《Glimpse》


 Chapter 1

    I woke up in the middle of the night with memories that I had no right having. They were my memories no doubt about it, but they were of events that had yet to come. Somehow, someway memories of my future-self found its way to the present me. To be precise, the memories came in two sections. The first was the events of the next day. The second was someday 30 years into the future, and I must say the future is not looking good for humanity if these memories are to be trusted.


    I reached to the side of my pillow where my phone was and checked the time. It read ¡°3:44 AM.¡± I had another four and a half hours before I had to wake up for work. Without knowing whether these memories were real or not, I turned back around and went back to sleep. I was tired, I had made the mistake of staying up late reading some random web novel that I couldn¡¯t even remember the main character¡¯s name. The last thought I had before drifting into sleep was ¡°Who knows, all of this could just be a dream.¡± Oh how wrong I was.


    *BEEP *BEEP *BEEP *BEEP


    I swipe my hands around until I found my phone and unceremoniously turn off the alarm. For the first ten minutes of each morning I was essentially on autopilot. I rolled out of bed and onto the floor. I moved my foot around until I found my slippers. With half of one eye open, I grabbed my towels and a fresh set of clothes. I stumbled towards my bathroom and turned on the shower. I got naked and sat on the toilet to take a massive shit and of course to catch a few more minutes of sleep. Some might found sleeping on the toilet to be weird. But to me, it was the last chance to lazy about before starting my day. Listening to the sound of the water running in the background, I fell into a light sleep.


    Needless to say, I am not a morning person.


    With a slight jolt I was awake again. Looking around the room and judging from how much fog there was, I must have quite the nice little nap. After giving myself a nice wipe, I walked into the shower. As the water ran down my head, I finally started waking up.


    The memories, or rather my future memories slowly trickle in. They came in bits and pieces.  It was hard for me to tell them apart from my present memories. After college, I had fallen into a routine. My entire day pretty much consisted of going to work, working, coming home and reading web novels. At first, I didn¡¯t notice anything different. My memories of the day felt like any other day and my memories of the 30 years in the future felt like a fantasy that I had conducted to ease myself into sleep the night prior.  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    It was the small details that had thrown me off. A conversation with my manager that had yet to happen, a completed work assignment that U haven¡¯t looked at yet and most important of all, lottery numbers that have yet to be drawn. And with that I was finally fully awake. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I have no clue if these memories were real or not yet. But the prospect that I could be a millionaire in just a few short days really got my juices following.


    There was only one way for me to tell if this was real or just my overactive imagination again. To be honest, this has happened before, well not exactly this per se but similar situations. A side effect of reading too many web novels is you¡¯ll start having delusional tendencies. I often Imagine myself as the main character of a fantasy novel, slaying demons and rescuing young ladies and the occasional childhood friend or girl next door. But this somehow felt different than the other times I have been through this. Usually my delusions would only last until I was out of autopilot. No matter how much I wanted to have a life of adventure, I would always be pulled back to reality by my real life responsibilities.


    Now that I was clearly awake, the delusions would usually fade into the background and reality would set in, but these memories still felt as real as ever.


    After getting out of the shower, just to make sure I double-check my phone for the date. February 8, 2025. I pulled up my calendar and saw my scheduled meeting with my manager at 2 PM. I check my to-do list and saw the assignment was still in my queue. And lastly, I check the lottery and the drawing was still tonight. At this point, I wasn¡¯t really sure of anything besides that fact that today is the first day I am living this day.


    Getting to work was a pain. As I got to the train station, the train was already speeding away. I waited almost ten minutes before the next train to come. If anyone have been on an NYC train during the morning rush, they would agree that it¡¯s crowded and stinks. Today was especially bad. Three homeless guys had taken up residence in the train cart that I was in, causing the popularity of the riders to squish into one side of the cart. The three homeless guys would have definitely been something I would remember, but conveniently missing from my ¡°future¡± memories. So far, I didn¡¯t hold too much hope for becoming a millionaire.

 Chapter 2

    By the time I had finally got to the office, it was already 10:30 AM. Admittedly, it was a bit later than when I usually got in, but since I worked at a startup, most people were still setting in themselves. I grabbed a cup of hot water, steeped some green tea and got to my seat.


