He entered the restaurant—a handsome seven foot tall twenty-something—slick black hair, charcoal-colored jumpsuit, thermal vest, combat boots. A look you don’t often see in Phoenix, but it worked nonetheless. I waved him over, his green agate eyes locked on me from across the room.
“Hello,” he said.
It was our first in-person meeting—his email, arriving a week earlier:
Him: Your E-Ticket story came to my attention through portal impress streaming.
Our online chat continued . . .
Me: Who are you?
Him: I’m J.S.—from the future.
Me: Another internet ruse, but I’ll play along. What’s your real name?
Him: I cannot say. My unique situation demands anonymity.
Me: Alright . . . then what’s portal impress streaming?
Him: It’s how people receive multi-dimensional information, similar to the way light travels through space.
He further explained the concept of thought forms (waves of subatomic energy amassed over the collective), how he’d picked up his name as a thought form off a working sci-fi draft posted on my iCloud account.
Me: The iCloud—a likely story. Why is your situation unique?
Him: In future time, I’m presently captured by a league of mutant Commandos who are after an item of indeterminate value currently within my reach. They’re holding me prisoner beneath the Sacred Spine, a mountain range in the Western Sector of what was once the United States.
This can’t be what I think it is. The grilled cheese sandwich I’d just eaten morphed into a clump of paper mache inside my stomach. I hesitated, then typed my next question.
Me: Any chance you’re from Megira?
Him: Yes.
Me: And do you have a partner, N—?
Again yes. My eyes fell over the screen in unfocused disbelief. I should’ve picked up on the initials. He wasn’t an editor with a quirky new recruitment shtick or an agent scouting for sci-fi authors as I’d imagined . . .
Me: You’re my protagonist!
Him: I thought that was understood.
Me: This is crazy. What do you want?
Him: Let’s get together.
Me: You’re kidding, right? Where?
J.S.: Phoenix, downtown.
We’d set the meeting for 1:00 PM at Sam’s Luncheonette off Jackson Street. Unaccustomed to the pulse of the city proper, I entered the building at 12:45, still wondering if I’d made a mistake. The sequestering comfort of a black walnut booth on this cloudy winter day—its tall backs and reddish-brown leather seats, rubbed smooth from years of use—seemed like a good choice.
“How was your . . . flight?” I said, with a wry grin, after I’d waved him over.
“I’m not an alien, nor do I travel by spacecraft, if that’s what you’re implying. You created me, remember?” he said, taking a seat.
“How, again?”
“With your thoughts, or what you call ‘imagination.’”
“But how did you get from my story to here?”
His abridged explanation involved warped space, time travel and cosmic gateways, or wormholes.
“There’s a Light House exhibit at your nearby Science Center that I used as a final point of entry. Tourists think of it as a source of amusement with its mirrored cubes and rainbows of reflected light. But for Futurists like myself, we manipulate that same light for travel across fourth-dimensional space-time.”
“Wow. This is unbelievable. But somehow you’re—”
“May I share some knowledge I’ve acquired from living in 2153?” A play of umber shadows skittered tiger-like stripes across his face as he leaned over the table.
“Pay attention to your thoughts. They’re powerful vortices of cosmic energy and must be treated with great respect. You can heal, create—even destroy with your mind.”
“You do these things?” I said, an acknowledging nod to the waitress for serving us coffee.
“Not exactly. We’re still neophytes. But there’s a group of genetically modified half-humans, the O—’s, who’ve mastered those skills.”
Part of me knew his admonitions were true. That trip to the carnival when I was seven? Game booth. The prized china figurine. Walking away, empty-handed after several tries at the ring toss. And still, I wouldn’t let it go. That porcelain lady, dressed in lace, stayed in my head to the point of obsession. Until . . . a gift-giving stranger appeared from the throng and offered me a replica of that same figurine. Was this interaction a mere serendipitous play of events? Or did I conjure up this wish-fulfilling Samaritan by thinking him into existence?
“Ugh, this is worse than mulroot grot,” J.S. said, sipping his coffee.
“Well, it works for us twenty-fourteeners, that’s for sure. So—why’d you come? You never said.”
“You’re a writer. You inspire others through your stories. It’s time for the truth, Diana.”
“About what?”
“Thought awareness is the beginning of self-discovery. If you curb negative thinking and focus on the workings of your mind, you’ll begin to see yourself in a new light. Consider this meeting as lesson one. They’ll be others, but first I must extricate myself, and N—, from this intolerable situation you have authored.”
He stood by the booth, the magnitude of his stature, impressive.
“The outcome to my story is already written, though it may not seem clear to you. I’m acting out the script because that’s what I must do. It’s all the same,” J.S. said, his cautionary tone abated.
“What is?”
“The past, future. Neither exist, actually.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not important at this juncture. Just stay present,” he said, his hand over mine. “We’ll talk again.”
When he left, I took a moment to savor my unique experience with a character come to life. His suggestions played in my head, intermingled with the vividness of my surroundings: the velvety taste of mocha on my tongue, the window speckled with intermittent drops of rain, the heated air brushing against my cheeks from overhead vents. I glanced toward the door, his absence noted by a hint of nostalgia ruffling through my bones. What’s next? I wondered—until I remembered the Science Center, a few blocks away.
