Prisoner of Destiny
Doctor Emmett Brown, in his life, had been fortunate in more ways than one.
He was fortunate to be blessed with a creative intellect. He was fortunate to have divined through the writings of Jules Verne, the true purpose of his life. He was fortunate to have been born into a family of wealth, to be able to pursue his ideas without needing the favours, financial or otherwise, of those far more likely to label him a 'crackpot'.
But perhaps, most of all, he had been fortunate to have slipped off his toilet seat while hanging a clock, hit his head, and have the vision which would profoundly change his life forever.
Meeting Marty McFly, the teenager from thirty years in the future, had been a miracle. He had learned so much about himself, and his destiny...so much about what he was yet to see, and what he would achieve. It had opened up a whole new world for him, literally. A world he was so eager to see, that the three decades between November 1955 and October 1985 simply couldn't pass fast enough for him.
In thirty years, a lot had changed. A lot happened. And Doc, unlike anyone else, was able to anticipate certain events. He alone knew that whatever was happening was 'meant' to happen...
He knew that George McFly and Lorraine Baines would get married and have three children. He knew the youngest one, Marty, was destined to become his best friend. He knew that he would build a time machine from a Delorean. And he even knew that he would be shot, and nearly killed, by terrorists...that he would survive, and travel to the future, and then return to 1955 with Marty to get a book of some sort back from Biff Tannen, but then get struck by lightining and sent back to 1885. And he knew that Marty would return to rescue him.
And while he had eagerly anticipated, even welcomed, some of these events with pleasant precognition, he couldn't quiet say the same for others...
He hadn't wanted to do the deal with the Libyan terrorists...he hadn't wanted to take their plutonium, knowing full well what that would lead to. But he had no choice. He had to do it...the preservation of the space-time continuum depended on it. And besides, he'd survive wouldn't he? His future was already all mapped out for him...up till 1885 anyway...
He also didn't really want to risk his and Marty's life by conducting the first temporal experiment in as open a space as Lone Pine Mall...but he had no choice. He'd seen the video...he had to do it there. And he couldn't warn Marty about what was to happen, couldn't jump into the car with him and escape...no, Marty had to outrun the terrorists himself and end up trapped in the past, for a week anyway...it was supposed to happen...
And it was while pondering over these and other events that Doc came to the depressing realisation that he knew too much about his destiny...and knowing too much about it made him its prisoner...
The future wasn't written...he'd always wanted to believe that. He'd always wanted to believe he could forge his own destiny; a free spirit like him would like to believe no less. But now that his destiny was all laid out for him, good and bad, he wondered how free was he really...
Of course, he argued with himself, it was after all still his destiny...the one he'd forged for himself. Given a chance, he would still do things this way...after all, other versions of himself had done precisely just that while exercising their free will...it was still what he wanted, and what he would naturally do...except that 'this' time round, he had prior knowledge of it. Why should it make so much of a damn difference?
And yet, Doc somehow felt, deep down inside, that knowing the choice he'd freely make in advance meant that they wouldn't be free choices after all...that even though he'd forged it himself, he was still a prisoner of his destiny...