Tabula Rasa

Another grimy, suffocating journey miles below ground. He hated every time he got into those tin cans on wheels, resented every second of every single trip, but he knew he had no choice. If he wanted to stay alive, to the tracks below ground he would go. That was the worst part of being psychic, he couldn't pick and choose what he could foresee. Winning lottery tickets? Forget it. Incoming fists headed straight for the temple? Impossible to see until they were mid-hurtle. His own demise? Clear as day and every detail of the gruesome scene ingrained in his brain like a snuff film on repeat. Having witnessed his own way out one day five years ago, he did all he could to avoid everything in that vision. As he took a moment to breathe in the sweet, clean air around him, his eyes met those of another standing a few feet away. They were intriguing, someone he hadn't seen before, although he had carried out this very familiar journey for the past 1,600 days. They had an air of exoticism, a height that was notably peculiar for a local and skin that radiated in this dull climate. The heavy feeling that seeped into his skin from the metro disappeared as their eye contact continued, and he felt in his core that he was being physically, emotionally, spiritually drawn toward them. Within a few minutes he knew their name, their desires, and their deepest secrets and fears. Something shifted that morning, he felt the seismic quake. The next three years sped past in the blink of an eye - a consuming whirlwind of romance. A whirlwind that was filled with adventures to the furthest corners of the earth, petty drunken arguments, and the best sex he'd ever experienced. The visions subsided. He was so caught up in living life that he had lost sight of his imminent death. In a moment of domestic bliss, filling the kettle, flicking through the calendar on the wall and checking the date casually one Saturday morning, a cold dread filled him from the inside. The psychic instincts that used to plague his existence threw themselves into full throttle once more, and before him, his vision was taken over by that familiar scene - the empty junction, the faulty traffic lights, the truck going full-speed directly towards him as the same date flashed on the dashboard. It was all exactly the same as before, except this time, he wasn't the one driving. Looking to his right, he saw them behind the wheel, a distant look in their eyes that were slowly filling with tears as the glow from oncoming headlights filled the scene. The sound of a closing door pulled him back to the present moment as he heard them shout from the other room. Dazed from the vision, he turned off the kitchen tap. “What did you say?” His cold sweat dripped in time with the leaky plumbing. "Come on, we're going for a drive!"