Your Unfinished Future

The last door closes behind you without hurry.

You leave here with more room around you than the corridor promised, amended in a record you were never shown, and unlisted by every forecast above you. You also go out carrying a day that was never yours to keep, quietly owing more than you agreed to spend, and declining something without ever raising your voice. And you walk on already expected somewhere eleven years ahead and released from an apology you had prepared.

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

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