The subway train rattled to a halt and the passengers within shifted with the force of motion, tilting forwards then rocking back to their original positions. Something was mumbled over the intercom, garbled as it came through horrendous speakers from the seventies, before the doors opened. Mark listened to the familiar little chime that played to warn people of the closing doors. He closed his eyes and took off his sunglasses to rub his eyelids. A woman was trying to make it in time to catch the train. Would she make it? Certainly. What if he held the door for her? What would happen then?

Panting, the young woman grabbed a pole inside the center of the subway car as it began to move forward. She had only narrowly missed being crushed by the doors. It was like this quite often for her when her roommate’s boyfriend came over. It always caused such a hectic mess the next morning as she tried to quietly slip away for work.

The young woman, her name Susan, brushed down her maroon suit and ruffled the wrinkles out of the matching skirt. She tried using the windows of the subway as reflections to check her hair and make-up, and she readjusted the tight bun she had pulled her brunette locks into. Her make-up still seemed in place, mascara making up for her lack of strong eyelashes and she hoped today, like she did every day, that people looked right into her hazel eyes and not to the eyelashes around them.

Susan shuffled the papers under her arm back into place and made sure nothing had slipped out during her sprint. As she did she noticed the man sitting in front of her, his eyes masked with dark sunglasses and shouldering a light leather jacket. Strange, as there was no sun out today. It was overcast all day. But it was the fashion for some people.

Mark tilted his head up to look back at her and Susan immediately averted her gaze, pretending to linger over the advertisements informing her how easy it was to learn English as a second language. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not blind or anything.”

It was Mark speaking to her. Susan looked down sheepishly at him and he gave her an encouraging smile. “Sorry I was just looking over my papers and saw the glasses. It’s just strange to see them because, you know, we’re underground and everything and it isn’t sunny outside.” She tried to smile back and self-consciously wondered how awkward she looked in doing this.

She saw the man’s eyebrow raise over his eye wear. “Don’t need them to keep the sun out.”

“But to keep it in?” She laughed a little and saw the man smile too. “I’m sorry it just sounded like such a line from a movie I had to finish it. I’m Susan by the way.” She held out her hand and was shocked by the softness of the hand that grabbed it.

“Mark. And I’m flattered you think I’m a ball of sunshine inside. You work in an office I presume?” He nodded at her business attire.

“Oh yes, I work for a magazine company. I’m kind of a secretary for now but, you know, slash intern, slash writer, from time to time.” Mark seemed to move his head in agreement and the subway stopped again, forcing Susan to grab the pole and keep her balance. There was more mumbling through the speakers and a fresh wave of people brushed up against the helpless woman trapped in the centre. She tried to maintain her gaze on Mark though, to maintain the conversation. He wasn’t that bad a guy really. Looked kind of her age, maybe a young thirty, handsome enough face with that short-cut mess of hair all guys seemed to have these days. At least his was blond though, that was a nice change from the sea of brown heads.

“Which magazine is it?”

“What?” Susan shook the thoughts of hair out from between her ears. “I’m sorry, come again?”

“The magazine you work for. Which one is it?”

“Oh you wouldn’t know, it’s quite girly.” Her cheeks flared up a little with a rush of embarrassing blood.

“Try me.” Out came Mark’s smile again. It wasn’t that it was some award-winning prize from the dentist’s office. It wasn’t really that great at all. The bottom half of his teeth were a bit yellow and she could see a couple on the sides were fillings. But it just had such a kindly air to it, of understanding, like he knew everything that was going on and he pitied her for it. Now why couldn’t her ex-husband been more like that?

“It’s called Chique In Chicago.”

“Yes, I know of that one. You had Linda Berkley on the last cover, wearing that flowery dress. Something about fab fashions was the front page article.”

“Yes, yes, it was. Wow what did...I mean how do you know all that? You read it?”

“My sister owns a subscription so I see it all the time on her coffee table when I go to visit. It looks like a nice magazine. Obviously it’s not my thing as a straight man but I can appreciate good writing and construction when I see it.”

Susan nearly fell over listening to this man. Who meets mystery men on the subways these days anyways? She stumbled again when the train stopped and the car emptied out more at a popular destination. There were six more stops before it was her time to leave. When would Mark get up and go? Did she even want him to? If only she could get a glimpse of the future. “That’s really interesting that you even notice it. My ex lived with me for three years and he never once seemed to see the magazines on the table.” The two shared a laugh a little over their common interest. “Where do you work then Mark?”

“I’m an editor for a fantasy magazine. We publish short stories from unknown authors. It’s called WordBlitz.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of it.” Susan’s frown was quite sincere, something rather unusual for herself. She was used to talking to strangers, dealing with them, making pitches to them, rescheduling meetings for them. It was easy to call up false facial expressions for them. But she really felt like she had disappointed this man.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. I wouldn’t know about it either if it wasn’t for my job. I don’t even like fantasy. It always seems to follow the same old formula since Tolkien’s time.”

“I don’t really read fantasy actually, but I saw some of the movies. They’re good sometimes.”

“You’re more of the Lynn Shears kind of reader aren’t you?”

Susan stuttered a little as she mouthed out the words she wanted. Yes, yes she read the Lynn Shears novels, of the small time girl who moves to New York, from the bestselling author she had had the privilege to meet just once when she came to do an interview with the magazine. She bought them the day they hit the shelves, every time.

