For almost his entire life William James Douglas could see the future.

He couldn't see the future of mankind, or the future that would affect hundreds of people, or even the future of anyone except one person.

Himself. He would see, in detail, in horrible, excruciating detail, what would happen to him in a few minutes, hours, months, or years.

When he was six, Billy (that's what he was called when he was that young) had been playing with his legos on the living room floor. His mother was upstairs, vacuuming the guest bedroom. His father ran about the house. Fixing things, straightening them about, checking for dust. Grandma Douglas was coming for a visit, and she would want everything perfect. Billy's mother and father both knew this and were trying their hardest to achieve perfection before she arrived.

Billy sat on the floor building a castle with his Legos completely unconcerned. He was a quiet child, on the withdrawn side. His parents were worried that he would always be like that. He hadn't learned to talk until he was three. He just didn't see a reason to reach out. He stayed in his own little world, perfectly happy with his own imagination.

As he built a tower on the rather impressive multi-colored plastic castle he felt a tickling in the middle of his forehead. He reached up to scratch it and suddenly his head snapped backwards as though he'd been struck. A sudden flood of images assaulted him. And then it was over. Billy straightened back home. And suddenly he knew that his Grandma Douglas, in her rush to see her grandson, who she never got to see, it was just terrible how little she got to see her grandson, would trip over his little lego castle and break her hip.

He sat there and thought about this. He was not a quick witted child, his intelligence was more of a ponderous nature. And so it took him a while to come to a decision. He carefully picked up his castle and moved it out of the middle of the living room floor and closer to the wall, over by the bookshelf. There. Now she wouldn't trip. Billy smiled.

Because of he was so young he took the vision in stride. Why shouldn't he have some sort of forewarning of Grandma Douglas's accident?

He continued to work on his little castle. His mother finished vacuuming upstairs and then rushed down into the kitchen to make little Billy's lunch. Billy worked until he heard his mother calling him to lunch. He jumped up and ran out into the kitchen.

While he was eating, his father charged into the room. He was looking for the book Grandma Douglas gave him for his birthday. He had to skim it so she'd think he had read it. Otherwise she'd be so terribly disappointed that he hadn't read her present, did he not like his poor old mother's present?

Billy's father spotted the book. It was sitting on the bookshelf behind Billy's castle. His father rushed forward and shoved the castle into the middle of the room with his foot, bent over, and snatched up the book. He hurried off to another room to straighten something.

The doorbell rang.

Both of Billy's parents froze, then charged off towards the door to let Grandma Douglas in. Billy left his sandwich on his plate in the kitchen (he hated baloney) and headed back into the living room to work on his castle.

He froze. It was back in the center of the room. Stunned he stared at it, and then Grandma Douglas bustled into the room, not looking at the floor, but at the shell-shocked Billy. And tripped over his little lego castle, breaking her hip. Later, in Grandma Douglas's hospital room, Billy thought on this. He had seen what was going to happen and had tried to stop it from happening. He had tried to make things better. Things hadn't gotten better. He was too young to understand about fate, but the concept was being born in his mind. Maybe he couldn't change what he saw in his thought pictures.

Billy continued to have these thought-pictures, these visions, more and more frequently as he grew up. When he turned ten Bill (as he wanted to be called now, he was ten, almost grown-up now, too old to be called a baby name like Billy) was hit by a particularly nasty vision. His vision showed him at tonight's baseball game. He was up at bat and the pitcher through the ball with what he called his fast ball. Bill wasn't paying attention and the ball struck him in the face, instantly breaking his nose.

Bill spent the rest of the day arguing with his parents that he did not want to go to his game today. " You spent all last year begging to be in Little League, and now you don't want go to your first game?" said his mother.

"I'm going to get hit with the ball!" Bill said.

"Nonsense, you can't be scared of a little ball," his father said, "get your gear and let's go."

Bill sat in the car on the way to the baseball field sitting quietly in the backseat. I'll just duck he thought. Or I can tell the coach I sprained my wrist and can't play. Bill felt a sense of relief spreading through him. That's it, he could tell the coach he hurt his wrist and wouldn't be able to go up at bat. He leaned back in his seat and smiled.

When they got to the park Bill was still smiling, he swung his bat over one shoulder and headed off towards the field. He even began to whistle a bit. His parents called out words of good luck, Bill waved at them, and continued on.

However, the Coach Lewis knew how to check for a sprained wrist, and simply attributed Bill's story to nerves. Coach Lewis knew the best way to deal with nerves was to send the child out immediately, that way they'd be able to get over their fears quick as possible.

Which is how Bill found himself at home plate, bat in hand, facing the pitcher. Bill stared at the pitcher, KNOWING what would happen. Grim resolve started to fill him. He wasn't just going to stand there and get hit by that damn ball. He was going to hit it out of the damn park. He was going to hit it so damn suddenly he knew only blinding pain. The ball had been pitched while he had stood there psyching himself up.

And so it went. Bill had hundreds more visions. As he got older they seemed to come with more and more frequency. The visions became less and less welcome. For Bill knew that no matter what he saw he could never change it. If he saw something terrible happen to him all he could do was wait and let it happen. He had to relive every tragedy, every embarrassing incident, every frustrating occurrence twice. He saw good things too, but he began to hate even these visions. A surprise party was no longer a surprise, he found out about the car he was getting for graduation three months before he got it, he knew the girl he would ask out.

And so it went. Bill turned 18, he saw his graduation ceremony, and how his father would die of cancer. He turned 20. He saw himself asking Sara Drury out and getting rejected. He saw the mugger who came out of nowhere and stabbed his best friend while he watched (twice).

He went through life with resignation. Merely going from point A to point B. Then to C. He applied for a job knowing he wouldn't get it. Then go to the next job interview knowing he would. He went through his relationships knowing when a fight would come up and be helpless to do anything about it.

When he was 26 he went into the gun shop and bought a small handgun.

He hadn't had any visions for a while. He sat down in his chair in the small apartment that he had known to lease. He laid the gun on the small end table next to him. And waited.

The vision came. When it was over he found he was crying.

He picked up the small gun and looked at it in his hands.