What If?
A person's appearance can change very little over the years, or it can change drastically in their lifetime. Buddhism says that a person as a child and a person as an a adult are two different creatures and that when a person is an adult, that person as a child is a creature that no longer exists.
One year, a man named David Williams decides to join a stage production as an actor. As a result, there is a Police raid on the theatre in which the play is enacted, which incidentally is a nude theatre house.
Not surprisingly, these kinds of burlesque houses often had the Police raid them.
The actor, Williams is caught with three grams of PCP and sentenced to prison. When he emerges from prison, he is a changed man. He has become inured to the ills of prison life and has habituated to the drugs lifestyle.
His performance at such a scandalous premises as the sex house that he was a stage actor at, as well as his prison record, as well as his total preoccupation with narcotics has led his family to alienate them and for his to mutually not want to associate with them as well.
For not associating with his family and not having to deal with the stress of that, this is what he looked like later on in life.
One day, he got a chance to glimpse what could have happened had he not gotten into trouble with his family, in two dreams. The first dream, the good dream:
A life with a spotless record makes his family contacts him often. His family introduces him to a girl and they get married, kids, etc. His parents not only pay for his University, they also hook him up to a job at a prestigious office building.
The next night, he has a dream. This one more vivid than the last as if the last dream was him half wishing and half visualizing and this one a full dimension thrust in his face. His family contacts him often, but always to borrow money. The girl from the old country that dear old Mom and Dad introduce him to never learns to speak English without an accent. Insufferable weekends driving around an SUV going to family dinners at restaurants. Everyone comparing notes. I make more money than you. My wife is better than yours. All your girl does is steal from you and cheat on you. My girl gets me things, etc.
He always thought that Christmas was the time of the year that he wanted to be alone most. And not only Christmas, the two week buildup to Christmas with the insufferable Christmas family get togethers.
He liked to be alone and think thoughts like flying machines of the future will be autopiloted. People's attitude to driving on the ground as it is, most of the time, I'm all right, but once every two weeks on payday nights I like to see how close I can get below the legal limit and still drive and once in a blue moon I will drink over the legal limit and it is so seldom that thank God they have not caught me, then people driving flying cars without a total autopilot would be disastrous!
This is what he would wind up looking like later on in life if he had not made the mistake, and after years of being stuck with his family.
Author's note: Originally, these were to be two different stories, of how a person's appearance can drastically alter and the what ifs about family.
Soundtrack:
Donovan - Wear Your Love Like Heaven
The Eagles - Take It To The Limit
_______________________________________________________________
