Your Unfinished Future

The last door closes behind you without hurry.

You leave here declining something without ever raising your voice, unadvised by anyone, including yourself, and with an old sentence finally allowed to end. You also go out released from an apology you had prepared.

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.

Keep the ticket. None of these futures arrived, and one of them is now yours.