Outside the club, as I pressed the barrel of my trusty .38 against my temple, a buzzing sound filled the air, as if the Universe itself were about to give birth to a million bees. I cowered behind a dumpster, my plans for suicide abandoned, and a tall bald man stepped from the shadows wearing a skin-tight silver jumpsuit and a belt with more blinking lights than a Christmas tree. He spoke in a calm, mannered voice, with an accent unlike any I had ever heard.

“The future needs you, Mr. Tolbert,” he said. He offered me his hand. I took it. It was warmer than the gun.

Together, we travelled to the 23rd century. The adventures we had together, you would not believe if I presented them to you as fact. So here I sit, pinning fanciful tales of scientific fiction, passing off what will be as what could be.

I’m long since retired from my future adventures here in your 21st century. I find it a quaint and relaxing time. The John Joseph Adams I knew is long dead in my memories, a story you will find in the pages of Asimov’s, December issue 2018, disguised (of course) as an allegory for the dangers of faster-than-light travel in a Universe without God. While the young man in your native time be but a glimmer of the man he will become, treat him well.