Have you ever had the feeling that as you turned left, rather than turning right, your life took an entirely different direction?
That was exactly how Harriet felt, sitting in the heat of the day beneath a parasol as the wind gently buffeted it, sipping her chocolate and caramel frappuccino as mere feet away, cars and their angry, irate drivers were going nowhere fast.
There had been an accident, a hit and run apparently. A young mother and her child had been killed whilst crossing the road.
The thing is, Harriet had a sneaking suspicion that events had not played out quite as they were supposed to. In fact, she had a rather strong inkling that it was supposed to have been her, not the young mother and her child, who had fallen beneath the wheels of the car, apparently driven by an extremely cowardly individual.
"You're right, you know."
Harriet hadn't noticed the man sit down opposite her, which she found quite odd considering the man's attire. Surely she would have noticed that a man with incredibly dirty dreadlocks and tight-fitting body armour that looked as though it would protect its wearer from a close range nuclear blast, carrying what looked very much like a weapon capable of destroying a tank with nothing more than a tickle and the hilt of a sword protruding above each shoulder, sat down opposite her.
"I'm right?" she asked, thinking it was probably in her best interests to show politeness at the very least. "About what?"
"About the fact it was supposed to be you laying on the ground, dying of death after being hit by an Alfa Romeo doing seventy-three, give or take, in a built up area."
"How did you..?"
"Because I'm from the future," he replied, pausing to light a cigarette using a match struck upon the stubble of his chin. "Specifically, this future, 'cos until you didn't get killed in that hit and run, I didn't exist."
Harriet was confused, quite rightly, and she was well aware that her expression alluded to said confusion.
"I'm not surprised you're confused," the man said with a smile. "I'd wager that if I wasn't aware of the whole cause and effect malarkey, I'd be pretty confused as well."
"Cause and effect is simple enough to get my head around," Harriet replied. "What I don't understand is how my lack of death on this day makes any difference to whether or not you exist. I mean, are we related in some way?"
"No, nothing like that," he said with a shrug. "At this point in time, my closest living ancestors are a stripper working out of Las Vegas and an eleven year old schoolboy from Inverness."
Apparently she must of shot him a rather shocked expression because he hastily added, "don't worry, they don't get together for another ten years or so."
"Then I don't understand," she said, taking a brief pause to finish her frappuccino. "How does my continued existence influence your future existence?"
"Trust me, your continued existence influences a lot." Now it was his turn to pause once again, and stare directly at a man walking by who appeared to have taken interest in the arsenal of weaponry he was carrying.
"Move along, dickhead. Nothing to see here."
The interested man shrugged and shook himself, then went about whatever business he had that day. Later, it all came back to him and he spent hours and hours, trawling various online search engines in search of reference to a heavily armed man sitting outside a Starbucks in Central London, but found no such thing.
"Most people don't believe what their eyes tell them," he continued as he turned back to Harriet. "Most people, upon seeing all these weapons would simply assume it's their mind playing tricks... There's always one, though..."
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TK Special #1 - AngusEcrivain... Apparently He Writes Sci-Fi, Too!
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