The Future is Fixed

            Throughout this story, Chiang paints an image of the future that appears pretty grim to the reader. That image is this: the future is fixed and there is nothing that we can do to change it. While the characters within this narrative find this to be true, I think that Chiang does not want his readers to despair at this. In fact, I think he wants his readers to see that even if the future is fixed, there is so much to be learned in living. 

           We see three different narratives in which the characters experience very different outcomes from their time traveling. The rope merchant, Hassan, experiences great successes as a result of his interactions with his future self. Even here however, Chiang indicates that the rope merchant’s future was secured. The older Hassan tells the younger Hassan, “I heeded my older self’s warning. Do not forget, you and I are one; every circumstance that befalls you once befell me” (21). This implies that no matter how much older Hassan helps the younger, their paths will ultimately be the same, revolving in a constant loop of one informing the other. The story of the weaver, Ajib, is even more indicative of this. Ajib steals from his older self in order to change his fate and winds up exactly where he feared he would. No matter how hard he tried, he could not avoid the future that had been carved out for him. 

            Further, Fuwaad ibn Abbas chooses to travel back in time, rather than forward, to see his past self and his wife before she died. He openly admits that he does not know what his intentions are, but he must go back and do something. Chiang writes, “Fate laughs at men’s schemes” (52). This becomes the absolute truth for Abbas as his journey takes much longer than anticipated and he arrives too late to do anything about his situation. However, a woman comes and tells him his wife’s last words. Abbas tells us here, “My journey to the past had changed nothing, but what I had learned had changed everything, and I understood that it could not have been otherwise” (56). He accepts the fate he was given. He continues, “If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as the players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons” (56). 


            Chiang asserts throughout this story that past, present, and future are fixed. There are no ways that we can change the outcomes of our lives. Even these characters who travel through a magical doorway to their lives twenty years before or after their current moment, apparently have no ability to change their lives. In this tale, however, Chiang wants his readers to understand that even though we cannot change the future, we can still learn from it. Abbas’s story reminds us that only in living our narratives do we understand the importance of them. The past, present, and future may be fixed, but people are changeable. It is in changing and growing and understanding that we fulfill our fates, and this is enough.

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