He thought of how some of those passing slugs had tugged playfully at his clothes, as if they weren’t pellets of death, or worse, bringers of lifelong injury. He thought of how sure he’d been of his survival because of the Answer Man’s—call it what it was—his prophecy. And on those nights he wondered if the man under the red umbrella had seen the future… or made it. To this question Phil found no answer.
