By the time I turned three, I was growing more accustomed to my diminutive body. Then, on January 28th, the Challenger exploded. The first time this happened, I’d been too young to really understand. This time, I felt it. I was crushed by an overwhelming sense of loss. Angry that I couldn’t do anything to prevent it. Upset with myself—for trying to do something selfless and failing, I knew it wasn’t my fault. But I felt guilty all the same. It was a hard lesson: sometimes knowledge of the future hurts more than it helps.
There’s something strange about knowing too much when no one thinks you know anything at all. For the most part, I kept my head down. I made harmless predictions. Avoided anything that might scare people. And when I did steer things, I kept it subtle. But then… the ice cream truck showed up. It was one of those little summer staples. Tinny jingle looping on repeat.
Rolling down the street at five miles per hour.
All the neighborhood kids came running—sticky fingers, wrinkled dollar bills—laughing and screaming like the world was perfect. But I knew better.
I remembered the story. One of the younger boys had darted into the street that summer.
I’d been three the first time it happened. I remembered the scream, the blood and the way the ice cream truck never came back. How my dad rushed outside and shielded my eyes before I could see too much. I remembered the funeral.
Now sitting barefoot on the porch steps—three years old again, Flintstones Push-Pop in hand—I watched the same moment begin to unfold. The same boy, the red ball. His distracted mother, the same sprint into the road. I had seconds to react, I didn’t think. I just screamed his name.
Loud. Panicked. A toddler’s shriek, but sharp enough to cut through the noise. The boy froze. His mom turned and caught him just before he could continue towards the street.
The driver braked. Eugene missed the bumper by inches.
The next few days were... weird. The boy’s mother thanked my mom.
“He must’ve just sensed it,” she said, “Kids are intuitive like that.”
But my mom started watching me differently too. Less with warmth. More with... unease.
“How did you even know that boy’s name?” she asked me later.
I shrugged and said I had played with him one of the days my dad had taken me to the park. But that moment didn’t feel like a victory. It felt like I’d stepped over a tripwire I hadn’t realized I was near.
That night, across the dinner table, Grandma gave me a look—just for a second—that told me she knew. She still never said a word about it, or me. Just handed me an extra scoop of macaroni and cheese, which was and still is my favorite. But the way she looked at me when she did, it was like I’d passed some secret test.
The next morning, I woke up early and sat by the window, watching the sun rise over a world I knew too well. Because that was the cost of knowledge, I could stop a tragedy...
But not the suspicion that followed. And if I wasn’t careful, I knew it was only a matter of time
J Cooper 