Your Unfinished Future

The last door closes behind you without hurry.

You leave here known by something that cannot quite place your name, answered by a life you decided not to live, and with a line still open behind you. You also go out with more room around you than the corridor promised, amended in a record you were never shown, and unlisted by every forecast above you. And you walk on declining something without ever raising your voice and with your weekend still unspent.

The Counterfactual Communications Boom keeps your line open. Somewhere a receiver is warm, and nobody in that kitchen has hung up.

The Domestic Weather Memory Era files your future under shelter. Expect rain indoors, and a voice calling you in before the thunder.

The Civic Time Expansion Era expects you back. It is still holding a day with your name on it and no year to put it in.

The doors lock behind you. The exhibits continue without an audience, as they have for years.