Shards Of A Broken Life

I am blind yet I can see. And what I see is a curse.

I know not what I am, except for the fact that I am not real, but the result of a successful scientific experiment. I used to be human once, I think, but I do not know for sure. I can only see the future and live the present.

I am nothing but a vessel that has only one purpose: to see the future. I have no concept of the word beauty nor do I understand what strange sounds music is. I do not know the meaning of colors yet I see them, in a way. I cannot feel happy or sad. I cannot understand the workings of a human mind nor do I understand distance and time.

It is all the same to me. Except for pain. That is the only thing I fully understand.

I have the gift of foresight. But to me, it is a curse. I cannot remember anything about myself, my name, my origins, if I was made or if I was born. There is just blankness where all the happy memories should be stored. Strange that I see my future but not my past as every mortal can. I have seen great empires fall, the coming of a new age, the Apocalypse, the death of the sun, the birth of a new one and the last seconds of the universe.

I see everything there is to see of the future, even further beyond the existence of mankind, stretching on into infinity. I see the future for all; animate and inanimate objects, every death, even my own.

Strange, that I can see when I have no eyes.

Yet I know that I am kept in a huge cylindrical glass tube, my body that of a human, sustained by a combination of the earth’s minerals. Around me there are people, walking to and fro, taking my readings, flipping through charts, talking, laughing and examining my body needs and temperature on the computer screens.

Who are these people in white coats I do not know, nor what they are doing. But two minutes from now, a female will walk over to the large blank screen in the left corner of the room and turn it on. That white screen will light up and glow.

And my torture will begin.

Again pictures will form in my head and coalesce, like snapshots from a camera, sometimes into moving fragments, sometimes into still pictures, forever frozen in time.

I already know what I will see: the death of a king, a woman crying over the body of her only child, a virus that will kill everything living and then itself, a happily married couple snuggling before a fireplace after coming in from a storm, the explosion of a star that will create a black hole and strangely enough, my freedom.

It seems that I have been waiting forever for that day. The black hole that is my only salvation, giving me hope that someday I might be free from the never-ending pain the machines bring me.

There. I feel it. She must have switched the equipment on.

I hear myself scream as the pain begins. All that I have said appears on the screen in picture form and the white-coated people begin to panic. I can hear their excited murmuring even as my material body bends over in pain.

It is always the same, this agonizing, mind-numbing pain that spreads throughout my entire body. It begins in my head and creeps slowly like flowing water until my entire body is engulfed in spasms and fits. I endure this every 10 minutes as the white coated people take my prophesies and analyze them.

I scream again, my back arching against the bonds holding me back against the bed that has been my resting place since I was made. I am in pain yet no one takes notice. I am no longer a living being and thus do not deserve their time or their pity. They save these feelings only for their own kind.

I am a very important asset, so much so that wars have been fought over me. And yet…no one cares about me or the way I feel.

I would have loved to be spoken to and touched. My pipe dream of a comforting hand over mine and words offering solace is merely that: a pipe dream.

Bliss. I have been given a momentary lapse from the pain.

I hear raised voices; they are going to move me because they are afraid they will lose me to the black hole.

For once, I understand the meaning of happiness as a small smile creeps over my face. They cannot change the future that I have seen. A split second later, the machine is turned on again and I endure yet another round of pain. So much pain that it is beyond the human comprehension.

I cannot remember how long I have been here, except that it has been a very long time. It might have been a year, or a millennia, I do not know. As I have said, I have no concept of time.

A vision of my past appears, the only one I have; of a figure whispering in my ear that I would be a blessing to mankind. But what is a blessing? This pain and torture?

The pain stops again and I feel my fragile form fall back onto the bed.

I do not think that the white coated people are aware that I have a mind of my own. They do not know that I can feel, think and hear. Patience, I tell myself. The time will come when at last I will be free from this glass cage.

But they know it too, that I will be free and what I will do when I am. They see the future the same time I do, the clear images of the time to come, transferred from my mind onto the large white screen: I will escape and I will have my revenge in a way that will rend the universe asunder.

I smile again. These pathetic creatures will not shut me down, greed a vicious monster in every human heart because I bring in a heavy income and the time of my escape is yet uncertain. It could be later today, or a hundred years from now. But one thing is for sure: I will be free.

I, a wrong experiment turned right will shape the future of my own choosing. That is the future I see. I will no longer be subject to hours of endless torture and pain. The black hole will trigger these powers and enable me to play havoc with the future.

I, who am nothing but a consciousness in a dead body.

I, who has shown mankind the future.

I, who will take it back when my time comes.