I See You

5 Years Ago

I slept the same way I always did in this place: fitfully, and with nightmares. Of people who had died, people I’d tried to save, of friends I no longer had. And of doctors with their pills and their electroshock 'therapy'.

It was only as dawn approached that my breathing eased and I fell into a calmer rest. That’s usually when the episodes come, on those rare occasions I feel calm enough to let them in, and tonight was no different. Though I was still asleep, I was conscious of it. And that’s when the Sights came.

Though I was used to the sensation, the onslaught of images shocked me – they were even more confusing than usual. Normally, the things I saw were predictable, uninspiring – people, accidents, illness. Every day occurrences, things to be expected in a place such as this. Not this time.

My unseeing eyes flashed open as strange images flowed through my mind. An elderly lady, unbowed by time, and wearing a long green dress coming up these stairs; a strange street filled with the calls of unseen birds and cats, the smells of delicious food and interesting people; a massive red train with purple steam billowing all around a crowded platform; a odd ticket with no destination, departing from Platform 9 ¾ at 11am on the 1st of September...

...And a boy. The most beautiful teenage boy I’d ever seen, much older than I was, by at least five years. And he was looking at me, and the look in his eyes -

As abruptly as it had come, it was gone. ‘The Sight’, as I called it, rarely ever came when I wanted it to, but it had its uses sometimes. I frowned to myself in the chill darkness, wondering for the first time whether I’d gotten it all wrong. Maybe I really was unstable. Maybe I really did deserve this hell for my ‘visions’.

My life was filled with nothing but doctors and crazy people, planned walks around the gardens and three meals a day. The most interesting thing that ever happened around the asylum was perhaps a new board game, or death. Everything else was just fluff.

I decided pondering my possible insanity would get me nowhere, fast. I turned my attention back to what I’d seen and decided to try first to figure out the woman. With her long, shimmering green dress, grey hair pulled back into an elegant bun, she’d had an air about her – the kind that told people not to ask questions, that she knew what she was doing. She’d been leaning on a walking cane – a black one – but she’d still moved with brisk purpose up the steps. Excitement coursed through me like adrenaline, warming my blood more effectively than my sad, thin blanket. I never had visitors – maybe this time she’d come for me.

I remembered that split-second picture of the boy. I’d long-since learnt that the blurriest, shortest clips were of things far away in the future, things that were most susceptible to change. After a long few minutes I sighed, and resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t know until later. It could be today, or tomorrow, or ten years before I found out my answers, but I would.

I allowed myself a short-lived smile. At least I knew that much.