The subway rocked again as it slid around a corner and the squealing of the metal wheels overtook the voice announcing the next stop. Would Lisa at work even believe that Susan had met such an extraordinary man on her way over? Two years on the singles dating scene and one day you get on the same train as always to find this remarkable guy who seems to click so well with you.

“Do you believe in fate Susan?”

“The what?” Something had been said while she was in her train of thought, stopping it as harshly as the subway cars, mumbling like the speakers and it had come from Mark.

“Do you believe in fate? I mean I just ask because I find it so odd to sit down on a subway when I usually would wait for the next one, as I always do, and find myself talking with such a unique lady as you. Almost like that was the future that was destined to happen.” Mark reached up and removed his glasses again, his fingers starting to massage as soon as the eye wear was moved.

Susan’s heart gave a little flutter. Fate? So she wasn’t the only one thinking about this sort of stuff. It was strange wasn’t it? And imagine if she had missed those doors...

“Imagine if I had missed those doors,” she giggled.

“You would have been standing outside looking in. You would’ve slammed your foot down in frustration and snapped one of your heels because of it. From there, you had a few options. One you would’ve waited around for the next train and stomached being late, but would begin to feel sick. Another one had you rushing up to the surface and trying to catch a cab. Or you would’ve called your friend to come and pick you up, only to find she was busy skipping work to be with her boyfriend again, and in your anger you would call her a bitch and a slut and argue until she hung up on you and you cried a little and wouldn’t get to work until noon, where you would be chewed out by your boss.” Mark looked up at Susan and opened his eyes to her. She gasped and gripped the pole tightly as the subway rocked once more. “I ask again, do you believe in fate?”

“Yes, well I mean, maybe it’s just...what...what’s wrong with...are you...can you see?” Her heart was going off again, this time for all sorts of different reasons. Fear was one, fear of the knowledge this man possessed, and fear of his eyes and what she was looking at. And she still had mixed feelings for this person she had only just met. He had said so much, it was so refreshing that she was almost ready to put aside any downsides to it she might find. Making up excuses to explain why he knew what he knew and why he looked how he did.

Mark’s irises were a deep red, while the pupil was a shade of sky blue in each one. Across them ran little glittering lines which constantly shifted directions, going from left to right then suddenly shooting upwards at ninety degrees and then breaking into two lines and then splitting again and again and changing directions. And they kept passing by through the eyes every time. And she kept staring at them. It was so disturbing yet fascinating, the same thing that made her look at car accidents on the side of the road or watch the gore-filled scenes of movies. She was repulsed but she had to look.

“I can see you Susan, I see lots of Susans, a million different Susans going down a million different pathways. They’re all making the different choices you’re faced with and living out the consequences. And then there is the one in front of me. Can I tell the difference? Sometimes, other times I don’t know which one I’m talking to.” Susan mouthed empty words. What could be said? This man had freakish eyes that were somehow looking at all of her and then something clicked in her head. The longer she stared into the eyes, the less she seemed to see them, instead watching the lines. And she saw herself within them. She was the lines. And each time she made a decision they broke and went their separate ways.

She saw herself fleeing, leaping off the subway at the next available stop and sprinting up to the top. She saw herself staying and talking. Then she was going a different way. All the different futures she could have lying within his vision. She saw herself sleeping with Mark that night, the two of them making passionate love to each other. And then it broke again. He left during the night and she was a one night stand. He stayed and the two of them ate breakfast together and called in sick to work. And there were hundreds more of them splitting and changing and morphing.

“You...you see the future.” She held up a trembling hand to a mouth.

Mark returned the glasses to his face and Susan’s visions stopped. “It’s always been that way. Long as I can remember. But it’s not the future. It’s just the possibility. Or maybe that is the future, just boundless chances that string together in certain ways until it becomes the present. I couldn’t tell you.”

“But what’s...what’s it like?”

“Ask yourself Susan, if you could see the future, if you knew what was coming, would you look? You always have to remember, that if you do look, the future is different now, because you know about it. So can you really even know the future at all?”

Susan slouched down onto an empty seat behind her. Her mind was racing with all her emotions and thoughts and reactions. To know the future and take that look? See your own death? Could she have predicted her own husband leaving her? Or would she even have dated him anyways? Her head hurt. Trying to convert the past into future possibilities was a baffling process. She didn’t know what to do anymore or think. She just wished she had her Shears books again. She needed a read.

"But how does it work? Why is the future so...distorted?"

Mark reached into a pocket and withdrew a small quartz crystal and held it up to the light above. "It's like a beam of light. Your pathway collides with a moral choice right here, a crystal. Once it passes through..." The light was split into a rainbow that burst frmo the other side of the mineral and played along the floor. "...it breaks into all these different little patterns, each one a unique light and beautiful in its own right. After you break it you can realign it with another crystal until you come across a dilema again."

Susan sat and shook her head in the chair. The question still sat in her mind. If you could see the future would you look at it? "The problem with it Susan," Mark continued. "Is that just by looking at the future you've broken the light already and so now it's different, just for seeing it. So, do you believe in fate?" Susan shook her head and then nodded then shook it again in confusion. The subway came to a halt  and Mark stood up. "This is my stop. I'll see you in the future some time." He took his glasses off and winked at her.

The man stepped back and the subway took off, leaving Susan wondering what had happened. Mark saw her futures travel away down the tunnel, watching her get off at the next stop and look for him, then staying on and going to work, and another one that saw her drinking that night in stress and on and on it went. Another man walked in front of him and a million different chances went by with him. Mark withdrew his glasses and rubbed his eyes. They were sore.