Free, Kevin R.: It is before, not when I suggested we invest in a shelving unit, so we can finally organize the supply boxes obstructing the hallway. Not when I suggested we buy blackout curtains for the front-lobby, so the afternoon sunlight doesn't turn this place into an oven, since we're a damn ice cream shop and we can't operate at 95 degrees without jacking up our refrigeration costs. Nah, he won't listen to me. And even on the off chance that he does, Scoop doesn't do anything without asking a million questions first, and my only answer to the inevitable question, how do you know for sure? Will be, I can see the future and ideas so ridiculous that I didn't even believe it until I got out of that hospital and it started interfering with my daily life. I can't touch anything with the palm side of my hands without seeing what will happen to it in the next few moments. The longer I touch it, the further into the future I can see.

With most things, I can make the vision stop a split second after it begins so it's more like a photograph flashing in my head. But if I want to see further, which is rare these days, I can let it keep going for as long as I'm touching it. I've picked up this scoop so many times working here. I've seen myself holding it while I'm wearing a tank top and my arm is glistening with sweat. I've seen myself holding it with my long sleeves, tucked over my knuckles as the front door swings open and gusts of snow flurries fly in behind a customer who has no business buying ice cream in that kind of weather. Then it changes hands, a white hand is scooping ice cream as customers enter in tank tops, more kids staring from the other side of the counter in bathing suits and sunglasses. Then gradually people coming in with their hands, red from the cold. Fingers curled around hot coffee cups, ordering through the scarves pulled up over their faces.

Two summers, two winters. I'd say Scoop has about two years left before this place goes under, two. I'll have graduated and gone off to college by then. And even if this place closed tomorrow, there'd still be no point in trying to warn him. I've tried to alter the future too many times to think it'll work anymore. I remember a vision I had during a camping trip three years ago, a vision I'll never forget. Me, Aunt Mackie, my little brother, Isaiah, my best friend, Sean and his little sister, who's now my girlfriend, Tahlia, spent a weekend at Starved Rock State Park out in Oglesby. Aunt Mackie was grilling hot dogs and she asked me to put the bag of buns on the picnic table. I picked them up and caught a vision of Isaiah slipping on the bag, falling and breaking his arm.

So despite the risk of flies and flying charcoal pieces landing on them, I took all the buns out of the bag, left them open on a plate and tossed the bag in the garbage, crisis averted I thought, but then Aunt Mackie asked Isaiah to run the trash to the dumpster. The crumpled up little bun bag rolled out at some point while he walked and on his way back, his foot found the slippery plastic. Another time, while walking past a construction site, I tried to prevent a beam from falling and bursting a fire hydrant, which I touched, by yelling up at the foreman to watch out. If he hadn't been distracted, he might've caught it. No matter what I do it doesn't help. The mess happens anyway and I just end up embarrassed, often because it looks like I caused whatever I'd been trying to prevent. So I've stopped trying better and less humiliating to just lie low and let fate happen.

That's the real reason I don't tell Scoop what I saw, whatever I say, whatever I do to stop it, this place is doomed. "Alex", snaps that commanding voice from the kitchen door. I jump, dropping the scoop into the dirty sink water, sending an explosion of suds in all directions, soaking the front of my apron and dousing my face. God, a little got in my mouth. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you." He apologizes before I can say I'm okay, he's moved on. "Ross is going on break soon. So I need you out front." I dragged my dry forearm across my face, pull off my other glove and remove my glasses. The vision flashes. One of me.