THE LUCKY ONES: Chapter One
Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 4:02PM I have no idea where I came from. I have no mother, no father, no brother, no sister; no family at all. I just showed up one day, in a small, cosy town where everyone knew each other. They all helped me in the days when I was growing up. When I disappeared, they were baffled; had I ever been real at all? I'll tell you, there were a lot of conspiracy theories in that day. I'm probably the reason the town's now called "THE CONSPIRACY CENTER OF AMERICA". My disappearance had been exactly as the day I arrived; dark, ominous clouds hung over the town, but neither rain nor snow fell from the skies. This was, however, not the reason I left the town. That was just a coincidence, albeit a fitting one. No, the reason I left the town at the time I did, was because my whole being had changed; I had become a "seer".
Now, in those times I didn't know what a "seer" was, nor that the world was filled with them. But I'll get to that later - let's try to do this in a somewhat chronological order - the day before my disappearance, I had started seeing. I was 21; puberty had finally passed and I was a grown man. I was just going down to the store to buy some tea, something I had run out of the day before. I went into the store, meeting no one as it was about 9 in the morning (I'm what you would call a "morning person). I walked up to the aisle where they kept the hot drinks, picked up a box of teabags and walked up to the new cashier. She was a beautiful woman named Susie, not that that's really important. You see, the moment I opened my mouth, about to say something like, "Susie, eyh? You knew in town?", my brain kicked in. It was like a whole bunch of memories, like photographs, but none of it had happened yet. It was three roads, none ending the same, and I had to take one of them.
ROAD ONE: Now - "Susie, eyh? You knew in town?" - "You're such a handsome fellow" - whispers -"Wanna come over to my place and ten?", Ten o'clock - outside her house - sex; hot steaming wonderful sex, middle of the night - me leaving town.
ROAD TWO: Now - "Susie is it?" - "Yes. I'm new in town" - "Well, I could show you 'round?", eight o'clock - date - food, two weeks, date, three months - relationship, a year - living together, two years - married, two and a half year - married with a child, three years - married with two children, twenty years - child dead - car accident - other child grown, thirty years - nuclear war - all dead.
ROAD THREE: Now - Smile, pay, home, leave town.
You already know I left town the following day, so I didn't choose the second road. The third road was just boring, so I chose the first road. Hey, I was 21, who can blame me?
The morning after, I woke up at Susie's place at about 6 o'clock. I walked on home, took my car and drove away from it all. At the time I didn't quite know why, but later I remembered that the image of the nuclear war stuck with me. I felt compelled to it, and I just had to figure it out.
I stopped at a gas station, met a guy called Gus whom I could 1) get a blowjob from in the bathroom and leave, 2) chitchat with him and watch his head being blown off by some robbers, finding myself in lethal danger or 3) pay and leave. I was very unsure of what to do - paying and leaving would only lead to him dying and he seemed like an alright fellow, so I took the blowjob. When the robbers arrived, he was too busy blowing me off and didn't hear anything till after I came; then we heard them leave. The gas station had insurance, so it wouldn't be a problem he told me when I came out of the bathroom, cock in pants now. He could be fired, but it was highly unlikely and if he did he had always looked for a reason to leave this shithole. "Well, thank you for the blowjob - you're very good", I told him before I left, leaving him a hundred dollars for his performance and for the inconvenience. "Why, thanks", he said. "You know, you could always come back..." I just smiled and said, "Yeah, I could". Then I left the gas station, suddenly finding myself with a gun in my face. "Stay. Quiet" whispered the robber with a gun in my face. I nodded, thinking about how the fuck I'd arrived in this situation; it wasn't in any of the futures I had seen, so how the...
ROAD ONE: Now - Try to run, BANG, dead.
ROAD TWO: Now - Do as he says, car arrives, punch in the distracted robber's face, knee in in the balls, shoot him, leave.
ROAD THREE: Now - scream for help, Gus doesn't come out, BANG, me dead.
ROAD FOUR: Now - do as he says, next day - road trip with him, police, arrested, jail.
ROAD FIVE: Punch, BANG, dead.
ROAD SIX: Now - do as he says, next day - road trip with him, police, fight them, kill robber, leave with car.
Needless to say, I did as I was told. When the car came, I punched in his face, kneed him in the balls and shot him. I took the gun with me, and left - I couldn't risk a bunch of new choices with whoever arrived in the car; he probably hadn't even seen me, nor what I did.
Driving to California, where I always wanted to go, I had some time to think about my... "ability". One thing was certain - I could glimpse where every road would take me, but as soon as I, on one of these roads, didn't have direct contact with the person that triggered these glimpses, they stopped. That had to be the reason I had just seen the blowjob from Gus and not me interacting with the robber afterwards. That was also the reason I hadn't seen what happened after me killing the robber; I could only glimpse how my roads with ONE person would turn out.
As I was driving towards California, wondering what choices I would have to make there, wondering where I would take my destiny, I saw a man standing at the side of the road; he didn't look like anything special, with his brown hair, leather blazer and scar over the left side of his face. An image of that man standing over me, gun in hand, flashed in front of me, but before I could really take it in, it was gone. I turned around slightly, before turning back to the road. Only one thought rambled through my brain the whole rest of the trip - who was that man, and why was he holding a gun to my head sometime in the future?
TO BE CONTINUED
Reader Comments (4)
Interesting tale. How far out have you written, do we ever get to find out where he came from? Sounds like a fun story and i look forward to the next installment.
I really like the concept of only being able to see the different roads with that one person. You could easily make a choose your own adventure with this!
Reavyn - I'm not really a fan of the "choose-your-own-adventure"-books, but I see your point. Glad you liked the concept!
Myseri - I wrote this on a whim, so this is all I've written. I dont't know all the details of his origin but I have some ideas and I can promise you that you'll know before the story's over. Really glad you liked it though. :)
This is odd and weird but also very interesting. I have often thought of the various possibilities that can spring from one action, but I really like your take on it as possibilities involving a specific person. Keep this one going please, I see potential!