A revelation from the future

“Ana, for god’s sake, will you stop being so silly and go do your chores?”

Ana’s mom was already beside her self that hot summer afternoon. Her daughter refused to get out of her bed room where she was busy doing some ballet moves. Her mom banged on her bed room door again.

“Ana?”

Ana went on dancing around her room in silence, expertly tip toeing here and there. She spun around and her blue box braids fanned out around her.

Her mom banged against her door again.

“Ana! I know you can hear me; I know you are in there! Unlock this door this instant!”

Ana swivelled past her desk chair and launched her self into an Arabesque position. Her window curtains shivered fervently with the summer breeze seeping into her room from an open window.

“You can not stay mad forever, you know?” her mom shouted outside her door.

Ana still refused to answer her; she was still focused intently on her dancing and getting every ballet dance move right. Well...not that getting all her ballet moves right mattered much anymore. Now that her mom had moved her out to the literal middle of nowhere in the country side; far, far away from the city which had her ballet classes, her ballet instructor, her ballet friends...all her ballet dreams.

Just in the blink of an eye, or to be more specific, in two weeks, they had all been flushed down the drain and left behind. Not that her mom cared anyway; Ana thought she was as selfish as they came. She did not even think to ask Ana before she changed her life forever. She did not even think to ask her daughter first before she moved their family because of a new job on some rustic and stuffy old farm.

“Anabelle Leontine Mbachu! You will open this door right this minute or else-”

Finally, Ana halted in her tracks. Right before she was about to pirouette, she whipped around towards her bed room door to grit out her clenched teeth, “Or else what?”

There was silence on her mom’s end for a brief moment.

“Or else I’ll...I’ll...”

Ana sighed deeply, “Or else, what mom?”

“Or else...you are grounded for the rest of your natural life!”

Ana kissed her teeth and rolled her eyes, reaching for a nearby pink towel and dabbing the glistening sweat off her deep brown skin. “Wow! I’ll get to spend forever in my room alone, with you not bugging me anymore? Oh, how awful!”

Her mom banged her fist against the door again. “I’m warning you, Ana. I just need you to do your chores. I am your mother; how dare you treat me this way?”

Ana glared at her door. “Sometimes, I really wish you weren’t.”

There was yet another silence on her mom’s side. Ana’s heart instantly sank when she heard some sniffling from outside her room.

“I moved here because of a better job offer on this farm. I moved here for us...our family. If you think I meant to stop your ballet dreams, that wasn’t my plan at all, Ana. I hope someday, you realize that,”

“Mom I-”

Ana heard the sound of footsteps retreating.

Later, Ana did what she was instructed to do hours ago; she finally went to feed the cows in the barn. Pulling open the wooden building’s hefty doors, her nose was instantly greeted with the stench of unbathed animals wallowing in their own filth.

“God, I hate my life,”

She trudged on in her doc martens, a heavy bucket of feed’s handle gripped surely in her fists. One cow, a caramel coated beast, mooed at her and she flinched involuntarily.

“Shit!” She glared at the animal. “What the hell, man?”

Almost like it understood, it cowered and mooed apologetically. Ana arched a brow and ambled on. She started the drab task of feeding the cows, stopping every now and then to brush sweat droplets off her forehead.

“It’s so hot-” Ana groaned, adjusting her purple crop top.

“I know.”

Ana whipped around, her eyes wild with alarm. “Who the hell said that?”

Her eyes swivelled around for the source of the voice and it landed on a dark corner of the barn. She caught a dark figure moving. “Step out of the dark. I can’t see you,”

The stranger emerged into the light. In front of her, proudly stood a black middle aged woman in a lab coat and goggles around her neck. Around her wrist was a neon colored watch. “Hello, Ana.”

Ana could do nothing but gawk stupidly at first. Shortly, she regained her brains. “Who are you? What are you doing in my barn? Squatters are not allowed on our property. You could get jailed for trespassing-”

“I’m not a squatter, honey,” The odd woman sat down on a nearby bale of hay, crossing her legs comfortably.

“So who are you then?”

