Note from Steph: I generated a ton of images for this prompt, but this was the one that really stood out to me as having “a story.” I like where Claude and I took the narrative. And I think I've really come to love OpenAI's TTS. I hope they get more voices at some point.
The puddle by the loading dock shows me eating cereal tomorrow morning. Boring. The oil slick in the parking lot reveals next Tuesday’s math test (I’ll get a B-). The window of the closed convenience store reflects me waiting for the bus in the rain next week.
Standard stuff. Future fragments, scattered like bread crumbs through my ordinary life.
I’ve gotten used to it over the past year, these little previews that dissolve like smoke on water. Mom says I’m “at that age” where I space out looking at my reflection. She has no idea I’m watching myself live moments that haven’t happened yet.
But this reflection in the canal… something’s wrong.
The water’s too still, too dark. Usually the future-me is doing something mundane — homework, playing video games, arguing with my sister. But this version of me isn’t moving. Just standing somewhere I don’t recognize, with shadows that look like hands reaching for my shoulders.
The image fades, like they always do, curling away in wisps of darkness. But before it disappears completely, I see something that makes my stomach drop.
Future-me is crying.
And behind me, in the reflection, there’s someone else. Someone wearing a hospital uniform.
The vision dissolves into ripples, but for the first time since these glimpses started, I wish I hadn’t looked.
Some futures should stay hidden.
I spend the next week avoiding reflective surfaces, which is harder than you’d think. No checking my hair in the bathroom mirror. No glancing at store windows. I even turn my phone screen-down so it won’t catch my face.
But you can’t hide from the future forever.
It finds me in a bowl of soup at lunch, of all things. The broth settles just enough to show me another fragment: automatic doors sliding open, fluorescent lights, that same hospital uniform walking ahead of me.
“You okay?” My best friend Matt asks. “You don’t look right.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, stirring the soup until my reflection breaks apart. But now I have more pieces: The hospital. The crying. The uniform. Something’s coming, something bad, and all my glimpses are pointing toward it like arrows.
Then I see today’s date reflected in a puddle: October 21st.
But it’s wrong. It should be the 14th.
Unless…
I pull out my phone and check the calendar. Mom’s birthday is the 21st. She’s been tired lately, working double shifts. Said she’d get a check-up when she had time.
The puddle ripples one last time, showing me a final fragment: a doctor’s concerned face, test results in hand, Mom squeezing my fingers too tight.
I don’t need to see any more.
Some futures need to be changed.
I pull out my phone and dial Mom’s number. “Hey, can we talk? It’s important.”
Image made with Midjourney.
Flash Fiction written by S. J. Pajonas with assistance from Claude 3.5 Sonnet.
Listen to this story on YouTube at https://youtu.be/9Ao5tR4b5nI
