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A story inspired by the late Juan Rulfo's Pedro Pramo
and a bad dream.

1

At a rundown shopping center, tucked between the Queen of Sheba Restaurant and Videos en Espanol is a well-ordered, busy little newsstand. Outside the newsstand and high above its dirty, cracked sidewalk is a sign with the unimaginative "News" in big, green, fluorescent letters. It was not long ago that I used to spend a lot of time there.

My name doesn't matter, because I'm pretty much like any other guy you see at the grocery store, or on the bus, or at the park. You could walk into a crowded room in which I was standing, and it would be certain that neither my face nor actions would draw any of your attention. I am one of those people who blend into the background and are immediately forgotten. I have my grandmother to thank for that. Now, I'm not putting myself down; understand. And to be sure, there are some things about me which many people would probably find very interesting. You see, I'm what my grandmother called a seer. She was one too.

"A seer must never draw attention to himself, it only brings trouble." she would tell me in Spanish. "Seers are here to serve others, not to distract them." she would say. I loved my grandmother, but she was a fanatic, and she "saw" so much, she never stopped to live her own life.

A seer is a hard thing to explain, because every seer is so different from the next. Let's just say that I tend to see things that other people can't. I can perceive things that the average person doesn't I can then, if I choose to, say something or tell someone about what I have seen. When I do that, and I used to do that a lot, it ends up looking like or being labeled a prediction. But I can't predict the future. I don't even know what I'll be doing an hour from now. I can only see what already is. For example, an otherwise healthy looking man can pass me on the street walking strongly just like anyone else. He can give me a strong, healthy, "Hey, how are you doing?" But despite his healthy appearance, I can see the disease or the death on him I can literally see it, as if it were a red scarf he wore loosely around his neck, or a dull, heavy sack strapped to his back. I can see what his body hasn't told him yet. I can see what has already happened in one place but has yet to manifest in another.

The things I see never spell themselves out for me. Often, if I don't pursue them, they become nothing more than odd little details in my day; much like seeing a person with a funny

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