As If the Future Never Came

The future always comes uninvited when the room is empty. It sits in one of the chairs, not saying a word. I cannot turn away. Who said we cannot see our future? I see it so well, I wish I could unsee it.

The empty room is the future.

The pillows are there, so is the throw, the magazines on the coffee table, all the things that just recently felt someone's presence - but they are looking at me from the future now. That is what the future looks like - it is the forever empty place that remembers someone's presence.

Presence still so palpable, so poignant.

I know that I live in the present. I can just call, and someone will come in, chasing the ghost of the future away. There will be a voice, a touch, a conversation, as if the future never came. We are all here. We are still here. The empty room was just a bad dream.

But the future is sitting in the chair, not saying a word.

Has it been minutes or hours? Which era is this? Why am I still around? Or am I? Maybe there is no me either, maybe the room is just my memory. I am gone, too. Or am I the room's memory? How motionless and silent are the objects that were just recently so everyday and cozy. The lamp is on. Why, who needs light anymore? Why are the pillows not perfectly arranged, as if someone didn't put them back? Is this how they will stay now? The light will stay on forever, no one will ever put the pillows back, the magazine will stay forever open on the same page. Future, please. Please go away!

But then the music breaks for a commercial. It all was just my imagination. No one is sitting in the chair.

The room makes sense again. It is just a room. I can arrange the pillows, pick up the magazines, turn off the light, and go to another room where they are all watching TV. 

As if the future never came.