“Hello,” he said.
It was our first in-person meeting—his email, arriving a week earlier:
Him: Your E-Ticket story came to my attention through portal impress streaming.
Our online chat continued . . .
Me: Who are you?
Him: I’m J.S.—from the future.
Me: Another internet ruse, but I’ll play along. What’s your real name?
Him: I cannot say. My unique situation demands anonymity.
Me: Alright . . . then what’s portal impress streaming?
Him: It’s how people receive multi-dimensional information, similar to the way light travels through space.
He further explained the concept of thought forms (waves of subatomic energy amassed over the collective), how he’d picked up his name as a thought form off a working sci-fi draft posted on my iCloud account.
Me: The iCloud—a likely story. Why is your situation unique?
Him: In future time, I’m presently captured by a league of mutant Commandos who are after an item of indeterminate value currently within my reach. They’re holding me prisoner beneath the Sacred Spine, a mountain range in the Western Sector of what was once the United States.
This can’t be what I think it is. The grilled cheese sandwich I’d just eaten morphed into a clump of paper mache inside my stomach. I hesitated, then typed my next question.
Me: Any chance you’re from Megira?
Him: Yes.
Me: And do you have a partner, N—?
Again yes. My eyes fell over the screen in unfocused disbelief. I should’ve picked up on the initials. He wasn’t an editor with a quirky new recruitment shtick or an agent scouting for sci-fi authors as I’d imagined . . .
Me: You’re my protagonist!
Him: I thought that was understood.
Me: This is crazy. What do you want?
Him: Let’s get together.
Me: You’re kidding, right? Where?
J.S.: Phoenix, downtown.
We’d set the meeting for 1:00 PM at Sam’s Luncheonette off Jackson Street. Unaccustomed to the pulse of the city proper, I entered the building at 12:45, still wondering if I’d made a mistake. The sequestering comfort of a black walnut booth on this cloudy winter day—its tall backs and reddish-brown leather seats, rubbed smooth from years of use—seemed like a good choice.
“How was your . . . flight?” I said, with a wry grin, after I’d waved him over.
“I’m not an alien, nor do I travel by spacecraft, if that’s what you’re implying. You created me, remember?” he said, taking a seat.
“How, again?”
“With your thoughts, or what you call ‘imagination.’”
“But how did you get from my story to here?”
His abridged explanation involved warped space, time travel and cosmic gateways, or wormholes.
“There’s a Light House exhibit at your nearby Science Center that I used as a final point of entry. Tourists think of it as a source of amusement with its mirrored cubes and rainbows of reflected light. But for Futurists like myself, we manipulate that same light for travel across fourth-dimensional space-time.”
“Wow. This is unbelievable. But somehow you’re—”
“May I share some knowledge I’ve acquired from living in 2153?” A play of umber shadows skittered tiger-like stripes across his face as he leaned over the table.
“Pay attention to your thoughts. They’re powerful vortices of cosmic energy and must be treated with great respect. You can heal, create—even destroy with your mind.”
“You do these things?” I said, an acknowledging nod to the waitress for serving us coffee.
“Not exactly. We’re still neophytes. But there’s a group of genetically modified half-humans, the O—’s, who’ve mastered those skills.”
Part of me knew his admonitions were true. That trip to the carnival when I was seven? Game booth. The prized china figurine. Walking away, empty-handed after several tries at the ring toss. And still, I wouldn’t let it go. That porcelain lady, dressed in lace, stayed in my head to the point of obsession. Until . . . a gift-giving stranger appeared from the throng and offered me a replica of that same figurine. Was this interaction a mere serendipitous play of events? Or did I conjure up this wish-fulfilling Samaritan by thinking him into existence?
“Ugh, this is worse than mulroot grot,” J.S. said, sipping his coffee.
“Well, it works for us twenty-fourteeners, that’s for sure. So—why’d you come? You never said.”
“You’re a writer. You inspire others through your stories. It’s time for the truth, Diana.”
“About what?”
“Thought awareness is the beginning of self-discovery. If you curb negative thinking and focus on the workings of your mind, you’ll begin to see yourself in a new light. Consider this meeting as lesson one. They’ll be others, but first I must extricate myself, and N—, from this intolerable situation you have authored.”
He stood by the booth, the magnitude of his stature, impressive.
“The outcome to my story is already written, though it may not seem clear to you. I’m acting out the script because that’s what I must do. It’s all the same,” J.S. said, his cautionary tone abated.
“What is?”
“The past, future. Neither exist, actually.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s not important at this juncture. Just stay present,” he said, his hand over mine. “We’ll talk again.”
When he left, I took a moment to savor my unique experience with a character come to life. His suggestions played in my head, intermingled with the vividness of my surroundings: the velvety taste of mocha on my tongue, the window speckled with intermittent drops of rain, the heated air brushing against my cheeks from overhead vents. I glanced toward the door, his absence noted by a hint of nostalgia ruffling through my bones. What’s next? I wondered—until I remembered the Science Center, a few blocks away.
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