Hindsight

Hindsight

Hindsight doesn’t actually have 20-20 vision. Actually, he needs glasses. When he wears them, he sees just fine. He can walk through the past--or, if he’s going somewhere far, he can drive--and see it with perfect clarity. He can see the storm clouds, the leaves falling off the trees as the wind blows, the potholes in the road, the cracks in the sidewalk. He wishes he had been able to see them before--he wishes he had worn his glasses before.

See, he doesn’t always wear them. He has this buddy named Nostalgia. Nostalgia calls himself a doctor, but he’s really just a quack peddling bogus cures. Hindsight listens to him, though. “You don’t need to wear those glasses,” Nostalgia says to Hindsight, showing his big, perfect white teeth. “You should just wear these ones.” He hands him a pair of spectacles with rose-tinted lenses. They don’t have any corrective properties, but Hindsight believes everything Nostalgia says. Nostalgia’s glasses make the sky always look blue, and they make Hindsight see things that aren’t there: unicorns and rainbows and fairies.

There’s one fairy in particular who he’s in love with. (Which is kind of a problem, since she doesn’t exist.) He calls out to her when he passes by. But she never responds, and when he gets close to her, she runs away. Hindsight wishes he could take her with him, back to his house in the present. He has some beautiful clothes waiting for her there, made out of the fabric of knowledge and stitched together with wisdom. He’s convinced that once she puts on the clothes, she’ll fall in love with him and stay forever. If that sounds like something out of a fairy tale--well, she’s a fairy, so it makes sense, doesn’t it?

Hindsight loves her because she looks just like his first love: petite, blond hair, pixie face. And that smile--that sweet, innocent smile. He could write reams of poetry about that smile. Letting her get away is his biggest regret in life. “If only I knew then what I know now,” he laments to Nostalgia, sitting up on the exam table. “I would have bought her better clothes. Then she would have stayed with me.”

“Let’s go have a drink,” the pale-faced Nostalgia says, “and you can tell me all about it.”

Treatment forgotten, they walk out to the parking lot and hop in their respective cars, Hindsight following Nostalgia to their favorite tavern. Night is descending, and there’s a cool, wet wind blowing in from the west: a storm is approaching.

Hindsight doesn’t know it yet, but the evening will end badly. On the way home from the tavern, Nostalgia will slam on the brakes to let a squirrel cross the road. Hindsight will have to slam on the brakes too, and he will lose control of the car and skid off the road. Nostalgia will notice, some time later, that Hindsight isn’t behind him anymore, but he won’t think anything of it. He must have gotten stuck at a light, Nostalgia will think. And he will drive on down the road, unaware and unharmed.

Hindsight, meanwhile, will learn not to drink and drive, though it will be too late to help him this time. What he learns then, he will wish that he had known now. But he doesn’t know it now. Now, he parks the car, hops out, and walks in with Nostalgia. He’s looking forward to drowning his sorrows.