This Moment in Time

Tap, tap, tap. The rain pitter-pattered against the window to my left.

Sitting in the dark, all that illuminated my home office was the laptop screen directly in front of me, staring just as blankly at me as I was at it.

Can I really think of nothing to write again? I thought to myself.

It had been weeks--no, months--since inspiration had struck any chords within me. I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with me. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this kind of work. Maybe my dreams of being a writer for a living were too pie-in-the-sky for the likes of me.

"Can I get a little help here? For once!" I yelled out, half-expecting an answer back. "Who am I kidding? My prayers never get answered."

It had been two years since I had quit my job and made the commitment to follow my passion. I had written a book early on and it did all right. Paid the bills for a few months. I thought I had made the best decision of my life, what was right for me, that I was finally marching to the beat of my own drum. Perhaps, I was even fulfilling some type of higher purpose for myself.

But here I was, in massive debt, riddled with anxiety, and when I wasn't feeling anxiety, it was only because of my crippling depression, which seemed to persist in the background of my life, always waiting for a low moment to set in and take over. The constant cycle between feeling overwhelmed and feeling nothing was becoming too great of a burden, and I didn't know how much longer I could take it all.

Disheartened, I lifted my hand up to pull the screen down and call it a day, when a different kind of tapping came out of the silence. And actually, it wasn't a tapping at all--it was a knocking. But it wasn't coming from my home's front door. The knocking was much, much closer.

In fact, it sounded like it was right outside my office.

But that couldn't be. My home was all locked up; and I was alone, other than my goldfish, Jeremiah. My security system was turned on, and nothing had gone off.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

The knocking sounded again.

My heart started to race, my face flush and hot, and fear was beginning to set in. Oddly, my first thought was, why did someone break in only to knock at my office door? My second thought was, why the hell am I asking such a randomly logical question at a time like this!?

Quickly, I began to think of a weapon I could grab. I didn't have any guns in the home. I didn't believe in them, which felt quite stupid in that moment. All I had was a third-place spelling bee trophy from seventh grade right behind me on the shelf. I somehow was able to get up and grab ahold of it without even noticing I had moved. But now, I was realizing that whatever this is, I'm going to have to address it, despite the fear, despite the unknown...

I stammered, "Who-who-who is there?"

Silence.

I tried to say it again, "Who's there? Whatever you want, just take it and go, please!"

Silence.

It had been maybe thirty seconds since that second series of knocks. My heart was flying at this point, and my entire body was shaking.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Please, just come in already!" I yelled, my voice cracking midway through.

Suddenly, the knob turned, and the door pushed open.

In the darkness, I couldn't make out anything but a shadow. A figure.

"Here, let me get the light," the figure said, and it flipped the switch.

As light illuminated the room from the fixture on the ceiling, I was shocked to see that it was a man in a long, light brown trench coat.

"STAY BACK! I'M WARNING YOU! I KNOW TAI CHI!" I screamed at him, still shaking uncontrollably.

"Oh, I'm sure you do, bud," the man said, chuckling a bit. "But I'm not here for that. I just needed you to invite me in. Figured that was the polite thing to do."

"Polite!?" I snapped back. "You could have done anything other than break into my house and scare the crap out of me if you wanted to be polite! What do you even want!?"

The man smirked a little bit, and then took a bite of an apple--my apple, I realized, meaning he had walked around my place before coming to the office door. As he was chewing, I began to notice some details about him. He had a crazy hairstyle, looked like something from The Hunger Games. You know, ridiculous and colorful for no reason at all. His trench coat was nice, and he had a button-up shirt and black tie on underneath. He was wearing fingerless gloves, too. His eyes were a bright green, and I wondered if they were contact lenses.

"You got a nice little place here, bud," the man said with his mouth half full of apple still. He swallowed. "Look, I know I probably scared ya, and I'm sorry about that. But I'm here for a very important reason. Well, sort of important, but it'll be important to you at least."

"Man, please just tell me, am I in danger?" I said, desperately.

The man cackled. "No, no, no," he assured me. "Well, sort of, I mean, have you seen your health? You should definitely go get some therapy or something. All that anxiety is bad for your heart. But besides that, I'm not going to hurt you. You can relax."

"Well, then why are you here? What do you want?"

"Alright, I'll tell ya. I'm here to give you some inspiration."

"Inspiration?"

"Yeah, for your short story thingy you're trying to write."

"You mean, for this contest?"

"Exactly that. I've seen that you've been struggling, heard you call out for help more than a few times. I'm just here to help ya."

"Bu-bu-but who are you? Why would you help me? Why are you in my house? How have you been watching me?"

The man chuckled again. "Look, I can't really go into detail too much, time travel rules and all that jazz, but--"

"YOU'RE FROM THE FUTURE!?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, bud, I'm a time traveler. Couldn't you tell from my super cool trench coat, fingerless gloves, and crazy hairstyle?"

Stunned, I couldn't really comprehend all that was happening. But after a few seconds, I thought, yeah, that is actually what I would envision a time traveler to look like. How strange.

"So, you're a time traveler, and you came here to … what?" I asked.

"Like I said, I'm just here to give ya a little inspiration, and then I'll be on my way. No big deal."

"With my writing? You want to help me with my writing?" I asked, more calmly than I expected at that moment.

"Yep. Just wanted to pop in, say 'hi,' tell you to write about this experience, and then I'll just be on my merry way. Oh, and thanks for the apple."

I was flabbergasted. Bamboozled. Discombobulated. All the fun words. Why, oh why, would a person from the future waste his time on a mediocre, wannabe writer who had published one decent book and not much else?

The man began to turn around and walk out of the room.

"But why?" I asked. "Why, of all the people you could help, all the things you could see, why did you pay attention to me and come to help? I'm just a writer. Not even that great of one, if I'm being completely honest. Why would you use this amazing technology for something so … so mundane?"

"You twenty-first century folks are so funny, you know that?" The man suggested. "What you think is mundane, you don't even know how profound it really is. What you think is average, ordinary, normal, boring--you have no idea how wonderful it all is that you get to do it in the first place. Like I said, I can't divulge much detail. It's not my place to do so. But I'll leave you with this: On the surface, you may seem and feel completely ordinary, but you have no idea just how extraordinary existence is in general. The fact that you exist makes you extraordinary. You matter. You all do. You just don't know it yet, or, at least you don't remember. Have a nice life, bud."

With those final words to me, he walked back into the darkness behind him. A quiet, blinding light flashed, and then he was gone.

And that's the story of how a time traveler saved my life.

The end.