I have a gift. To some, it would see amazing, fantastic, unbelievable. To me, it is both a curse and a power. It will take some time to explain, but I hope this story will help enlighten you.

Maybe it sounds kind of cheesy, but it all started when I was 23. I met this girl. Yeah, that’s always the problem, the girl. I was pretty normal up until then. Had a B.A. from University of Ohio in History. Masters from the University of Maryland in Ancient Roman History. Was working on my dissertation to get my Ph.D. Everything was going well, I had a bunch of friends. I was at a departmental party when I met Terry.

She was pretty normal too. Average height, build, hair, etc. It was only when I got to talking to her that I discovered how much fun it was to be around her. I remember that night very vividly, because that’s when I discovered my gift. Or perhaps it’s Terry’s gift. Anyway, we talked about all the normal things people talk about, “Where are you from?” “What are you studying?” blah blah blah. I was getting pretty bored, and was about to find someone else, when she made a joke. I laughed. I touched her arm. Her bare arm.

It was like a tidal wave flew over me. At the time, I had no clue what was going on, and even now I have no clue why or how what happens, happens. Basically, I saw everyone she saw. As she looked over my shoulder, she saw Dr. Blokov, the Dean of Russian Studies. I could see Dr. Blokov. It wasn’t like seeing through her eyes. It was more like there was just Dr. Blokov and nothing else. Then I saw him eating breakfast, making love to his wife, getting his doploma, dying. I saw his life flashing before my eyes.

Then her eyes shifted. Dr. Thomlin, Matt Aarons, Stacy Randles, suddenly all their lives were flashing before my eyes. She was seeing them together, and all the images . . . Ow. I flinched, withdrawing my hand quickly. The images disappeared. Terry raised one eyebrow.

“What, did I burn you?” She grinned.

“Sizzling,” I replied. She laughed back, and touched my arm. I almost flinched again, but nothing happened. I was wearing a shirt. Hmm. I was confused, distracted, but my mouth kept going, keeping up with the conversation. Well, needless to say, I made sure I got her number.

That was ten years ago. I made sure that I was good friends with Terry before telling her what she did to me. Didn’t want to scare her off or anything, not when something amazing like that happened. A number of things occurred to me, when thinking about my gift.

Consider, I could be indispensable to any police force. I could look at a person’s history, and see if they committed the crime they were accused of or not. I could also look into the future to see if they would commit a crime. I spent many long nights pondering the problems of causality, about whether I could change the future that I saw. Even more important, should I even try to change the future? But revealing myself to the police would place Terry and I under a great deal of inspection, and create so many complications in both our lives. I didn’t really want to wish that on either of us.

What, then, should I use the gift for? I could be a great biographer. I could also be a good salesman, for any various number of products. I could help spot holes in business securities, but then once again I would be working towards changing the future, and I really wanted to try to avoid that.

So I finally decided on being an author. Fiction mostly, but I did a number of articles for newspapers, and I did a bunch of biographies as well. The latter, of course, sold the best. Was a good time for me, I was spending a lot of time with Terry, and life was just good.

Exactly one year and two months ago, I received a shock. I was sitting in Central Park with Terry one afternoon, trying to find some inspiration for a new story. Terry looked at a girl and I began scrolling through her history. Nothing interesting there, except for a bit of whoring when she was 18. I looked quickly into her future, and I received a shock. As real as if it were happening to me, I saw the girl look up and see a giant mushroom cloud, with a nuclear flame rushing towards her. This was definitely something new to me, but I couldn’t hold on to it because Terry looked at someone new. I let go of Terry’s arm so that I could think. The explosion . . . it was in a city. It was too brief for me to tell what city – no skyline to see from the ground, but there were skyscrapers.

Over the next hour, I saw more and more. Nine out of every ten people in Central Park were going to die from a nuclear blast. For me, that was a bit upsetting. Given the high number, I knew it had to be here in New York City. Another terrorist attack? Perhaps the consequence of a war? I had seen a few people involved in those in the future. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know when.

There are a few easy ways to calculate time for future events. Digital watches can make life very easy, all I had to do was find someone who glanced at their watch near the time of the explosion. So that was when I received my second shock, discovering that they were all going to die in two days.

I found my conscience conflicted. Should I tell the authorities, which would not believe me, or would interrogate me, or whatever. Should I try to stop it myself (yeah, right). Should I tell Terry. Should I tell Terry it was time to go on a holiday and that we’re going to the Bahamas for a week. She’s a bright girl, but to burden someone else with so much terror, as I was feeling, would be a criminal act. And I know I definitely wasn’t thinking clearly, especially with constant sights of nuclear disaster imposing itself upon my mind.