Foursight - Short Story

The following is a short story written for Battle Tales, a week-long P.E.I. Writers' Guild contest. There were about 30 entries, and Foursight received a runner-up - an award created for this year's contest.

I received the award on my last day of Journalism school. Seeing as Foursight is my official foray into creative writing, this was an excellent affirmation which I hope will motivate my future projects. Please let me know what you think of it, and I hope you enjoy.

Foursight

By Daniel Brown

“Because someday all four of us will be together, Paul. It’s a reminder,” he said, breaking the silence.

“Uh… yeah sure, Henry. Whatever you say.”

The car phone started ringing. Uncanny. I clenched the steering wheel - none of this will ever make sense to me.

Henry reached for the console to answer it. He picked up the phone and pressed the number four button. Then he put it to his ear and listened. I tried to hear what was being said, but as per usual it was muffled. He smiled a little. These days, that only happened during one of these calls.

After a bit, he hung up.

“Why four?” I asked. “I don’t care who’s calling, but is there a reason it’s the four button?”

“It happened at the bridge,” he replied.

I stared at my twin for a moment, then jammed the stick into drive. I tore into the night as the blood in my hands ran dry.

Henry knows the future. Every now and again, he leaves his room and gets into our Mom’s ‘78 Gremlin, which is my cue I’m not getting any homework done that night. We drive around to help people he knows are going to get hurt or hurt themselves. That’s what keeps me going. As much as I resent him, this is a troubled town and I want to help. I don’t know how he does it - something to do with the phone - and he’s hard to have a conversation with. But he always knows when people need him. I’m just the driver.

When we arrived, I parked and flicked the four-ways on. Sure enough, a woman stood hanging from the rails, looking at the stars. Henry stepped out into the stinging cold and walked slowly toward her, holding his hands out as if for balance. I waited in the car.

As he approached, she looked at him and shook her head. Everyone in town knows Henry. They talked, and snow started falling on the crashing waves below. He likely explained how she still has a future and all that. The four-ways began to glimmer off her cheeks. Henry extended his hand, and she climbed over the rail.

The kid strikes again.

I called the police. Henry sat in the car while the cops pestered me with questions I couldn’t fully answer.

Eventually we left town and made for home. During the drive we shared the one thing we have in common - our blank stares into nothing. I get the sense we’re thinking about very different things during these brotherly moments.

I pulled into the driveway. The TV blared from the kitchen, meaning Dad had settled in for the night. I looked at Henry, who was fiddling with some knobs on the car phone even though the frequency is always fine-tuned to begin with. After a pause, he sat back and looked at me.

“This reminds me of our last car,” he said. “But I like this one better. It’s way more rad.”

“I… Henry, this is the only car we’ve ever had,” I said.

He reached and knocked his fist on the dashboard. Then he simply caressed it, moving to the leather door siding, then to the handle.

He opened the door and started for the house. Again, I waited in the car and watched. He walks really slow.

When he was on the front steps, the phone rang.

He didn’t turn around.

It rang again. This hasn’t happened before.

Ring. Henry closed the door behind him. Dad started yelling.

I’m tired of following him around without knowing what’s going on. I’m tired of driving blind. In a swift motion I picked up the phone, pressed four, and put it to my ear.

Radio fuzz. Then a voice.

“Ouy sdeen eh. Thgiserof sih era uoy, luap.”

Radio fuzz.

That was it. I was rattled. Not because Henry didn’t come to answer. Not because whatever I heard was unintelligible. Not because it gave me zero insight into the future whatsoever.

Because it was Mom’s voice.

I dropped the phone, jumped into the cold and ran to the house. The hinges of the screen door squealed as I pulled it and pushed the other door behind.

Henry and I grew up in this house. We were a pleasant surprise for our parents, so they scrounged what they could, got married, and settled here. All things considered, we had an awesome childhood. Dad used to play with me outside every weekend, and Henry was Mom’s right-hand man around the house. Before bed, the four of us would sit around the kitchen table and share our favourite parts of that day.