    Checking my to-do list for the day, I saw that one project still sitting in my queue, which didn¡¯t mean much by itself. It was a monthly recurring task that I have done before so having a memory of completing it was nothing new. It didn¡¯t take too long for me to finish it and sent it off to my manager for final approval.


    It was now 12:30 PM, which meant lunchtime for me. In an effort to lose some weight, I have been eating the same salad every day for the past two weeks now. Which has done jack shit for my weight lost. I always order from a restaurant down the block from me because the food would always get here within the hour. One of the perks of working at a startup is lunch money. People might think I am joking when I tell them that but it¡¯s true. Not having to spend money for lunch was one of the few reasons I hadn¡¯t quit.


    Lunch came and went, nothing too special happened. I was pleasantly surprised to find a few pieces of extra chicken in my salad today. I guess someone was feeling generous. By now, I was genuinely getting a bit nervous. My meeting with my manager was in a few minutes and would likely give me a clue to all this future memory busy. To calm my nerves, I pulled up some cat videos and mindlessly scrolled through them on my phone. After spending some time watching cats being assholes to humans, I felt pretty good.


    There was still another 10 minutes before my meeting with my manager. With nothing else to do, I decided to take another dump. We had co-ed restrooms; mind you, we had full-size doors and each stall was more like a small closest then anything else. We¡¯re a startup not some millennial hipster gender equal rights groupie. The co-ed restroom also meant we typically avoid making eye contact with the opposite sex in the restroom.


    As I walked into the restroom, I saw Marry from HR. It was too late to avoid her, she had reflexity looked up when the door open. I gave her a polite nod and quickly went into the only stall left open. (Presumably the one she just came out of) Before I went in I should have taken a deep breathe cause whoever said girls shit don¡¯t smell was clearly anosmic or a mother fucking liar.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    This was the first time I found myself in this situation. I was totally fine smelling my own number two, but other people¡¯s was a whole another story. I couldn¡¯t simply just walk out of the stall since Marry was still washing her hands and that would make things even more awkward. There was only one sensible thing to do which was to hold my breath. I was no Olympic swimmer, but I was confident that I could hold my breath for at least a minute or until Mary had left.


    I already had my hands on the door handle when I heard the restroom door open. I was so ready to take my first breath of ¡°fresh¡± restroom air. Instead of the silence that I was expecting, I heard another voice. It was Jenny, also from HR. From the sound of things, the two of them has engaged in the mysterious ¡°girl talk¡± that guys have heard some much about. If it were during any other time, I would be curious to find out exactly just what this ¡°girl talk¡± was all about. But at this moment in time, that was the last thing I wanted to hear.


    The closest-like construction of the stall meant that there was little air exchange going on and that the smell hadn¡¯t gotten any better. Seconds started feeling like minutes as I stood there holding my breath. And then finally, the conversation started to fade, but weirdly, my vision also started to narrow and I felt dizzy. The next thing I knew I was on the floor of the stall. I had fucking blackout.


    I got up and checked my phone and it was time for my meeting. Giving a longing look to the toilet, I decided I would table this for another time.


    Walking into my manager''s office, my nerves had hit me again. I was never great at these one-on-one conversations. Before I could make things awkward, my manager had welcomed me and promptly got up to close the door behind me.


    ¡°Hey Martin, how are you doing today?¡±


    ¡°Good.¡±


    He was clearly waiting for me to say more, but I honestly didn¡¯t have anything else to say.


    ¡°Good, good. I don¡¯t know how to start this and this is also very hard for me to do.¡±


    There was a slight pause and my heart was now pounding in my chest.


    ¡°As you might have noticed recently, we hadn¡¯t sent much work to you lately. That¡¯s because there just isn¡¯t much work to go around¡­¡±


    Shit. I was getting fired. Also, fuck, I am going to be a fucking millionaire!


    My face slipped from my previous impassiveness and a smile crack open on my face. From his perspective, he must have thought I was about to go apeshit-crazy on him or something. I noticed he had visibility gotten unconformable and lean slightly back on his chair.


    ¡°Because of that, I am sorry to say we are going to have to let you go.¡±


    There was a slight tremble in his voice by the end of his little speech.


    Without saying another word, I got up and left his office. I went to my desk to see if there was anything that belonged to me. There wasn¡¯t. I grabbed my bag and left. I sprinted down the stairs to the nearest convenient store.