Read The Future for Curious People: A Novel for Free Online

type of person who volunteers to record books for the blind.
    “You’re a good citizen,” Binter says, and it strikes me as the kind of thing that might only be a hot come-on to a communist, speaking in a boozy Russian accent. Could this be Binter’s attempt at flirtation? I know, I know, this is a stretch, but librarian flirtation can be very subtle. He pulls a key from a desk drawer, unlocks the door for me.
    “Zank you, comrade,” I say, in a pseudo Russian accent, even though the Russian thing is something that only existed in my head.
    “Comrade?” he says curiously. I duck my head and shuffle past him and close the door.
    I sit at a desk, find my place in the book, and take a moment to collect myself. I’m supposed to pick books that haven’t been masterfully recorded already, but I always end up recording another version of a classic. Look, I’m a volunteer so I figure I should be allowed to read what I want. Today I’m working on Th e Great Gatsby.
    I’m reading about Mrs. Wilson at the party, after she changes her dress and how she seems to almost balloon into a different person. She expands and the room shrinks until it’s like she’s “revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.”
    I stop the recording right there. My hand shaking a little because I know she’s going to die. She’s going to be hit by a car. And then Gatsby’s going to be shot to death in his swimming pool.
    And, again, I think of my sister on her bicycle with its banana seat. Megan. A twelve-year-old girl I’ll never know. I imagine the car, though I don’t know what kind it was. I imagine a large bulky automobile, something that’s slow to start, slow to stop. It careens toward her. Her death will kill something inside of my parents. Figuratively, they’ll float like two dead bodies in a swimming pool. My birth, my childhood, my being are meant to revive them. But I know I’m a failure at this. It’s too much to ask of a little kid—of anyone.
    I hear Helen Keller whispering in my head, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” My parents tried to overcome suffering. I’m the result. Why am I thinking of my sister so often these days? Is it that I now believe that the tragedies that await us can be avoided, if fully envisioned?
    Maybe the classics are chock-full of tragedy because the world is full of tragedy. Maybe they’re full of tragedy so they can also be about overcoming tragedy. But that’s not the case, really, is it? So many classics end tragically, with no overcoming at all. Why does that have to be the case, again and again? If we can pick futures with envisioning, why does literature have to remain fixed?
    I know that it’s a terrible thought. You can’t change classics. One small bit of erosion could bring down the pillars of literature, which are the pillars of culture.
    I push the paperback open, feel the slight give deep in the binding.
    And I know what I’m going to do, and I know that it’s wrong. But just this once, just this one tiny recording . . . I’m going to change the ending of Th e Great Gatsby. Myrtle Wilson will have quicker feet. It doesn’t matter who was driving the car—Myrtle will be out of the way before Gatsby’s car is even close. In fact, they’ll wave. Daisy will put down the window, and they’ll have one of those awkward hugs where the driver half leans out the window. Myrtle likes Daisy’s dress and Gatsby will agree.
    It’s not easy to put away the past even when you’re making up the future—your own or Gatsby’s. But right now, I think of Adrian and his boxy nose and I miss him so much I could cry like Daisy over a bunch of shirts.
    I try to remain positive about some future. It’s hard, especially at home when it’s quiet and my bed is empty. So it’s better to be here, with twelve linear feet of postcards, reading about Myrtle Wilson who is not doomed, reading about Gatsby who will not float in