Life doesn’t have any surprises for me. I know it all, absolutely everything. Although I wish I didn’t know some things, I don’t have any other choice, I’m doomed to know the future in its every detail – after all, I was born a clairvoyant.
I truly can’t understand this bad fortune of mine, however many of you would consider it as a gift. No, it is not a gift, it’s a curse! I know exactly when I die. I know my parents’ date and hour of death. The same goes for my wife – I especially married the one that will die after me. A prospect of outliving your closest family is really depressing.
In sum, where the hell is your deliberate choice? From the very beginning I was absolutely sure – this is the woman meant for me, not any other. When I was a baby, I knew the very details of my life however I wasn’t aware of it at that time. Those visions and pictures were completely incomprehensible for a joyfully babbling baby.
Someone might say: pal, since you know what’s going to happen, why don’t you do something to change your future!
I can only say one thing: I did try it, many times, but there is no way to change your fate. If your life has got something in store for you, you will surely get it.
I’m terribly depressed when something sad happens. Of course, I also know when something nice is going to happen but this awareness spoils the surprise my life has got for me. For example, how can one be happy about the promotion if one knew about it all along. Please tell me how?
The worse situation occurs when I know what I’m going to get for my birthday or any other occasion. Then, I have to pretend to be surprised – actually I’ve become a master at that. I do enjoy my presents, of course, but I really would like to be surprised, just once. It even could be a gift which under any other circumstances I wouldn’t like. In my case this would be the greatest present in the world, just because I was surprised this one time and something unpredictable would happen.
Well, unfortunately my life is as terribly predictable as it is terribly boring. I do not watch any films nor read books, I’m not a theater goer – unless I go to keep someone company. It doesn’t amuse me because I know from the very beginning how a film, a book or a play would end and I also know the plot. But the worst thing happen when I forget to keep my mouth shut – I just spoil the surprise for those not-knowing.
I remember, being a small child, my parents arguing over which political party should win the elections. This argument turned into quite a row, something just snapped and I shouted which party would win, with how many percent, who the Prime Minister would be and by whom he would be replaced after two months.
They were all in shock and after everything happened just as I had predicted, even frightened a bit.
But in time my father told me not to brag about it – as if I didn’t know that already – and he used my gift as much as he could. It’s not too hard to imagine that shortly afterwards we would become a filthy rich family because my dad quite regularly played lottery…
How depressing it is to know that I’m doomed to be a boring, meaningless clerk all my life. It’s like being sentenced.
I’m sure you all wonder why it all will happen since I can predict lottery numbers? It all will happen just because my morals won’t let me use this knowledge of mine only for my personal benefit. Even if I would force myself to do so, I know it won’t work anyway – my fate had already been sealed.
Someone might call me an idiot but I simply will not take this opportunity. No and that’s final! Afterwards I would feel – until my days are final – like a thief stealing someone else’s happiness.
I guess you can ask me why I let my father win the fucking lottery time and time again? Where’s the consequence in that? Well, remember I was only a child. Dad used to have me sit at the table and told me to write the numbers on a paper (the numbers are to be shown on TV the next day, of course). As an obedient child, I did it, doing this for fun. At the same time I felt so happy knowing my parents will be so pleased with me, I really didn’t realize how my actions could affect other people. I was only a small child, wanting for my parents’ attention because these were the only times when they noticed me at all, when I felt like I do exist for them.
All my life I will be just a meaningless bureaucrat, getting up at 7 a.m., doing what should be done and coming home to wife and children. Day after day, the same routine, until the fucking retirement. Even knowing this charity money from the state won’t be too generous compared to all the taxes I will have to give them away, I don’t care about it at all. Not because I will inherit my parents’ fortune which they came into too easily by using my so-called gift. I simply have always known money comes, money goes but it will always be enough to live on. I guess it’s just one of few advantages of being a clairvoyant.
Oh, how I wish I was normal, just like the others – unaware of what’s going to happen, full of this wonderful not-knowing, surprised by life over and over again. Luckily, there is something I do not know – I do not have any idea what it will be like after I die. Perhaps that’s why I’m longing for my death – this very first surprise of mine.
This story previously appeared in Schlock Quarterly 2018.
Translated by Monika Olasek
Edited by Marie Ginga
Christopher T.. Dabrowski has published short stories, novels and anthologies all over the globe including the USA, Spain, Germany, Canada, Poland, and many more. Find his books on Amazon.