Chapter 1
My name's John Williams. I'm thirty-six, and honestly, I've got nothing to my name.
My grandpa picked this name for me, saying an easy name means an easy life. Well, I did survive, but I'd been stuck with this lousy life for thirty-six years.
No wife, no kids, no savings, no house. I rent a single room in a run-down part of the city for 150 bucks a month. The bathroom's shared, and the kitchen's out in the hallway. Whenever someone fries up some pork, the whole floor reeks of it.
I'd been a delivery guy for eight years, and I am still just a delivery guy. It is not like I haven't thought about moving up, but I don't have what it takes. I've got no degree, no connections. And I'm not good at schmoozing. All I've got is my electric bike and legs that never quit.
I get up at 6:30 every morning, head out by 7, and usually get off work around 8 or 9 at night. When it's the big sales season, I'm out until midnight. I get two days off a month, and my take-home pay is just over 1,500 bucks. After paying rent, utilities, and food, I'm left with about 300 bucks. I can't afford to get sick, can't afford to give gifts, and definitely can't afford to date.
Dating's pointless for me. Last year, I went on a blind date. She sat with me for ten minutes, hit me with three questions, "Got a house? Got a car? How much money you got?", then made an excuse to use the restroom and never showed up again.
I picked up the tab, 40 bucks. Walking home, I thought that could've covered my meals for a week.
That's my life. Just a straight road, nothing but dust as far as I can see.
That night, I came home from work, so tired my legs were shaking. It was past eleven, and the alley was pitch black. The streetlight had been broken for half a month, and nobody bothered to fix it. I felt my way along the wall, stepped in a puddle, cursed under my breath, and kept going.
When I got to my door, I saw it was cracked open.
I froze for a second. I was sure I'd locked it that morning.
I pushed the door open. I hadn't even turned on the lights yet, but I could already see someone sitting on my bed.
It was an old man, skinny, dressed in a shabby winter coat, his hair white as snow. He sat on my messy bed, hands on his knees, just watching me.
My first reaction was that he was a thief. But a thief wouldn't be sitting there so calmly.
A ghost? But since when did ghosts wear old winter coats?
"Who are you?" I asked.
The old man just stared at me in silence.
I reached for the light switch, and the room flooded with light. He was still there, hadn't disappeared or turned into anything else. He just sat there, the lines on his face seeming even deeper in the harsh glow.
"Are you John?" he finally spoke. His voice was rough, like sandpaper on wood.
"Who are you?" I asked.
He slowly got up and walked over to me. He was half a head shorter than me, but I couldn't help but step back.
"My name's John Williams," he said.
My mind went blank.
*****
"Are you screwing with me?" I shot back.
He didn't get angry. He just stared at me, his gaze strange, hard to describe, but it made me really uneasy.
"Thirty-six years ago today," he said, "you were born."
I froze.
"Me too," he said.
That night, we ended up talking for what felt like forever.
He told me he was me, me at sixty-two, from thirty-six years in the future.
Of course, I didn't believe a word of it. I told him he must be drunk or out of his mind, and that he'd better get lost before I called the cops.
He didn't budge. Just sat there, letting me rant until I was done.
"You've got a mole on the sole of your left foot," he said.
I instinctively drew my foot back.
"When you were seven, you fell into a river and almost drowned. A passing farmer named Tim Nelson pulled you out. Your dad went to thank him afterward," he said.
A chill ran down my back.
"When you were eighteen, you came down with a fever, 102.6 degrees, the night before SAT. You tanked the test, repeated the year, and still blew it the second time," he said.
"When you were twenty-three, you dated a girl named Fiona Grace for two years. She ended up running off with some guy who owned a car repair shop. You still dream about her," he said.
"Your dad died five years ago from lung cancer. Your mom passed three years ago from a stroke. When you said goodbye to them, you didn't shed a single tear, not because you weren't hurting, but because you just couldn't cry," he said.
"You, " he continued.
"That's enough," I cut him off.
I sat in the chair, he sat on the bed, and we just stared at each other. The room was dead quiet, except for the occasional meow from a stray cat outside.
"How did you get here?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said. "I went to sleep, and when I woke up, I was here."
"Why'd you come?" I asked.
He gave me that look again, and this time, I could tell, it was pity.
"I'm here to tell you," he said slowly, "don't."