A Man From Nowhere

The distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion – Einstein.

I can be very well pleased with the idea of moving on but everything happens in a way that you cannot feel whether the right thing was to move on or at least be pleased it happened to you, Point of which I cannot really get it, but somewhere it occurred all like a dream within a dream. How am I supposed to differentiate between realities and dream how to pinch myself? All is happening really quickly like a strange nightmare.

I dropped my girlfriend Aarti, every day after having an evening walk in the garden. I make sure she is home exactly at the same time. She tells me it’s just a matter of few months after this we will go together at your house or our house, I replied, yes will and kissed her forehead and took a U-turn and went straight home.

Food was prepared, mom told me to turn off the television volume. She was speaking in a dramatic tone. It was definitely my sister and she might have a fight with her husband. I didn’t interrupt and started to browse my phone.

I messaged her,

I love you,

I love you too she continued more but my eyelids went off to sleep, and this is the end and beginning of everything.

It was black, all black and a drop of water pinched my face. I woke up and heard a loud yell of a female.

Why are you still at bed? Don’t you want to go to work,

A female wearing burkha, as I looked around I saw the walls were peeling off, and there was a strange smell of meat. The toilet was just 2 inches away with a kitchen attached to it.

I was wearing a lungi and had a cream-ish beard, I yelled with my utmost capacity, only find out, the house was just beside a railway station. I managed to suppress my loud cry. I looked around once again to find my phone. I did find a phone and I immediately started to check the number for Aarti but there was no one by that name, I couldn’t recollect any of friends name and number as well. I just had an epiphany I am at a wrong place. I was shivering may be I was scared to the core.

I sat for a while and looked around. Then I saw the door to have a look outside, there was a meat shop.

I was in Hyderabad, How did I land in Hyderabad, and who am I? Where is Aarti? Where is my house in Mumbai?

I started rummaging things whether or not somebody kidnapped me and put me here. But why they will put me in a house with a woman, how did I get this beard which has a different color altogether, judging by my physique I am more strong and my arms are big, my teeth have stains of tobacco.

I saw a newspaper, it was 1986. I needed to speak to my family so I ran outside to my find a phone. In the corner of the busy street there was an old telephone booth and dialed my moms number. The number does not exist. Then I called Aarti ; the same tone it was not in service. I kept looking around out of frustration. I asked a guy please tell me the date and year. The guy was aghast and replied angrily today is 22nd November 1986 and went away fuming, for a moment. I sat in the corner. I couldn’t believe how did I land up here.

It occurred to me that I need to visit my place somehow but didn’t have a penny to reach anywhere. I went to that house. I figured he kept a sum of money hidden under a carpet. it’s an old house and in a dilapidated stage. I immediately got dressed. I was going towards the station and I saw strange hoardings for the current government. Somewhere I was unable to believe what’s really happening to me.

I reached Mumbai and took a rick to my place. I saw a good looking female reading book outside in the garden. I went close. The house was different, totally alien to my imagination. I asked, “Hello, do you know where Savita De stays. She took a stance and said, Yes I am who are you sir?

I looked closely at her and I replied no, not you madam, and kept walking opposite to the house.

I sat under a tree. Once again I stopped a pedestrian, and questioned - sir don’t find it strange but which year is this?

1984 He smiled and moved.

How did I slip through time?

How did I time travel 33 years back?

All these questions went to my spine. An Idea struck me so I went to meet Aarti, I saw a tiny toddler playing with her mom. I didn’t have the audacity to meet her mom. I wrote a letter and which started like this,

Dear Aarti,

Please do not open this letter until you become 28 years of age. I need you to listened to my truth carefully as it has unrealistic happening which is not in your experience. At this time I went missing and you and my mother done every search and lost hope. I slipped through time and I came to see you when you were a toddler, You won’t remember me but I even gave you a flower and you smiled back. All these happened for no logical reason. I want you to remember only one thing, that I love you in all time realities.

Your Samir.

I hope she didn’t get this letter before time. I took a job near my home as a Gardner till the time I could figure what steps I have to take, I could see my mother each day, and somewhere it felt like a miracle as I am witnessing something unusual . Also I was terrified I can also break the fabric of time by giving her hint of what the future might hold.

Is the future still ongoing without me. Is my future mother searching for me there. They must go terrified in search of me? All these questions kept haunting me and I cannot do anything about it.

One particular day, I sat on a bench nowhere to go. I was hungry and whoever I knew is there in the future, I was morose and put my head down. I heard a familiar hiss, or a sound an old man wearing a blue cap.

Smoking cigar, said son I know where are you from. With sheer frustration I looked at him and almost about to lose myself. I said who the hell are you, that’s doesn’t matter old man replied.

But I have a very important information to pass, I didn’t pay heed to him and put my head down again. He still continued. Every full moon, precisely by 10:13 pm, there opens a space, space which is not future nor present that is the space you need to get to before it gets too late. Out of sudden amazement I looked at him and he disappeared in a thin air.

I looked for him around but to no vain. There was a letter lying on the bench. He mentioned the location and time and there was a ticket. I went to that location. it was Hyderabad, the same place I ran from. I disguised myself and stood exactly at the same place I have been told.

The streets lights went off and street was empty except for me. To my horror, I saw a blue and black hole emerging from nowhere. I heard a noise - get inside. I was shivering, however, I still summoned courage and space was narrowing. I got in and there was a loud noise like a huge door got closed.

I see lights and streets looks different, taxi and buses had strange color and people are not walking. They are on a wheel, like a small bicycle. It was a busy street and hoarding was digitized.

Because of my attire, I gathered attention. I ran to a corner, I was amazed and bewildered, I don’t why did I pay attention to that old man.

Found a newspaper stall, completely organized with a vending machine. Iit was not paper.

I saw the year, 22 November 2050.

I ran to Aarti, I saw the house was demolished. There was a new house, as I stood there. I saw Aarti sitting in a wheelchair. She was old and saggy that brought tears to my eyes. I don’t know what to do, where to go, I was lost in time and why me. The same voice came from the back “because you wished for it once, the Old man answered from far walking towards me!

The same old man, now wearing a business suit and smoking cigar. Your reality has changed. The question is not how did you disappear, the question is when did you disappear. He seemed to answer in puzzle and I really couldn’t understand. At last, he mentioned, I really cannot go back to my present neither to my past, because I broke the space and time continuum. This happens every 33 years and I took the leap twice, which broke the fabric of time for me.

He gave me an envelope when I opened it and asked what it contains the old man vanished again! The envelope contained a letter and few contact numbers,

Dear Samir,

The guy you just spoke with is yourself from the future. Sometimes we choose our destiny unknowingly, and time is just an illusion. And you my younger self is just a glitch in the matrix. You lost your family, you lost your loved one. Let me tell you are not the only one, where I come from I have many around. If I didn’t deliver this envelope to you I don’t exist in the future. And again, don’t worry I will keep visiting whenever you need me.

Samir.