Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: If you could see the terrible things that might happen to the people you love, how much of their freedom would you be justified in taking away to prevent those futures?
The window showed tomorrow.
Only tomorrow.
Not next year.
Not ten years.
Not destiny.
Tomorrow.
Mira discovered this because she saw her neighbor’s chimney fall before it happened.
The window had been in the attic when she bought the house.
Small.
Round.
Cloudy glass.
Too thick to see through clearly.
Mira planned to replace it.
Then one evening she looked through.
Her neighbor Pell was standing beside his house.
The chimney was lying across his vegetable garden.
Bricks everywhere.
Pell had both hands on his head.
Mira looked away.
The chimney was still standing.
She looked through again.
Broken.
Away.
Standing.
Through.
Broken.
“Pell!”
He came outside.
“What?”
“Your chimney is going to fall.”
Pell looked up.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Mira considered explaining the magical attic window.
Instead:
“It looks unstable.”
Pell inspected it.
“It looks fine.”
“Please.”
“Mira.”
“Just don’t stand near it tomorrow.”
Pell laughed.
“Fine.”
The next afternoon, the chimney collapsed.
Exactly as Mira had seen.
Nobody was hurt.
Pell stopped laughing.
They tested the window.
Carefully.
At sunset, it showed approximately the same place one day later.
They placed a red chair in the yard.
Through the window, the chair was overturned.
They left it.
Next day, wind knocked it over.
They moved a barrel.
The window showed it split.
The next day, a cart backed into it.
Pell became excited.
“We can prevent things.”
Mira became frightened.
Same discovery.
Different response.
At first, they used it for obvious dangers.
A horse loose in the road.
A kitchen fire.
A tree falling across a house.
Every warning worked.
People began asking Mira to look.
“Check my journey.”
“Check my shop.”
“Check my daughter.”
“Check the harvest.”
The window became famous.
Mira’s attic became crowded every evening.
Then she saw Pell dead.
He was lying beside the river.
Face down.
Mira screamed.
Pell pushed past her.
“What?”
She blocked the window.
“Nothing.”
“Mira.”
“Don’t go to the river tomorrow.”
His face changed.
“What did you see?”
“Promise me.”
“What did you see?”
“Promise.”
He stared.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
Mira locked him inside her house.
Pell objected.
“You said don’t go to the river.”
“You might change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
“You might forget.”
“Mira.”
She kept the key.
He became angry.
She didn’t care.
Tomorrow arrived.
Pell remained inside.
At sunset, alive, he said:
“Happy?”
“Yes.”
“Open the door.”
She did.
Pell walked home without speaking.
The next evening, Mira checked again.
Pell was alive.
Relief.
Then she saw her sister with a broken arm.
“Don’t ride tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Please.”
Her sister sighed.
“Mira.”
“No horse.”
She stayed home.
No broken arm.
Success.
Then Mira saw her nephew with a burned hand.
She kept him away from the stove.
Then her mother falling on stairs.
Mira made her stay downstairs.
Then Pell being kicked by a horse.
Mira told him not to visit the market.
Pell refused.
They argued.
“You asked me to check.”
“I asked whether the roof would leak.”
“I saw you.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting hurt.”
“How badly?”
“I don’t know.”
“So now I can’t go to market?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Mira stared.
“You could be seriously injured.”
“I could also be bruised.”
“You don’t know.”
“Neither do you.”
Pell went.
The horse kicked him.
On the thigh.
He limped for a week.
Mira was furious.
Pell was delighted.
“You nearly got kicked to death.”
“I got a bruise.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“Exactly.”
He pointed toward the attic.
“Neither did you.”
The window showed events.
Not meanings.
A person crying could be grieving.
Or laughing.
A shattered window could mean violence.
Or renovation.
Blood could mean murder.
Or childbirth.
Mira began discovering how much interpretation she had added.
That did not stop her looking.
It made her look more.
She checked everyone she loved.
Every evening.
Soon she had rules.
Mother doesn’t use stairs tomorrow.
Nephew stays home.
Sister avoids horses.
Pell does not cross the bridge.
Mira does not enter the bakery.
At first, everyone cooperated.
Then they became tired.
Her sister finally shouted:
“I have not ridden in three weeks!”
“I keep seeing accidents.”
“You see me falling off horses because I ride horses!”
“Yes!”
“That is part of riding!”
“You could die.”
“I could die walking here.”
Mira went quiet.
Her sister pointed toward the attic.
“Check.”
“No.”
“Check whether I die tomorrow walking home.”
“I don’t use it that way.”
“You absolutely use it that way.”
Mira checked.
Through the window, her sister lay in the road.
Mira’s stomach turned.
“You’re staying.”
Her sister laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
She slept at Mira’s house.
The following evening, she was alive.
Mira checked again.
Her sister was lying beside a well.
“Stay.”
Another day.
Another image.
Her sister beneath a tree.
Another.
On stairs.
Another.
Beside the river.
Every tomorrow contained a different disaster.
Mira stopped sleeping.
Pell found her surrounded by notes.
“What are you doing?”
“Something is wrong.”
“With the window?”
“With her.”
Mira’s sister sat in the corner, furious.
“I have been imprisoned for six days.”
Mira ignored her.
“Every day she dies somewhere different.”
Pell looked at the window.
Then at the notes.
“Maybe.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Maybe the window isn’t showing what will happen.”
“We know that.”
“No.”
Pell shook his head.
“We know it shows things that can happen.”
Mira stared.
They tested it differently.
Pell looked through.
He saw himself falling from a ladder.
Then Mira looked.
She saw Pell cutting his hand.
Her sister looked.
She saw Pell choking at dinner.
Three viewers.
Three tomorrows.
All plausible.
None certain.
The window was not prophecy.
It was possibility.
Mira sat on the attic floor.
Months of fear reorganized themselves.
“How many things did I prevent?”
Pell shrugged.
“Some.”
“How many would never have happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Mira began crying.
Her sister sat beside her.
After a moment, Mira said:
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you angry?”
Her sister took her hand.
“Because those things don’t give you ownership of tomorrow.”
Mira covered the window.
For a year.
She considered destroying it.
Didn’t.
The window itself had done nothing wrong.
It showed possibilities.
People had always imagined terrible possibilities.
This one simply made them vivid.
Eventually Mira uncovered it.
She used it differently.
Before dangerous construction.
Before storms.
When someone was missing.
When there was a specific reason to look.
Never simply because she loved someone.
That was the hardest rule.
Years later, her nephew found her in the attic.
He was grown now.
“Does it really show tomorrow?”
“Sometimes.”
“Can you check something?”
“What?”
“My wife is traveling tomorrow.”
Mira understood immediately.
“You’re worried.”
“Yes.”
“Is there a particular danger?”
“No.”
“Storm?”
“No.”
“Bad roads?”
“No.”
“I won’t look.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because you love her.”
“That seems like a reason to look.”
Mira smiled sadly.
“It feels exactly like one.”
He sat beside her.
“What if something happens?”
“Then something happens.”
“You can say that?”
“No.”
She laughed.
“I can barely tolerate saying it.”
He looked toward the covered glass.
“So what’s the point of having it?”
Mira thought.
“To help when information can help.”
“And the rest?”
“The rest is living.”
After he left, Mira removed the cloth.
The evening light touched the cloudy glass.
For just a moment, she considered looking for herself.
One day.
One tiny piece of certainty.
Then she covered it again.
Tomorrow was dangerous.
It always had been.
That was not the same thing as tomorrow belonging to her.
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