You (Part I)

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Life can only be understood backward;
but it must be lived forward.
- Kierkegaard, Sören

1) Consciousness
Time: Now

Outside, the sun is setting reticently into a fiery blanket of purple and orange light. The surrounding is peaceful, interrupted by the occasional bark of a dog and the laughter of a family eating dinner.

Your father and I are standing outside on the veranda. He is gazing into my eyes tenderly, intently. He wraps his arms around me and brings me into a slow waltz, following the resonant beat of our hearts.

He looks occupied, as if he has something on his mind.

Patiently I wait, since I know it's not his nature to keep things to himself. Particularly things that concern our future.

How do you know he's thinking about something that affects your future together, you’ll ask me when you are old enough to understand.

That is simply because I know.

Sure enough, after our hearts have rhymed out several choruses, his feet still slightly. He looks at me again, his face a study in solemnity, his eyes flashing a mesh of emotions ranging from anxiousness to hope.

"Do you..." He begins to ask the question I know he will ask. "Do you think we should have a child?".

I look at him and silently wonder if he will still choose to ask me that, should I share my knowledge of what was to come with him.

Our dance slows, then stops. I look down, as the knowledge runs through my mind. The silence between us drags on.

You will pester me yet again, when I tell you this story. How did I know? You will be the one and only person who knows of my secret.

Let me ask you this. What do you think of before you make some choices? That’s right, you think of the consequences, consider the effects of that singular cause. What you cannot do however, is state with absolute accuracy what those consequences will be. That is of course a given as many will say with derisiveness, including you. What is more obvious than the fact that we are only aware of things only as and when they happen? Granted some sensitive and observant individuals can declare the consequences of their actions with a higher degree of accuracy, but those are still merely projections, based on the mathematics of probability and chance. You see, normal humans are equipped with what scientists and psychologists term sequential or chronological consciousness. That is, people become aware of things only when they happen.

I, however, am radically different.

Unlike all others, I am not equipped with sequential consciousness. I have, as I like to call it, a holistic consciousness. I am able to know with absolute and conclusive certainty what happens when I make a choice. Every choice is a Butterfly effect and can alter our world, either profoundly or in ways too small to be significant. And unlike you, your dad and just about everyone else, I can see that Butterfly effect, can chart every single change on the universe with each choice I make. It allows me to see life in the big picture rather then live through it as one would read a book. For me, I simply know the book, like I simply know the direct consequences of every choice I make.

That does not make me a mutant, as you will ask me with big, amazed eyes. I am also flesh and blood, just like anybody you meet on the street. I tire if I don’t rest, suffocate if I don’t inhale oxygen, die if I don’t eat or drink. And I do not, as you hopefully suggest at the age of eleven when I tell you the story, shoot laser beams out of my eyes like Cyclops or move things with my mind like that witch on TV. In every aspect, I am just like you, with the single exception of my dissimilar consciousness. That does not make me a better or different person. It simply is something I have to accept, much like the my height, the colour of my hair or the raven hue of my irises.

Many times, my consciousness is a blessing, as well as a curse.

A boon because some everyday choices are made easier. Will your dad like fish for dinner? Will my colleagues laugh at my awful dress if I wear it to work?

It is however more of a curse, for most of the time, I am caught in a dilemma that makes it painful for me to continue with my choice, dilemmas that nobody should ever have to live through.

When your dad asks me the question, I have already known...

I know who you will be, how you will be. I know the things you will do, the things you will love, the things you will dislike, and even the people you will come to hate. The disappointments, pain, happiness, joy and regrets you will experience walking on this rocky road of life.

I know of changes that will occur because of you, some big, some small.

I know of the love I will feel for you, the heartbreak and sorrow that you will eventually bring.

This is why I hesitate.

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