I Remember the Future

Static Blooming

Time hiccups.

That’s the only way I can describe it — a lurch in my chest, a stutter in the world. The colors shift too fast. My hand is holding a mug I don’t remember picking up, and the tea inside is cold, though I remember just pouring it.

There’s music playing in another room.

A song I haven’t heard in years — but I know all the words.

I sing along before I realize my lips are moving.

Then the song ends.And starts again.

Same version. Same skip in the second verse.

Is this déjà vu?

Or am I caught in a loop I once remembered escaping?

The Wrong Dream

I used to think the memories were gifts. Like knowing the punchline before the joke. A secret thread connecting me to something bigger. Maybe fate.

But lately, they feel more like warnings.

Dreams that aren’t mine keep bleeding through.

Memories of cities I’ve never visited. People I’ve never kissed. Deaths I haven’t died — yet.

Last night, I remembered a fire.

Felt it.

The heat on my skin, the smell of scorched paper, someone screaming a name I don’t recognize.

I woke with my hands blistered.

I ran to the mirror.

My skin was smooth.

But I could still smell the smoke.

Collapse Protocol

This morning, the calendar said Tuesday.

But my body remembered Sunday.

My thoughts screamed Thursday.

And my voicemail had three messages from a Friday that hasn’t happened yet.

I opened the window, trying to ground myself.

Outside, the sky was pulsing. Like it was breathing.I knew — in the way you remember falling, right before you hit the ground —that something had shifted.

I wasn’t remembering the future anymore.

I was being remembered by it.

And it didn’t like what I’d done.

The Mirror and the Voice

The mirror blinked.

I don’t mean my reflection — I mean the glass. For one fraction of a moment, I wasn’t there. Not behind it, not in it. The bathroom was empty, and then I was back. The tap still running.

A voice whispered, “We tried to warn you.”

It was my voice. But older. Cracked like a vinyl record.

I gripped the edge of the sink.“Who are you?” I asked aloud.But the voice laughed. Not cruelly. Sadly.

“You are the echo. You’re the version that couldn’t forget.”

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I blinked. And the lights went out.

The Archive Room

It took me hours to find the room.

Or maybe it found me. A hallway that didn’t exist before, a doorknob that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Inside: rows of file cabinets, stretching beyond logic.

Each drawer labeled with dates that haven’t happened yet.

Each folder: a memory I hadn’t had — until I touched it.

I opened one. My wedding. I don’t remember marrying anyone.But the kiss felt real. I smelled lilac and sweat.I felt love. And grief.

The next folder: a war. The next: a hospital. The next: a drowning.

I slammed it shut.

I remembered all of it.

And none of it.

Red Thread

I’m starting to think memory isn’t mine at all.

It’s a parasite, or a network, or a maze I once volunteered to enter.There’s a thread wrapped around my wrist — a red one. I didn’t tie it. I don’t know when it appeared.

But every night I wake with it tighter.

I’ve begun to dream of scissors.

Of cutting free. Of silence.

But then, how would I remember who I am?

I’m scared of forgetting.

But I’m more scared of remembering everything.

Because if I do —I’ll have to admit that the future already happened.

And I couldn’t stop it.

The Room with No Time

There’s a place I reach now, just before sleep —a white room, blank and humming, without clocks, without walls. It stretches both inward and outward. No beginning, no end. Just memory, unthreaded. Floating.

Sometimes I see versions of me there.

One of them is smiling. One is burning. One is asleep, and dreaming of me.

I ask them: “Which one of us is real?”

But they don’t answer.

They just look at me with something like pity.

Or love.

Or recognition.

I think I’m dissolving.Not dying — not quite. But becoming less singular.

More memory than matter.

A ripple where a stone used to be.

I don’t know if this is the end.

Or the start of another memory.

One I haven’t had yet.

One I can’t forget.

Not ever again.