Hey—It’s Toffer.
The dream of time travel has been around for over 2,000 years.
But the modern idea—the conscious, mechanized, perhaps even scientific journey through time—was born only in the late 19th century.
Estimated read time: 4 minutes
And that’s strange, isn’t it?
Why didn’t science dream of it sooner?
Were earlier minds wiser—intuitively afraid of the paradox?
Or maybe time travel did happen. But the future, recognizing the damage, buried the idea so deep it could only leak out as myth, or madness.
I used to think all this was fiction.
Then, five years ago, I found a page in a secondhand book—tucked between chapters of a forgotten sci-fi novel at a stall in Escolta. It wasn’t part of the book. It was onion paper, the kind used in old government documents. Typed on a vintage machine. Slightly burnt at the corners.
You must not meet yourself. That is Rule #4.
If you meet yourself, you must act as if nothing is strange.
If the encounter lasts longer than 47 seconds, neutralize.
(Note: The subject may know the rules. So may you.
This is not evidence of origin—only recursion.)
At the bottom: “2183 - Department of Temporal Maintenance”
I laughed when I first read it. Probably an art student’s prank. But I kept the page. Slipped it into my wallet. Some part of me liked the idea that time had departments and maintenance workers.
Months passed. I forgot about it.
Then one evening, walking home from a meeting, I passed through a quiet pedestrian bridge near Ayala. A man stood there alone, holding a small device like a pocket mirror. It shimmered faintly. Not glowing—just resisting the dark.
He turned toward me.
Khaki pants. Dark shirt. The kind of forgettable outfit you remember because it’s trying too hard to be invisible.
“You’re walking five minutes early,” he said, not unkindly. “Must be the coffee.”
I didn’t respond.
“You kept the page, didn’t you?” he added. “That’s what pulled the thread.”
And suddenly, I knew. This wasn’t random.
Some part of me had seen this before.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“To close loops.” He looked tired. Not dangerous. Not crazy. Just... weary, like a janitor in a very specific kind of emergency.
“Is it real then? Time travel?”
He gave a slow nod. “Wasn’t supposed to be. But someone—maybe from your side—keeps dreaming it back into existence.”
“Why stop it?”
He hesitated. “Because even knowing about it changes things. Not all disasters come from doing—some start from imagining.”
He started to walk away.
“What happens if people keep imagining?” I called out.
He didn’t turn around. “Then the past fights back.”
Weeks passed. I started noticing odd things.
A book I was sure I owned—gone.
A message I remember sending—never sent.
A bruise on my wrist I couldn’t explain.
Then, one morning, the paper was gone from my wallet. In its place, a single line written in the same typewriter ink:
You didn’t imagine this. But don’t imagine more.
And now I keep asking myself:
Why did time travel suddenly become thinkable in the 1800s, after millennia of silence?
What if something slipped?
What if someone like me—curious, careless—pulled the thread in the wrong direction?
What if that someone wasn’t me the first time?
And more than that:
What if this isn’t the first time I’ve told you this story?
Your Friend in Time,
Toffer