When Tom Michaelson held someone's hand it was as though that person's entire essence, everything he was and would be, came fresheting down his arm and sluiced through his fingertips into Tom's consciousness. Silent enactments of tragedies not yet suffered, impressions of joys yet unrevealed, faces of children unborn cascaded helplessly into Tom's mind until the private pool of his self was shattered and turbulent.

In childhood Tom had been terrified that somehow, because of what he was, he could draw the life out of people and leave them standing dead carapaces. But even worse--they went on talking and laughing unaware that their own secret realities had been stolen--went on living their now unnecessary lives whose torments and triumphs had already been discovered and whose outcomes were already known.

There were years of self-imposed isolation which began when he waltzed with his girlfriend at an eighth grade dance and saw, in painful sequences, the city streets she would one day haunt in search of other men.

Avoiding his friends, Tom nurtured the barren hope that this anathema might be a peculiarity of his youth which (merciful God) he would "outgrow." And so, on the day of his high school graduation he risked the march across the stage and the presentation of the diploma. Hoping desperately, he braced himself for the dreaded handshake. But there was no lessening of the torrent. The futile melodrama of the other man's life superimposed itself over his own wasted years in which his "talent" had neither died nor withered, but simply waited.

Now nearing forty, Tom Michaelson found himself in another insignificant job in a photocopied town. He had tried for the last time offering his services to scientific groups specializing in parapsychology. Most were more interested in telekinesis and teleportation and reading symbols on cards placed out of view of the subject. After all, they said, what good was predicting a future which couldn't be verified scientifically until after it had happened.

But Tom had come to his own decision. The world was blundering toward a nuclear holocaust. Maybe not in his lifetime, but what about in the lifetime of the generation now being born. By touching the hands of young children, babies, Tom Michaelson could look ahead bathing his mind in the torrential images of their existence until he found the exact year, day and hour when doomsday would begin.

He could find out which crises would lead to the devastation, which world decisions and events must be warned against. And this information he could bring to the scientific community. They would have to take him seriously then as they watched all he foretold come to pass.

*****************

In the park trees spread their ancient wares at the feet of the waning day; silken shadows woven by the long fingers of chestnuts to cool the fierce July heat, and the luxurious shade of maples. Tom stopped, pressed his back into the rivuleted bark and mopped his face before resuming the walk home to his shabby hotel room.

He went directly to the lobby desk where a small fan stirred the heat and threads of sunlight sought to mend the scars in the old wood.

"Marita, did you find out if the basement apartment is for rent?"

"Ah, si, Mr. Michaelson. But you'd better go talk to her quickly or someone else will grab it."

"Thanks, Marita," he called as he hurried to the elevator.

In his room he splashed his face with cold water and put on a clean shirt, then dashed back out to the elevator and across the street to the Pizzeria.

The owner-manager was Mrs. Del Vecchio and it was her apartment just below the pizza parlor that he wanted. He arranged to pay one month's rent in advance and work washing dishes at night in the Pizzeria for the rest. It shouldn't take him long, he thought, to find out what he needed to know.

The next day Tom carried his suitcase to the new place and bought some paint to make his sign on the large front window:

HAVE YOUR BABY'S FORTUNE TOLD HERE
$3.00

Many people laughed and said, "Hey man, where's your crystal ball!" or "Aren't you supposed to wear an earring and a bandana!"

Only a few came at first. Young mothers who glanced along the sidewalk before scurrying down the concrete steps and sliding through a few inches of open door, their secret bundles in their arms. They laughed, half-embarrassed at being there while they offered him tiny sleeping hands, waving petulant hands, fingers that closed hard on his with sharp little nails that dented his flesh.

To one he said, "He will be a good student on the university football team." Tom did not tell the mother that the young man would die of a drug overdose at the age of 23. Then because he needed more customers, "In two days his aunt and uncle will come and bring him his first teddy bear."