The woman pursed her lips and sighed. “If I tell you, you won’t believe me. I mean, why would you honestly? But here goes anyway-”

Ana waited patiently. The woman revealed, “I am you. Twenty five years from now, exactly.”

Ana paused. Then she burst out laughing and pulled out her phone from her sweatpants pocket. “Nice try, squatter. You couldn’t even make up something more believable? That has to be the weakest excuse I’ve ever heard! I’m calling the cops-”

All of a sudden, the phone vanished from her hands and Ana was left dumbstruck. She turned back to the woman and found a sleek sci-fi looking gun in her hand. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, hon. I’m just here to talk to you,”

“What the fuck did you do to my phone?” Ana exclaimed, her bare hand still clutching the air where her phone had been.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be back in a few minutes. Just hear me out, okay?” The woman tucked her gun back into the holster around her waist.

Ana felt like she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming; I mean, some crazy lady with a gun had trespassed her property and was now claiming she was her, but from the future. But one glance at her empty hand confirmed to Ana that she wasn’t.

“So...will you please sit down? I just wanna chat, that’s it,” Future Ana patted the space beside her on the hay.

So Ana obeyed. “Hey, can I even be sure you’re me? Isn’t it a bit too early in the year for this ‘Ghost of Christmas Future’ bullshit-”

“Firstly, I’m not a ghost. Secondly, I know you hate your mom right now,” Future Ana arched a brow, “Cause she moved you all the way out here, away from your ballet dreams in the city,”

That shut Ana up.

“But you really should give your mom a break. Be nicer to her,”

“You’ve lost me, future me.” Ana crossed her arms, “Like you said; I hate her.”

Future Ana sighed sadly. Shortly, she took out a gadget from her coat pocket and a hologram popped up. Ana found herself staring at a death certificate...for her mom.

Ana was horrified. “What the-”

“Our mom died...well, twenty five years from now. And the thing is...I didn’t attend her funeral. I couldn’t.”

“But...why didn’t you?”

“This grudge you have now...it never went away. We stopped talking to mom, especially after we moved out to college. We were just so angry about our ballet career ending that we couldn’t forgive her, for so long,”

“But she’s ruined everything,” Ana shot up, getting heated up.

“Did she really?” Future Ana smiled sadly. “She didn’t just move cause she found another job, Ana. She moved for us; her job back in the city didn’t pay enough to fund our ballet classes. Or even us possibly going to college,”

Ana was silent as she absorbed it all in. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She does. A few months from now, actually. But we don’t care. We grow distant from her until...until she dies. And we couldn’t even attend her funeral because we found out about it a week too late,” Future Ana ducked her head when tears threatened to spill.

Ana slumped back onto the hay. She was speechless. “So, what did we do? Like, with the rest of our life?”

“Without ballet, you mean?” Future Ana smirked, wiping her eyes. “Well...I explored other interests. Turns out I love science too. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always love ballet. But being the first person to invent a time machine is just as satisfying, if I do say so myself,”

Ana’s eyes teared up. “So, mom didn’t ruin our life huh? And I’m a moron.”

“Yup.” Future Ana shrugged, grinning. Then she got up.

Ana asked, “Where are you going?”

“Visiting you to fix our relationship with mom was on my bucket list of time periods to go to. Next up is the medieval ages! I’ve gotta split kiddo,”

“I’m not a "kiddo"...I’m literally you,” Ana smirked, wiping her eyes.

“Well I’m older than you...so,” Future Ana chuckled, twisted a knob on her neon wrist watch and vanished into thin air.

For a moment, Ana pondered if all that had happened was due to heat stroke coming on. Until her phone, which disintegrated earlier, fell right into her lap.

“Mom!”

Ana’s mom paused from cooking mac and cheese in the kitchen, to turn around. She was immediately bombarded by a hug from Ana. Her mom laughed in shock. “What’s gotten into you, honey?”

“I’ve been acting super lame lately. I love you, you know that...right?”

Her mom paused, smiled warmly and embraced her back. “I love you too.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?” Her mom arched a brow.

“For everything.”