The Man Who Borrowed Tomorrows

No one noticed when the man first arrived in the city, because cities are excellent at ignoring people who don’t ask for attention.

He rented a small room above a tailor’s shop, paid in exact change, and kept to himself. Every morning, he left at the same time—just after sunrise—and returned just before nightfall. He spoke politely, listened carefully, and never stayed long in conversations. If you asked him what he did for a living, he smiled and said, “I manage time.”

Most people laughed at that.

They didn’t laugh when things started changing.

At first, it was small. The bakery on the corner stopped burning its bread. A woman who had missed the same bus for years suddenly arrived early every day. A struggling musician wrote the song that finally made people listen. It felt like luck, the kind you don’t question because questioning luck feels dangerous.

But luck has patterns, and patterns attract attention.

One evening, the tailor noticed something strange. The man upstairs hadn’t come home, but the lights in his room were on. Curious, the tailor climbed the narrow stairs and knocked. No answer. He opened the door.

The room was empty except for a desk covered in notebooks—hundreds of them—each labeled with dates that hadn’t happened yet.

Tomorrow. Next week. Ten years from now.

The tailor didn’t understand what he was looking at, but he felt it in his bones: these were not plans. They were memories.

The man returned late that night and found the tailor waiting. He didn’t look angry. He looked tired, the way people look when they’ve been carrying something heavy for too long.

“I was hoping no one would find those,” he said quietly.

The tailor asked the question that felt safest. “Are they real?”

The man nodded. “I borrow tomorrows. Small pieces. Just enough to see what could be.”

He explained that some people are born with strange gifts. His was the ability to step slightly ahead of time—not far, not freely, but enough to glimpse outcomes. Successes. Failures. Regrets. He could take a fragment of the future, bring it back, and adjust the present.

“And the cost?” the tailor asked.

The man smiled again, but this time it didn’t reach his eyes. “The future doesn’t like being borrowed from. Every time I change something, it takes something from me instead.”

The tailor noticed then how old the man looked up close. Not in years, but in weight—like someone who had lived too many endings.

Over time, the city flourished. Businesses thrived. Accidents declined. People felt hopeful without knowing why. The man continued walking the streets every day, quietly correcting moments before they broke.

But he began to fade.

He forgot names. Then faces. Then entire days. The notebooks grew thinner, the dates closer. His borrowed tomorrows were running out.

One morning, he didn’t leave his room.

The tailor found him sitting at the desk, staring at the final notebook. It had no date on it.

“I can see one last future,” the man said. “But if I take it, I won’t come back.”

The tailor asked what the future looked like.

The man closed his eyes. “The city keeps going. People still find joy. They never know I existed.”

“That sounds worth it,” the tailor said softly.

The man nodded. “It does.”

By sunset, the room was empty.

The city never noticed his absence. Life continued, messy and beautiful, full of mistakes and miracles. But sometimes, when someone narrowly avoided disaster or found courage they didn’t know they had, it felt like a quiet echo—like time itself had once been kinder.

And somewhere beyond tomorrow, a man finally rested, having spent his life giving others the future he would never see.