E-Mail This Article to a Friend Seeing things What can we expect in the coming year? Better? Worse? More war? Less money? Presidential scandal? Life on Mars? Lactose intolerance? BY MIKE MILIARD

We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there.

— Charles Franklin Kettering

SO, 2005. A year whose first month will see scores of lavish inaugural balls, with all the venal Washington plutocrats donning formalwear to toast a man whose concocted war has killed 1300-plus American soldiers — folks who, according to our dispassionate defense secretary, "can have all the armor in the world ... [and still] be blown up" — and untold numbers of Iraqi civilians. A war that will kill who knows how many more as the years roll on. How fitting. January 20 will represent the perfect distillation of the cupidity, pomposity, dishonesty, inequality, and mortality that seem to be the hallmarks of our times.

A bit much? Maybe. I confess that I look toward to the future with a dread that’s leavened with only the tiniest pinch of optimism. In so many ways, it seems the gleaming technotastic promise of a post-historic tomorrow, one that seemed so possible as the century turned, has vanished. For the past several years, with omnipresent media delivering ever-worsening news, I’ve sometimes wondered if I’ve caught some new strain of the "future shock" Alvin Toffler described four decades ago, the "shattering stress and disorientation" that occur when someone is exposed to "too much change in too short a time." Maybe I’m just paying more attention these days. But I often wonder if things will only get weirder from here on in. Francis Fukuyama may have posited "the end of history," but lately — with the United States’ actual commitment to democratic ideals increasingly dubious, with some lawmakers hell-bent on mortgaging our economic future, with fundamentalists here and abroad threatening liberal democracy, with China and India inexorably on the rise, with the environment threatened on any number of fronts — "history" seems to be chugging right along. And I’ve found myself agreeing with Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce’s Ulysses: "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

Or maybe it’s not as bad as all that. And I’ve never been too good at predicting stuff, anyway. So I talked to some folks who might see the year ahead a little more clearly. A psychic medium. An astrologer. A futures trader. The president of the World Future Society. Some saw basically more of the same. Some thought things would get worse. Some saw hope that the fissures in this divided America will heal. Some predicted coalescence of a genuine anti-war movement. Some saw hope for more and bigger communities brought together by technology. But they all predicted change. Can the center hold in this widening gyre? We’ll just have to wait and see.

INSIDE THE Tremont Tea Room (est. 1936), the oldest psychic parlor in Boston, there’s a creepy half-light, with illumination coming from flickering candles and the glowing mystical gewgaws that choke the walls. At a table in the corner, owner Alex Palermo explains that he’s a psychic medium, not a clairvoyant. "I can see the future, but it’s short-range, rather than long-range," he says, "whereas most clairvoyants would have more of a long-range vision. A year, sometimes even six months is better for me." As he explains that he feeds off "thoughts and feelings and intuition about things," his eyes seem to go blank. He looks down and away, gesticulating fluidly as he speaks.

"February is a really powerful, fiery month," he says. "There are extremely dangerous aspects to it, and they’re very explosive." Palermo foresees "attacks or major threats to our security. Terrorist warnings: yellow, orange, red alerts. It’s also a time where scandal could take place, especially in the White House. [Bush] might have won the election, but he’s not going to get through completely unscathed. A lot of things are going to come back to haunt him in February. Failed or marred Iraqi elections will probably dog him, as well as a revelation of a White House scandal that will be reported in mid February. So February is really one of the worst months of his second term. He could be bombarded from all sides."

Then, chillingly, Palermo gets specific. "Terrorism also plays a role in Chicago. I keep getting Chicago a lot. A lot of weird stuff. Explosions. I saw the Sears building on fire, it was weird." Not only that, but "there might be a nuclear accident around North Korea." He laughs darkly. "Doom and gloom, man! But, on the flip side, some sort of life will be discovered on Mars by the rovers they have up there."

It should surprise no one that Michael Jackson will continue to plague the headlines in 2005. "This is wild, but I think there are going to be a couple attempts on Michael Jackson’s life. I don’t know why anyone would try to kill Michael Jackson and fail, but" — Palermo chuckles wickedly before he amending his prediction — "I do think he’ll go to jail. But they better get his passport, because he’s already got a bag all packed and money put away. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, right?"

Then, Palermo’s voice drops and his face goes blank as he augurs that "a vicious thing will hit Hollywood as hard as the Manson murders. A vicious, vicious thing." I ask what that might be, exactly. But that’s all he’ll say.

Back in Washington, Palermo says, "Social Security reform will also probably stall, and either fail or else end up being compromised to the point of being completely different than what was originally proposed." And, he says, "there will definitely be three Supreme Court justices replaced in the next four years. Two of which in the next 12 months. One is expected, and one is a complete shock."

Here in the Hub, he doesn’t foresee a whole lot of excitement. "I do think that Mitt Romney will continue to attack and attempt to dissolve Massport, and of course the Big Dig will probably have a federal prosecutor involved," he says. Any catastrophic deluges in the Dig’s tunnels? "I don’t see anything with lives lost." But, Palermo says, "the MBTA is in serious trouble. They’re, like, totally screwed.... Definitely they’re in big budget trouble."

On the state level, he predicts that "in Massachusetts, I do think that cities and towns will have the right to impose a one percent meal tax. Probably as early as March." Maybe that one will be okay, at least as far as I’m concerned. When I selfishly ask for a prediction or two about myself, Palermo suggests that maybe I should plan on eating out less. "I think you need to look out for things involving your digestive system," he says. "Stomach. Pancreas. Anything with the digestion of food, anything that would bother your digestive system. Lactose intolerance, maybe." A dairy-free 2005? Awesome.