I burst inside. The refrigerator whirred. The TV went on having a conversation with itself. The table was coated in old mail and empty cans. I looked at Henry in the corner, first as a glare but then a frown. Dad loomed over him, Henry’s hair in one hand and a beer in the other.

I took off my shoes and tossed them on the floor vent.

“... Paul,” Dad said. “I told him he wasn’t going out tonight.”

“I know, Dad, but we don’t really get to choose these things.”

“I forgot to say,” Henry said. “I trust you with this, Paul. Mom and I both.”

He winced. Dad took a swig, then made an addition to the table’s collection.

“You freak!”

I looked down. The kitchen ambiance was joined by the sound of fist meeting skull.

“You got quite the nerve bringing her up with your nonsense,” Dad said. “Paul, go… do your homework. You still got a future… ha, just ask your brother.”

I glanced at Henry, who was staring into nothing. I walked toward the hallway. As I passed the table, I saw ‘Paul’ carved into its edge. I slowed down to touch it, picking at it with my fingers. Dad had let me carve that with his jackknife, back before Mom died. When she found out she was a little mad, but Dad was able to sweet-talk our way out of it.

“What did I say, Paul?” Dad asked.

I can’t think of my favourite part of today.

I let go of the table. I entered the hallway, then went and opened my bedroom door. Without entering, I shut it. I listened carefully, but I knew they’d be in the kitchen for a while yet. I snuck back and carefully opened the door to the basement. Henry’s room.

Two steps at a time, I descended the stairs. My eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark by the time I found the pull chain and gave it a tug, filling the room with light. I looked upstairs and listened for movement. I had to be quick.

Henry’s room was pretty plain. A bed, a table and chair, a lamp. A bookshelf. An old family portrait hanging on the wall. Unused Christmas decorations. On the table was a journal, so I walked over hoping for my first lead.

It was right there on the very first page.

‘Paul, find the four. I need you in on this.’

The kid strikes again.

Absolutely ridiculous. I try and get the slip on him once, and it’s all a part of his grand scheme. Of course he knew I was going to try this. He knew the phone would ring, and he knows I’m down here right now. I’m just his dumb driver who submits to his every command - soon, he’ll come and tell me where to drive next.

I looked for Henry’s extraordinary number four. There wasn’t anything in the room that… oh, he said something earlier, something about all four of us. I looked at the family portrait. We smiled back. I edged my way toward it, reaching out to feel the glass covering Mom’s face. The last time we were seperated by glass was when she flatlined. Dad rushed Henry and I out of the room, the doctors ran over, and for some reason Henry smiled. I watched through the window as both my parents stared into nothing.

I lifted the portrait off the wall, revealing a switch. I flicked it and a secret door swung open, knocking over the Christmas tree.

A soft orange light came from within. The room looks like it used to be a walk-in closet. Mom used to spend a lot of time down here, trying to understand Henry, so she must have covered it up and rigged the door. The fact it exists makes me think she figured him out.

I entered. Inside was a desk holding a CRT monitor, a computer and keyboard, a microphone, and a radio with a large satellite. Wires ran from the desk to more beige machines on the floor. There was a chair, which I pulled out and took a seat on.

The computer displayed a basic program interface. A series of files lined up and down the menu, titled ‘Phone Calls.’ Each had a date stamp and two options beside it - ‘P=Play’ and ‘R=Reverse Play.’ I started tapping the down key and navigated to the bottom. There were two files marked for today.

These must be audio recordings, programmed to be transmitted periodically through the radio for the car phone to receive. I selected today’s most recent - the call I had answered - and tapped P.

“Ouy sdeen eh. Thgiserof sih era uoy, luap,” Mom said over a speaker.

Okay, so it was Mom saying something in reverse. But why’s it reversed? I tapped R.

“Paul, you are his foresight. He needs you.”

C’mon, Mom. What does that even mean? These calls tell Henry the future, so why would he need me? I tapped up once to select the call sent before. The one Henry answered tonight. I tapped R.

