"Silhouettes - Of Monsters And Men"

There was a time where I couldn't think of anything else. It was the central item of all of my daydreams. It flowed from my hands as soon as I could hold a crayola, and it was the main reason I grew into an artist.

At first, it was completely random. Sometimes I would see things that were going to happen the following week. Sometimes I would see so far into the future that people didn't even look like people anymore. Once, I watched as our planet died - but it was okay, I knew that at that point there was no one left who could get hurt.

Some things have always annoyed me - for instance, how fast my visions would fade away, like dreams falling apart as soon as you wake up. I knew that I was seeing things with absolute clarity as long as I was inside my vision, but afterwards, it was all blurry (it was even worse with the far distant future, where many things were completely incomprehensible to me to begin with).

And then, when the things I had seen actually came to pass, I remembered. Just when it was too late. Even worse, at some point I realized, on a very intimate level, that nothing I could do would alter the future I had seen. Once, I emerged from a vision of impending disaster and spent several weeks frantically trying to piece the clues together, but it turned out everything I had done only ended up playing into the outcome I had foreseen. I made dozens of attempts such as this one, always with the same results.

At least I learned how to control the visions, to a degree. It was not a very precise craft - if I tried to focus on a specific day, I would always be several days off, sometimes even weeks. I'm not complaining, though - it was still a huge improvement.

But the event that truly changed my relationship to my visions, the event that made me into the person I am today, occured when I had just moved into my first apartment.

It was a lazy afternoon, and I decided to take a trip to a point in time I had never seen before, roughly 60 years into the future.

Here's what I remember: Colours. So many colours. There were even glasses that made you see colours people cannot naturally see. Fantastic shapes everywhere. So many flying things buzzing through the skies. Giant pits filled with dancing lights. Toys as big as skyscrapers - oh, people were taking them very seriously, but in reality, they really were just toys, and it was okay.

And happy faces. Happy faces wherever you looked. It was... it was as if the whole world was laughing. I was laughing, too - it was overwhelming.

Then I walked into a big, dome-shaped structure. Inside, it was dark, with only a few strategically placed sources of light, illuminating the exhibits. It was some sort of museum. I was as intrigued by this as I was by anything else in this world, darting from room to room. But then I paused. It took me a few moments to really process what I was looking at. I was in a history museum.

And... You see, I suspect that strong emotional states actually make it harder for me to remember my visions. I've tried hypnosis, but that didn't get me much farther, either. Truth be told, as much as I'm trying to focus, some parts of me are actually fighting the vision. This particular vision. I can't blame them.

When I returned to my apartment, I realized that I had pulled most of my hair out. I was still screaming, and tears were running down my face. I was shaking, and icy waves were running down my back, again and again.

"NO, PLEASE GOD, PLEASE GOD, NO", I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I had never believed in God in all of my adult life, but it didn't matter.

"PLEASE, GOD, PLEASE EVERYTHING, PLEASE NO..."

My neighbours were already knocking on my door, shouting, asking if I was alright. I didn't even hear them. I was literally rolling on the floor, banging my head against things. I squeezed my hands between my legs to fight the temptation of clawing my own eyes out.

...

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that History is neither good nor bad. That life is not a fairy tale with a happy ending, nor a cosmic tragedy. Things will happen for as long as they can. Good things. Bad things. Unspeakable things.

It's like our world was a big pool of water. Occasionally, someone will pull the plug. By the time we manage to put it back in, millions of us have vanished.