Day 232
As the bells ring out one last time, I sit alone in the darkness of night awaiting my final visitor. He is the one all men fear most of all, the Ghost of Christmas Future.
What will my future hold? How will things play out with my life, career, writing, friendships, and relationships?
What changes must I make now to avoid dire consequences later?
I beg all this from the spirit, but he does not speak. Instead, he just points a bony hand forward, commanding me to walk with him and see...all of the future, all that may be.
We cross a threshold through mist on a dark night, and see a scroll opened up before me. Written there is a long list of friends' names who have now left my life for one reason or another. I ask the spirit why these souls and I are no longer friends in the future, but he will not say. A sudden gust of wind tosses the scroll up into the cold night sky, and as I watch it rise, the Ghost of Christmas Future suddenly shoves me forward onto the ground, where a second scroll awaits my gaze.
I see written the names of family members now dead, many I know to still be alive. "Spirit!" I plead, "What is this awful future? My loved ones gone so soon? Won't I have more time with them?"
In what feels like a second of time, he blinks, and we are now in a large white room filled with paper and pens, and in the center, a computer. A tiny stack of papers is labeled, "Successes," but throughout the rest of the large room, there are only empty pages representing stories left unwritten or unread.
It's at this point where my sadness is now just a numb feeling of despair, and I completely resent this spirit for showing me all this. I open my mouth to curse him, but we are now in a graveyard covered with snow. A tombstone rises up from the earth, and the strikes of an old-fashioned typewriter slowly type out my name...with a typo, no less.
"Nooooooooooo!!!" I yell. I see the year of death, and I shake my head furiously back and forth in denial. "No, this cannot be. I can't have lived such a short life. No, please, spirit, please tell me this is only the possible future. Why else would you be showing me all this if it is already certain?!" He stares at me emotionless, and watches me writhe in pain. With every tear I cry, he does nothing. Just when I'm about to charge at him, he pushes his bony arm straight through me, and I feel all the truth of his message, all the possibility. I gaze up into his cold, heartless gaze, and I...
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