“I’m so proud of you for talking her out of it, dear,” Mom said. “A week from today, a man will be attacked on Dorchester St., 12:40 a.m. Show up a bit before… rather, after, and offer him a ride home. He’ll graciously accept. And don’t ever forget - someday all four of us will be together.”

What? We gave that dude on Dorchester a drive last week. And did she mean the woman on the bridge tonight? I listened to a couple other past calls. Each warned of a prior event which we had taken care of by the time the call was transmitted.

A voice came from behind.

“Dad set the Gremlin on fire about five minutes ago.”

I looked around. Henry was standing at the room’s entrance, eye swelling.

“H… Henry,” I said. “What the hell’s going on here?”

He stood there, staring. I got off the chair, brushed passed him, and went to peer out the basement window. The car was unscathed.

“Henry, the Gremlin’s fine,” I said. “Why are all these calls just recaps of past events?”

“Predestination.”

“Stop messing with me, Henry! You said you trust me, so spill it. How do you know the future?”

“My linear is opposite from your linear.”

I hit the wall.

“You don’t make any sense! And these calls are pointless! Today’s didn’t tell you anything about the woman, proving you already knew where to go. How did you know?”

He raised his hand and held up three fingers. Then, he raised a fourth.

“Mom’s dead,” I yelled. “The four of us will never be together again. … Dad’s right, you totally knew she was going to get sick. You didn’t need a phone call - you knew all along!”

Henry stared. I wiped away some tears.

“Why are all her recordings said in reverse? Why do you say everything in the past-tense? It’s like your entire life is completely backwards!”

…

Wait.

He doesn’t know the future. He knows our future.

Henry smiled.

“Because it’s my past.”

The kid strikes again.

“You… experience time in reverse,” I replied. “The only reason you know what’s going to happen is because for you… it already happened.”

I realized he responded to my comment before I made it. For him, I had already made it. For him, he helped the woman before he helped Dorchester dude.

“I don’t know why I’m like this,” he explained. “My first memory is waking up in a bed. I had wrinkly skin and no hair.”

“Throughout your life you helped people because of the calls. So you told Mom all your experiences and she recorded the… wait, no, in my past you told her, but you haven’t even met her yet!”

Our linear experiences of time are opposite. This is nuts.

Henry started breathing heavily. He hunched over and leaned on his knees.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

Suddenly, he started running backwards. He went up the stairs, two steps at a time, without seeing where he was going.

I peered out the window and decided I should probably follow.

I leapt up the stairs, through the hall, and out the kitchen door. The cold stung my shoeless feet.

Henry was slumped over on the ground. Dad loomed over him, holding a jerry can with blood on its side. The flaming Gremlin lit the night.

“I heard everything, Paul,” Dad yelled. “He knew all along she was going to die, and he kept it to himself!”

“No, Dad! He doesn’t get to choose who he helps. It’s all… for us it’s all predestined.”

I started toward Henry, but Dad moved to stand between us. Ah man, I really don’t want to lose another parent.

He pointed at me.

“Don’t you dare help him!”

I looked at my drunken father. Mom’s car burned behind him. My twin looked up at me with a crimson nose.

Henry knows the future. He helps people.

I know Henry’s future. I haven't been helping him.

I clenched my fist, turning my knuckles white as the snow, and I punched Dad in the face.

He slammed into the ground. I ran over to Henry, helped him up, and walked him to the front step. As we sat down, Dad stared up at the stars. He sighed.

“... I was never as good a father as you were.”

He fell unconscious. Henry looked at me.

“Paul, I need to tell you a secret.”

“I know, man. I get it now. I get it.”

The smell of burning rubber hit us hard. The fire must have been noticeable, as the night sky gradually flashed red and blue.

“I’m about to meet my Dad for the first time,” Henry said.

I put my arm around him and pulled him close.

“He’ll be sad at first, but trust me. He’ll start to feel better.”

He leaned his head on my shoulder.

“She’ll be patient,” I continued. “She’s going to love you so much, and do everything she can to make your life happy. Someday, for you… the four of us will be happy together.”

The fire started dying out. We’re gonna need a new car.

“What’s Mom like?” Henry asked.