In the science fiction love story Six Months, Three Days, the first line sets up the scenario: "The man who can see the future has a date with the woman who can see many possible futures." But can two people who recall the future the way the rest of us recall the past ever find happiness together?
Once they’ve broken the taboo on talking about the future in general, Doug suddenly feels free to talk about their future, specifically. They’re having a romantic dinner at one of those restaurant/bars, with high-end American food and weird pseudo-Soviet iconography everywhere. Doug is on his second beer when he says, “So, I guess in a couple of weeks, you and I have that ginormous fight about whether I should meet your parents. And about a week after that, I manage to offend Marva. Honestly, without meaning to. But then again, in a month and a half’s time, we have that really nice day together on the boat.”
“Please don’t,” Judy says, but she already knows it’s too late to stop it.
“And then after that, there’s the Conversation. I am not looking forward to the Conversation.”
“We both know about this stuff,” Judy says. “It’ll happen if and when it happens, why worry about it until then?”
“Sorry, it’s just part of how I deal with things. It helps me to brace myself.”
Read the entire tale by Charlie Jane Anders at Tor.com. Link -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Sam Weber)