The Visionary Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As Scott tried to fall asleep the words of his wife haunted him. “You let everybody down because you were wrong.” When he finally fell asleep he found himself walking on a familiar bridge. He recognized it almost immediately. It was the same bridge that had nearly claimed his life just over eleven years before. He had had this dream before as it is common for a person to recall traumatic events in their dreams. He dismissed this as nothing and continued to think over the day’s events. It was when he looked down that he noticed that something was wrong. The headlines on the paper were current; he had just read them yesterday. He picked up the paper and looked at the date and sure enough the date was right. The events were the like those in the dream though. As the cars approached the bridge he froze as he watched the cars head right for him as they usually did. As the cars neared Scott jumped to avoid them and went over the side rail, sending him free-falling to the river below. As he fell over the side he noticed that the cars were frozen. Suddenly he was hit with the cold sensation of hitting the water and realized the river wasn’t all that deep. As he braced himself for impact with the bottom he noticed that he just kept sinking. He also noticed that the water had gotten considerably warmer.
He immerged from the water and noticed that he was now in a pool. As he got out of the pool and looked around he realized that he was at his parent’s house. He looked around and noticed that all the usual people were present accept the kids. Then he noticed that Ashley was pregnant. “Well, that explains why one is missing, but which one?” he thought to himself.
“So Scott, what do you think it is?” a voice said Scott looking around realized it was Frank talking to him.
“Me… I don’t know Frank, what do you think?”
“Aww, come on Scott. You’re usually pretty good with these things, I mean you called our wedding and everything.” Ashley piped in. She was right, he was good at calling these things. This was right about the time when he had his gift. He thought quickly about the situation, looked around saw none of the children, and took a quick guess.
“Girl.” He judged the weather and figured it was about July and then he looked at Ashley who was only slightly pregnant. That left just one of his brother’s four children. “Wendy,” he mumbled to himself that would explain why there were no other children as she was the first of the group.
“What did you say, Scott?” Molly asked. Scott in his deep thought process hadn’t noticed that his wife had been standing beside him.
“I, um, said that I think it’s a girl”
“No, you mumbled something; I think it was when he?”
“No, I said Wendy. That’s her name, Wendy Dawn Keller, isn’t that right, Frank. That is the girl’s name you’ve picked out, Right?”
“Yes, that’s right that’s amazing… wait a minute, I left the names list on the table. You just guessed.”
“Fine, don’t believe me.”
“Alright Scott, give me some details.”
“But you won’t know if I’m right or not for a couple of months.”
“Tell us anyway. We’ll find out if you still have it in a few months, in fact to start with, when can I expect my ‘daughter’ to arrive?”
“Come on, Scott tell us” Ashley piped in.
“Alright, here it goes…” Scott thought quickly, trying to remember as much about his niece’s birth as he could. He spent the next few seconds spouting off everything he could about Wendy’s birth. “… and that’s all I know. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to pee” As he walked toward the house he thought to himself about how much easier it was when he still had his gift.
Scott exited the bathroom and found himself in a strange hallway. He soon recognized it as the local hospital hallway. He looked around trying to figure out exactly when he had walked into. Then he heard his brother’s voice from down the hall.
“Man oh man, Bro, you were dead on. How do you do it?”
“Wait, right about what?”
“Today, the storm, Wendy, everything man. You’re awesome man, I’ll never doubt you again.” Then it hit Scott as he looked out the window and saw the snowstorm outside he knew what day it was it was November 19th, 2005, the day Wendy was born and the day the area was hit with one of the worst November snowstorms it had ever seen. Twenty-one inches of snow fell that day. Ironically Wendy happened to also measure in at 21".
“What can I say Frank, it’s a gift, hey let me know when Wendy wakes up, alright?”
“That’s why I came to get you. She’s with Ash in the room.”
“Alright, I’ll be right over.”
“Hurry up, bro.”
“Wait, have you seen Molly?”
“No, man, I haven’t”
“I’d better go find her. She’ll want to see our new niece.”
“Alright, see you in a few.” They head separate ways, Frank toward his wife’s room and Scott to go find Molly. Scott thought for a second, turned around, and shouted to down the hall:
“Frank, what room is Ash in?”
“436!” Frank shouted back.
“Thanks!” Scott shouted back.
