The thing they don’t often tell you about seeing into the future is that it doesn’t typically revolve around your own. It’s brushing up against someone with their bag slung high on their shoulder and their steps shuffled fast and knowing that they’re going to miss their train, and the important meeting that follows, and feeling a simultaneous rush of sympathy and futility. It’s feeling the vibrations of the earth beneath your feet and knowing that an earthquake is about to hit some 1000 miles away before the news ever does and being powerless to stop it. It’s seeing how everyone around you is about to advance, or regress, or stay stagnant in their jobs or their relationships or their lives. It’s a a whole lot of depressing fucking nothing, at the end of the day.

And then, it’s something. It’s brushing against the arm of a stranger on the train as they make their way to depart to a location you don’t know, and feeling the shift. It’s the sudden image of a hand in yours, of her lips right there, as she’s holding you close. It’s the feeling of something constant when everything else is shifting so fast you can barely keep your footing. It’s the knowledge of a future you never dreamed would be possible for you.

It’s hope. And she’s stepping off the train with only the subtlest glance back, but you know with all that’s in you that you’ll see her again. You can see the future before you in startling color. And it’s good. And it’s happy. And it’s there. And that’s the most surprising part of it all.