Worlds

He was standing at the kitchen counter reading the instructions on seed packets.

The forecast said that Sunday was going to be sunny and dry; perfect weather for gardening. According to the descriptions, there were several colours. He wasn’t sure whether he’d sow them in a random fashion or create some sort of colour design. Maybe he could do a little of both, a mix of colours with an emphasis on one. It was quite a large patch of soil. He’d know when the time came. He was squinting at the annoyingly small print on the back of one of them when he felt the tremor.

A figure appeared, just like that!

“I must say, you’ve been busy,” the stranger said, nodding with approval.

Visibly shaken, the man looked at the figure, whoever he was. “What?”

“You know, tomorrow in the garden,” said the other, pointing at the seed packets and smiling.

His fear turning to anger, the man said, “Yes, but I haven’t done it yet! Who the hell are you, anyway? How did you get in here?”

“I know, this is where I have to explain.” He moved closer to the counter and leant on it. “I come from a different world and sometimes these worlds, yours and mine, kind of overlap. I’m sure that must sound pretty weird to you, but time runs backwards in our world. Of course, this seems quite natural from our point of view. Our world… well, it’s very interesting, most of the time, that is. There are other major differences, apart from time running in different directions. One of them is the fact that we know about you, but you don’t know about us. That just happens to be the case, and we don’t know why. Not your problem… ours.

Amazed at his own calmness, the man said, “OK, but what are you doing here?”

“Eh? Nothing really. This thing, this crossover, it just happens. Like I said, we don’t know why.” He moved a couple of packets around. “When it does,” he went on, “we only seem to be able to talk to someone who’s, how can I put it… vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable?”

“Ah! Maybe not vulnerable, more like being open to suggestion. For instance, you seem calm enough, have you been smoking at all?

“I don’t smoke very often, only socially, but I have the feeling you don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t, most of our contacts are smoking pot or taking illicit drugs or something. If you haven’t, it means you’re a natural.”

“Is that good?”

“Definitely! It means that for the time we have, we can hold a relatively normal conversation. This is good, I’ll be talking about this for weeks; in reverse of course.”

“In reverse?”

“Yes, your future is our past. It’s actually very simple, but I wouldn’t try to work it out, if you know what I mean; considering your situation, you wouldn’t stand a chance!”

The man sighed. “Look, I’m getting really lost here, but I can’t help wondering if any of us visit you during one of these… these crossover things.”

“Oh! Yes, quite often, more often than we are able to visit your world.” The visitor frowned. “That’s another thing we don’t understand.”

At that moment, the room began to vibrate softly and the visitor pulled a sad face as his form started to quiver. His voice began to trail off, as he said, “By the way, I shouldn’t really say this, but the patch of blue in the middle looked really nice.”

With that, he was gone.