The Future Choice

She has seen how the world will end. With a
prescience that is more curse than blessing the futurehas unfolded for her. The day will be lonely gray and it's breath will bear a cold chill. In her softest pajamas and the ratty slippers her mother gave her she will leave him. The thought of his end brings more
pain than the knowledge of her own.
In their room the bed is still unmade. Sheets of sunlight and dusky rose are tangled at the foot, his pillow is bent and bunched into a corner. The depression made by his thin body is seen. She will fall upon it, find the auburn hairs that were once wound about her finger. His scent will linger, cigarettes and smoke, musk and ivory soap. As the world whirls by the back of her eyes his image will be clearest.
She hears him climb the stairs. Each step echoes through the floor, bringing the end closer. He stops in the doorway, gazing at her huddled form. She wants to tell him, needs to tell him, but cannot, he would prevent her from doing what must done. He comes over to the bed and crawls up next to her. She feels him
settle behind her, wiry and small, warm and strong. His chin rests upon her shoulder and he whispers soft words into her ear.
"Sweetie, please tell me what is wrong. I will help fix it." He breathes softly.
This is the one thing he cannot fix. The only time he cannot be savior and friend. She remembers the last time the world unfolded in this way. She was four hundred miles away, at a party. Suddenly there was a burning pain in her hips and hand, the world vanished into a pearlescent fog. She saw him float through the air, the car bearing down upon him and their imminent collision. She reached out, pushed him
away, onto the gravel. He fell face down and lay
still, the car screamed by. Then the world collapsed into place again, blood fell from her hand to the floor. The phone was ringing when she walked in, he had been in an accident, thrown from his bike landed on gravel. Her mother said it was the oddest thing.
That he narrowly avoided being hit by an oncoming car. According to witnesses he seemed to change direction mid-air. His right hand had been badly cut and his hip split open. She tried not to think about what had happened as she washed the blood from the right hip of
her jeans. The future cannot be stopped, only changed she thought. The price of blood must always be paid.
Again he whispered to her. Wanting to help,
trying to understand what he could not. She rolled towards him, her scarred hand on his scarred hip. She looked into the eyes she knew as well as her own.
"The world must end. These moments are fleeting and almost gone. Let's enjoy them." She murmurs with a kiss.
He rolls over until he lays across her. With a gentle kiss he soothes her, not commenting on her sad statement. He knows that these moods sometimes come over her. They move against each other and for a moment the future is forgotten. There is only love
encompassing and enfolding, defiance of destiny and time. She sees his face above her, surrounded by a golden light, he is beautiful and he is good. They lie together, warm with sweat and pressed against each other.
"I love you. You are everything I hoped for…" he whispers.
She holds him closer and tries to find the words. A sudden shouting draws him to the window. He stands there in the weak sunlight, pale and thin. Things pull into focus, this is the moment she saw, this is the time for one action that will end the world and save it.
She rolls from the bed and moves toward him. Standing in front of him she can see the couple from next door arguing on the street. The woman is crying, holding her daughter. His arms wrap around her and she has a momentary feeling of false safety. The argument in the street escalates, the man reaches into his pocket. The man pulls his hand free with a glint of steel. The woman and child are the target. Before it happens, she hears him yell from behind her.
"Marie run!" he shouts.
She watches as the glint of metal changes
direction and follows the sound of his voice. With a hard push she sends him stumbling. The bullet pulls her farther back into his arms. He catches her as she begins to crumple downward. In the distance sirens begin to wail. As he lowers her to the floor the world begins to dim. She hears him frantically screaming into a phone. In those final instants her mind coalesces, it traces patterns never known before.
The connections are made apparent. He saved the
child and her mother, she saved him. Sherealizes
that this was her purpose. That knowing the future is merely putting the pieces together and being willing to make a choice. He gathers her in his arms as she begins to lose focus. The muscles around her mouth twitch as she tries to smile, to tell him she loves him and that everything will be fine. She cannot form
the words, but he knows. For one instant their hearts link, their souls sync and they are whole. He is able to let her go.
They told him she died instantly. That there was no pain, no realization of death, that she was here one moment and gone the next. He knows they are wrong. In those last moments she showed him the future. The love that waited for him in a distant place, the willingness with which she made a tribute of blood for him. There is no fear, no pain only the sense of time continuing, of the world moving, of life continued.