can’t hear what she’s saying.

  I feel like crying. “You’re not dead,” I say. “You’re not at all dead.”

  But she’s not fully awake either. She whispers words I can’t understand. A small language of its own passes through her beautiful lips. I say, “I’m not engaged to someone else. I’m in love with you. The first time I saw you I should have taken your license out of your mouth and kissed you. Do you hear me?”

  I look at the screen. The camera is following an older Evelyn as she walks the aisles of a grocery store. She’s wearing a nicely tailored suit jacket, a skirt, and modest heels. The fluorescent lights are glaring. Her stockings have a shine to them. Her legs are still beautiful. She’s not dressed like a librarian; this is the outfit of someone who holds court—in a boardroom or something?

  She picks out a can of soup and tosses it into the cart.

  Why is she in this future alone?

  And then it’s as if the Evelyn on the screen hears me. She whips around and glares at the camera. She’s wearing makeup. Her hair is beautifully whipped up on top of her head. She seems to see me—the real me, sitting before the screen—and her expression softens. She says, “I know you. I remember you.”

  She’s older, much older, but glamorous in a way that seems foreign to the Evelyn I know though she’s still beautiful.

  I look down at Evelyn on the examination table. Her lips tremble. She isn’t here, I think. She simply is
not here. She’s there—in the future.

  In the grocery store, Evelyn looks directly into the screen. She says, “I know it’s you.”

  She’s not supposed to know I’m here. She’s not supposed to be aware at all. The rules are breaking down. I remember what Dr. Chin said about science and the mysteries of true love—they can only exist for so long before weird shit occurs. In the case of true love, there can be system failures. This is one hell of a system failure.

  “Godfrey,” Evelyn in the grocery store whispers. Her full lips lightly chapped. “Godfrey, Godfrey, Godfrey. It’s me,” she says, and then she tears up. She says, “I want it all back.” She smiles and shakes her head, wiping tears from her cheeks as if she’s not sure whether she’s happy or devastated, or both. Is this what life offers each of us in its own way—moments of happy devastation and devastated happiness? “All of it,” she whispers urgently, her eyes bright with tears.

  Evelyn’s lost her grip on the joystick. It’s fallen to the floor. I pick it up, my hands shaking, and press the button. The lights in the grocery store flicker. Evelyn grips the shopping cart’s handle, glances beyond the camera, speaking to someone unseen. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have. I know the rules.” She looks into the camera, fleetingly—at me, I’m sure of it. The real me. Right here. And then she pushes her cart down the aisle and disappears.

  The screen is black.

  If she’s not here but instead somewhere in there, I have to go in!

  Shit, I need a helmet. I try to open the door but then see that there’s a broken chair propped under the doorknob. I kick it out of the way and race down the hall to the next examination room, unplug the helmet, shove it on my head, run back into our examination room, and plug it into the back of machine.

  I pluck a pill and swallow it. I type in my name and Evelyn’s. I pick a date that’s only a year from now. Start small. I’ll take what I can get. I climb onto the examination table and pull her up. She’s groggy. Her eyes flutter. I say, “Evelyn, I’m here.”