[ WP ] Every night in your sleep you meet a successful-looking future you who tells you what you should do the next day . So far your life has gone well indeed , but one day you fall asleep during the daytime . You meet a tired , disheveled version of yourself who begs you not to listen to the other .

`` We were once over a thousand, and before that countless in numbers.'' The old woman said, her lips curled back in disgust at the corners. `` But your actions have been pruning us away like branches from a tree! Every decision you have made on that Man's advice has exacted a toll of one or more of these branches. You are pruning your potential and narrowing your future. Less than five of us remain and four are figs rotting in your lap. Yet you're so blithely ignorant to the situation, that the smell does n't even register, does it?'' 
 
 *Ok, so that's kind of heavy. * I thought. 
 
 The face in the mirror was old, very old; the mask of a lifetime's lines worn like the palm of a dominant hand; calloused, shiny, over cracks that ran with old splits in the tissue. A moment before I was leaning on the bathroom sink, a razor in one hand and a palm of shaving foam in the other, ready to start my day. It had been a fitful night and I could get no rest, worried about the day to come. It would be an important day, a climax in the plot of my life, and decisions would be made that could not be undone. 
 
 *I must have fallen asleep. The mirror has that hazy edge like in the other dreams... * 
 
 `` Are you mute now, too?'' The old woman demanded. `` We do n't have a lot of time here before He takes notice.'' 
 
 The razor fell into the sink from my slack hand, startling me. For a moment, the mirror went back to its dull, bespeckled silver, only to return to the haze. I felt unsteady on my feet. 
 
 `` No, I'm not mute. I'm just trying to process this. I assume the man you're talking about is me, the one from my dreams at night.'' 
 
 `` That would be the Man, yes. But he's not you.'' She paused to consider her words. `` Or better to say, he's not the only one that is you. One potential you-that-might-be. Just as I am one potential you-that-might-be.'' 
 
 *What? * 
 
 The old woman must have been able to read the look plainly on my face. `` The decisions you make in your life result in you becoming a different person. Every decision you have ever made has lead to you becoming the person you are today. But all of those decisions were guided by you, fumbling through the world and figuring it out on your own. Your decisions made you who you were, before He started to infiltrate your dreams.'' 
 
 `` So you're... phantom probabilities?'' I asked. It had been five years since graduating college, but statistics had stuck with me. `` Probable outcomes?'' I furrowed my brows and thought about it. `` Wait, but you're a woman?'' 
 
 The old woman smirked at me. `` Yes, you are. In this outcome of who you are.'' 
 
 `` No offense, but... you look like you've lived a hard life.'' I tried to say it as gently as possible. `` Nothing like the old man.'' 
 
 `` That's because I've been ridden hard and put away wet.'' The old woman laughed. `` Hard times are coming, Joshua, and the decisions you make today will determine if you live with a healthy conscience in a wasteland, or become the personification of corruption in the steel towers with the filtered air and lab grown food. I'm proud of this face, of who I am, and who I have been. I have no regrets.'' 
 
 I reeled, my inner ears stirring around like a day on the ocean. I clutched the sink, trying to keep my footing. It was all too much. Five years before, the old man started to come to me in dreams, and he explained that I had a destiny. Up until then I was lost. Orphan, parents having died when I was seven, and adrift in the world. He told me that my parents died for a reason, to keep me from knowing the truth about who I was, and who I would be going forward. The old man claimed my parents were killed by fanatics who felt my family was a threat. 
 
 `` What do I do?'' I whispered. `` He told me someone like you might come and that I should n't listen to you, but I can tell that what you're saying is true. I do n't know why, but I'm absolutely sure of it. The same way I know everything he says is true. He said he was me, and so do you. That would make him Joshua... Who are you?'' 
 
 `` Josephine.'' The old woman whispered back. `` You chose that name today, the day of this dream, when the chains of reality slip free and you decide the course of your future.'' 
 
 I raised a hand to cup my right cheek, feeling the skin. Smooth, unblemished. `` But I do n't understand. This is just a business meeting today. It's just paperwork. Claiming the fortune my family left behind and the corporation with their name. Today's nothing so extreme --'' 
 
 Josephine tsked and held her breath; a truly pregnant pause. `` That's where you're wrong. It starts that way, but today, events will unravel and set your future course. You think you're going to meet a lawyer and talk about money, but what you're really going to do is go and meet a representative of the Divine. Today, you will meet your father for the first time, and today you will decide how you live the remainder of your days in this world. This will be the final day of an era, and the first day of a new one. Who you decide to be will determine what the world is like going forward. That is your birthright, in accordance with ancient prophecy.'' 
 
 I felt my mouth drop open. *This is insane. * I thought. 
 
 Josephine stared back at me from the hazy, silvered glass. Doubled in the reflection I saw myself, a man in his late twenties with stubbled cheeks, in half of an ill-fitting dark grey suit and wide, frightened eyes. 
 
 `` My father? The Divine?'' I was choking on the words. `` This is too much. I ca n't... I do n't... What should I do?'' 
 
 The old woman, Josephine, a future me, shared a sadness through her eyes. `` That Man would have you become a tyrant, and I would... I'm afraid to say...'' She released a heavy breath. `` I would ask you to become a rebel. A criminal in the eyes of some, a terrorist in the eyes of other. Someone who stands for a cause at great personal sacrifice. In this conversation, the branches have narrowed to a final two. Telling you the truth has limited the possible outcomes further. I ask you to look inside yourself and decide who you really want to be. But if He had His way, it would be limited to one.'' 
 
 I looked down into the scummy foam in the sink; shaving cream that disintegrated and dripped from my hand as I clutched the porcelain, to run in thin trails to the drain. Like my future possibilities, discarded carelessly. But had I been so careless? There was a time before the old man's words when I had enjoyed my life, and although his every advice had lead to success, it had also lead to more work. Every day harder decisions, more cut throat, as I hoarded money for lawyers and dug in public record, against a downhill sluice of bureaucratic misery. 
 
 Must I choose one of these paths? What if I just walked away? Disappeared, changed my name, sacrificed my whole identity to wander the world away from all of the paperwork and artifice? What would that future be like? Who would I be if I cast myself adrift, opening myself up to my inner thoughts rather than stuffing them away? 
 
 I glanced up at the mirror to ask Josephine and she smiled back at me. `` I see you've made your choice. It will be a hard life, but I've already told you... You have no regrets.'' 
 
 

