Independent Prophecies

Cue a short story:  

//**

"Something is about to happen. I can feel it. This, this... this is too good, too sudden and too scary. Are you not afraid?"

"I am. And if something happens, we will deal with it - together."

 "I'll run away" she spoke, a clear sadness in her eyes behind which memories of her past flooded like the tears that were about to follow. "I'll run away from the situation and we will be separated because I was too afraid."

"I'll bring you back," he replied, looking her dead in the eyes without a shadow of doubt in his voice. "I'll find you, and guide you home - only if you want me to." He knew he had to leave the door open for her to leave, as she could not stand (or sit) being in a closed space any more than a claustrophobic person could in a poorly built bathroom. 

"Why are you so nice to me?"

"Are you asking if I have an ulterior motive? Because we've had that conversation before, right" he smiled at her, reminding her of the good times from last month. 

"I'm serious." she replied, as she couldn't help but smile a little at his cute face and how they had both cuddled while discussing the topic before. "Why are you nice and kind and just not expecting anything in return?"

"That's not entirely true. I expect your smiles in return, when you feel like it that is." he said, with another cheeky face expression. "And good conversations with you, learning more about you and... see so many things already!"

"How are you so sure about me? Are you not afraid I might do something stupid?" she inquired of him again. 

"Darling, I'm sure about you because you're asking me that question with a genuine concern. So unless you're a CIA agent who's fallen for me while on mission, I am not afraid about you doing something stupid. Correction - I am afraid something may happen, but I'm not going to let that ruin things before it does." he beamed back at her, knowing he was turning the tide in her mind - for now.

She shook her head, as if to admit there was no way she could warn him of her gut feeling. "Fine. But you don't get to say that I didn't warn you." She spoke in her own cheesy tone this time, giving up on his charm and admiring how lucky she was to have this time with someone like him - pushing the worry about losing him to the 'quarantine zone' in her mind.

"Duly noted, gorgeous." he grinned at her, admiring that smile of hers which made him happier than he had been in years. 

***

It is annoying, and not in the regular way that people and everything around him was annoying - but more so that he disliked being in situations that were very much priorly announced they would occur. 

Prophecies, in all good sci-fi and fictional stories, were supposed to be useful in some way or the other. However, it was his firm belief that they were in fact nothing more than half-baked announcements for impending doom that no one was honestly programmed to comprehend correctly.

Whether it was Harry being the Chosen One with a side note of Neville also having that possibility, to Anakin bringing balance to the Force by first leaving it in darkness - all prophecies are essentially meant to be misinterpreted. Why though? Why in the name of physics could we not have a single straightforward prophecy telling us something on the lines of "hey, on July 21st 2021 there will be an opening to Narnia at these exact coordinates". Wouldn't that be simple and leave no real room for error or misinterpretation? 

Which further brings forward the deduction if the room for error or misinterpretation was the prophecy after all. The subjective reading of a material so vague that the one making aforementioned prophecy had no real idea what it meant oneself. Thereby, leaving the task for the interpreters to adjust according to their own surroundings, much like how humans decide if a pizza is to be heated or not depending on what time of the day they eat it. 

All in all the manner in which things had unfolded for him and his significant other of a few months were highly annoying mostly because of the supra prophecy of doom between the two of them. It was not the doom itself, to be clear, that was annoying. It was always going to happen and the enjoyable period was very much supposed to be the ride. Yet, the sting of separation with such lack of explanation or closure, what have you, was piercing his insides. Not in a love-struck way of sadness and depression - but a feeling of disappointment in himself for not being wise enough to build a contingency plan for an event which had feelers presented to his face. 

And perhaps that itself was a perfect way for something to be ignored - an independent prophecy made repeatedly to your face by a glowing announcer is highly likely to be treated as 'worth it' or 'should be fine' or 'Will survive no matter what happens' or the classic - 'sure (eyeroll)'. Thereby completely preventing any contingency plan to be made or even considered. 

The cliche might suggest there was no 'logical reasoning' at play when he fell for her, but that would then be ignorant of just how easy it was for him to take a breath and accept the situation at hand. Mostly because he had accepted her for who she was - and that if out of the two only he could handle the brunt of the prophecy coming true, then so be it. 

Survival of the fittest, as Charles Darwin would agree, applied to all states of affairs - even affairs of state when they involved a stunning woman with a glorious past of conquering her fears & the patriarchal society.

Least to say, he had learnt a lot in just a few months with her. If those lessons helped curate his decisions that would shape the future of the world, maybe this prophecy was independent of his immediate feelings thereafter the event. 

**//

End of short story.