"Stop!" he shouted, and though I was almost upon him and any bystander would infer he was speaking to me only, in my spirit I perceived that he was addressing the immediate vicinity of the universe in general.

And so the immediate vicinity of the unuverse responded by freezing in place, including me, though I retained my powers of thought and my physical senses.

"The Administrator warned me about you, said that I should be wary of you," he continued casually, as though life and time around us both were continuing as normal. "I know you were just trying to be a helpful stranger, and I appreciate the sentiment."

I had just saved him from evidently throwing himself in front of a city bus.

Touching my shoulder, he freed me of his spell. His releasing 'adjusted' my posture to an upright standing position as opposed to the ungainly mid-stride in which I had been caught. My instinctive reaction was to try to catch myself from falling over and the reaction itself almost made me stumble anyway.

He continued in a rather hurried tone. "I know you. I have seen you in visions. I have delved you and I know we would meet, but not like this. Listen: you meddle in matters not your concern, and and would do more harm woth good intentions that most evil members of your kind attempt on purpose."

His body language had no hint of the same adrenaline rush I was feeling after having just saved a person's life. Had he not stopped the procession of everyrhing around us with the mere power of speech, I would still find his calm demeanor unsettling.

But in my dismay at what had just happened, a dozen different questions competed. The only one I dared ask at first was, "What is this?"

He answered, "I am a jinn. No, not like the movies. Not like the angels or the spirits some call jinns by mistake. No, we are not monsters from some game; we are people like you, only better. You were not meant to be here, but you were. Yes, I meant to die, but soneone turned you aside to save me, and I want to know why."

Before I could tell him I had no idea what he was talking about, he said, "No, you don't know I'm talking about, and fate willing, you never will. Now I must repay you for your kindness. A life for a life. How shall I do this? Perhaps I will send you back, let you do it all over again. Yes. I will make a tulpa to scry over you and perhaps it will observe the interloper and report back to me in the fullness of time. Yes. We will do that."

"A 'tulpa'? 'Scrying'? Look mister, you're speakimg English, but what are you talking about? I was just trying to do the right thing. How could that be any harm? And what Adminstrator? And what's a jinn anyway? And—"

"Enough questions," he complained, and suddenly I couldn't finish my sentence and barely my train of thought.

"Look here. In due time you will return to this place and report back to me. And we will figure this all out. Now go."

A familiar voice from childhood suddenly rang in my ears. "Charlie! Wake up and pay attention! This is important!"

My eyes siddenly snapped open amid the quiet rumble of chuckles and snickering around me. I was sitting at a desk in a classroom full of children. They were huge. Or rather, they were the same size as me. i looked around. A feeling of dread mixed with more familiarity washed over me.

That voice was Mrs. Leno's, and I had grown up with these children. I remembered when my family moved, I was glad to be rid of them and their drama and fads and episodic soap opera sweetheart relationships. Only to get enmeshed in a different high school's drama amd couplings. The fads stayed the same, though. Some things are just universal, like the Big S.

I had a sickening feeling. I hated this class, I hated these people. Most of all, I hated this teacher, because she cared and tried and I didn't understand her manner of tough love until years after I left.

A voice whispered in my ear, seething and wispy, the movement of air tickling my ear. [Yes, Charlie, stay awake.] At this, I involuntarily turned my head to see the face of whoever, or whatever, had just spoken to me. I saw only the empty assigned seat of some student absent from both class and my momentary recollection.

[Thank you. I will take note of Mrs. Leno.]

Now that sickening feeling turned into a sour physical sinking feeling in the put of my stomach.

Oh no.

[You must follow your path. You must not deviate. I will remind you of your appointment in due time.] Hours later, I would realize the sensation of the tulpa's breath tickling my skin was a physical hallucination in my brain trying to make sense of a foreign consciousness resting on my shoulder, as it were, and manipulating the energies in my brain to let me hear its unreal speech.

A feeling of being burdened, a sense of being 'more', suddenly vanished. A sensation you would notice only after its absence. I seemed to be alone in my thoughts.

I hoped never to feel that again, but I would find out too soon that hope would be dashed long before my appointed rendezvous with that mysterious stranger now years in...the future?

I had a job to do, but I resolved to make a mess of it as best I could. Not just for my own sake, but for Mrs. Leno's, whoever she was—is, whatever she might be.