As Scott walked away to find Molly he realized what his brother had said. ‘You’re awesome man. I’ll never doubt you again.’ This day was when it all began. It was the day people began to believe that he was really gifted. All of his other predictions could have been well informed guesses, but not today. He had given his brother an envelope filled with all the important and unimportant details of today and all of it was right, down to the last letter. He found Molly and told her all about their new niece. As they walked into the room they were greeted by the new parents. Frank went to pass the baby to Scott, but Scott told him, “Better let Molly hold her first, I need to wash my hands. I think I forgot when I went to the bathroom.”
As he exited the bathroom after washing his hands his brother asked him when he would be getting his niece or nephew. It was a fair question since he and Molly had been married for just over two years and showed no signs of having kids just yet. At the time he had no idea, but of course he knew the answer now. In about nine months he and Molly would find out about Paul. He also knew that a few weeks after his good news Frank and Ashley would find out about Jacob. He couldn’t tell them that, though, because he had no way of knowing about such things, even with his gift, so he gave his brother an honest answer. “No idea bro, what do you think hon?” Molly surprised looked up from the newborn she had been staring at since she started holding it. She didn’t need to answer the question really since her body language had just said it all. She was infatuated with the child and he knew she wanted one of her own. She answered anyway.
“I think we’ll be having one in the near future.”
“She has no idea,” Scott thought to himself it would have been ironic if she had been pregnant right then and there, but Scott knew she wasn’t. Molly took Scott’s lack of reaction to mean he wasn’t interested. She wasn’t the only one in fact Frank and Ashley came to the same conclusion from Scott’s lack of excitement. Trying to win Scott to her cause, Molly passed the infant over to him. Immediately his years parental instincts kicked in and he found himself amazing the group at how good he was for not having held a baby before. Molly continued to try to persuade her husband using the new information to help her.
“Aww look you’re a natural, and just look at that face. Isn’t it so cute?” He had to admit it was cute. As he looked harder at the child’s face it seemed as if it changed right before his eyes. In fact as the child blinked it eyes it seemed that they changed from dark green to bright blue.
“What the heck,” he thought, but he dismissed it and continued to stare at the child. Suddenly he heard a voice say:
“So what’s her name?” Without hesitation he responded,
“Wendy” as at the same time he heard Molly say,
“We haven’t decided…” The mix up broke his trance and he looked up to find the room different. “Honey, that’s our niece’s name remember?”
“Right, this is our niece, Wendy.”
“No, Uncle Scott, I’m Wendy” a voice said. He looked up to where the voice was coming from. He saw a little girl about five years old sitting next to Ashley. It was Wendy.
“So who is th…” Before he could finish he realized what the real answer to the question was. “Tina” he said out loud to the group then directly to his wife who was in the bed next to his chair. “Tina Brook Keller. What do you think?” He, of course, knew the answer having already suggested it about ten years earlier. As it turned out he had not gone nuts. The face really did change while he was looking at it. The eyes had also changed as Tina had blue eyes like his and Wendy had her mother’s green eyes. The scenery had changed on him again.
“I love it. Tina Brook and Ryan Bradley Keller”
“What great names… any reason?”
“Not really, we just thought of them,” Molly responded. Scott still didn’t know the reason for the names.
“Has anyone else visited?”
“No, not really; the twins were kind of early so...”
“Yeah, you know it is really too bad that that power of yours never worked on your own kids Scott.”
“Yeah, too bad.” That had always bugged him. He couldn’t get any information about his own life even when he was at the heights of his powers. He never really understood why. “Just a price I pay for the gift, I guess.” That was his usual response. He sat there holding Tina for a while and eventually passed her to his brother saying, “Well here is the niece I promised you.”
“You were right again.”
“I’m always right. Never doubt me, remember?” he said as he opened the door to walk out of the room.
“Always right my butt, Bro, you were dead wrong today.” Frank said, his tone noticeably different.
“But you just said…” Scott responded as he turned around to face his brother. As he did a shiver ran down his spine and he knew what day it was. May 8th, 2011, the day Sean was born. The feeling was unmistakable. It was the day he let everyone down, the day that he truly had been dead wrong. His power failed him so much that he had to guess and he couldn’t have been more off. Everything that could go wrong with the prediction did that day. He then said to Frank “I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened. It just left me this time.” He paused then said, “Listen I got to go.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.” Frank was angry. Scott knew why and it was entirely his fault. For many days the brothers didn’t speak and when they finally did it was a very tense moment. It didn’t help that Scott felt Sean was evil for a while, for a reason he never understood why. Finally he agreed to hold Sean and the feeling immediately dissipated.
The scene changed. He was back on his bench in the park and all seemed well. it seemed for a moment that his dream journey was over. He would soon find out that all was not as it seemed. In fact his journey had just begun.