Abstract
When something is labelled imperfect, it is often regarded as being in some way deformed or flawed. When a vision of the future as imperfect is suggested, the point in time and space from which that vision is generated not only colours the prediction, but also throws it back into the present like a reflection in a mirror. A future imperfect is the reflection of a present imperfect, and dystopic prophesy in sf exists because it is birthed from the sense of a dystopic present. Through the lens of the novel Roadside Picnic (1971) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker (1979) based on the novel, and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (2010) which draws from both the Strugatsky novel and the historical event of the Chernobyl reactor failure, this paper will explore the idea of the future imperfect being not about flaws and failings, but rather, about what remains still in process, and not yet whole. If “cast[ing] away the shadow to reveal the substance” dissolves the object, as Slavoj Zizek claims, what is it that happens when in “resembling” an understanding of itself the human creature not only looks at but through the mirror, reaching past the reflection to what lies beyond? When “resembling” and “being” are brought into “lethal proximity,” what does a future imperfect mean for the embodied human creature? Zizek, S. (1991). <em>Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 84-5.