The moment he sits down he admits to you that he can see five minutes into the future, and that he knows this isn’t going to go well, so he might as well leave now. You ask whether him leaving would change the outcome, and he explains that it wouldn’t, because in his vision you got into an argument about whether him leaving would disrupt his vision or fulfil it, and then he left on bad terms. You say that this seems ridiculous, because if he’d just stayed then this conversation wouldn’t have started at all. He says that was never an option, because he once tried to use his visions to change the future and it blew up in his face, so he’s realised it’s best just to go with it. This doesn’t make any sense, and you say so, arguing that surely a minor shift in his behaviour – like having a normal conversation instead of telling you he can see a few minutes into the future and then leaving – could lead to a different outcome that wouldn’t have horrific consequences. He tells you there’s no way to know that, so he’s chosen the safest option, and he really has to get going. You tell him he’s a prick. He smiles, nods, and tells you he knew that’s exactly what you were going to say. You watch in silence as he puts on his jacket, leaves the restaurant, and saves a child about to be hit by a car.
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A Quick Recommendation
‘Man Mountain’ by Catherine Lacey (author of The Answers and Pew) is deceptively simple, taking the concept of (spoilers) a mountain made of men and spinning it into off-beat, pointed and funny asides, with an almost painfully casual voice and dialogue.
I cannot say I fully understood where it came from, but I think we all understood, in a way, where it came from. Not physically where it came from—I mean, no one could really explain that—but the mountain’s sudden appearance was at least understandable from a metaphoric, philosophical, and/or emotional perspective, which is to say it made sense astrologically even if it did not make sense logically.
‘Man Mountain’ is in a new magazine called Astra, which has published a few other pieces online as part of its first issue.
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