While all the while up till then having been convinced that she knew where she was, where she was going and how to get there, at that moment the whole system of certainty and security collapsed. She realized she couldn’t recognize the surroundings, and as much as she tried to go back the way she had come, it was useless. What happened was completely illogical and beyond reason. She had simply gone on those streets and the road just had to take her to the school. She knew those streets... had known, or rather had the impression she knew them... The school was nowhere in sight. The streets were unrecognizable. They were indeed like a maze, yet she couldn’t have just lost her way as simply as that. There were no people around, so it was impossible for her to ask for directions, to understand where she had gone wrong. It was sunny, warm yet shady, as there were lots of trees on those streets... She paused by a white fence of a villa and started to look in her bag for the cell phone. She had no other logical and possible solution. One of the streets had taken her out to the bus station, but it was not the bus station she thought it should be, as it was a bus station she had never seen before and which did not help her as a landmark so that she could understand where she was. Just like many other things around her, it told her that she was lost and that this was a fact. The bright summer day made her judgement be blinded by a strong light, and her thinking was sleepy because of the heat... or so it seemed to her. This was a reasonable explanation for her having got lost. Now she’d be late for the job interview and the beginning was already spoilt. first impression and punctuality, which were usually her strong point... and it was her first job... or would have been. But when she took her mobile phone out of her bag, she noticed that the screen glass of the phone had fallen off, so she had to look for it in the bag and to press it back, hoping the phone still worked. It seemed to be still working, but when she entered the code, a message appeared on the screen saying that the code was no longer valid. And the date displayed a year way forward into the future, something like 2600 or 2860! Her first reaction was to think that her phone didn’t work properly any more, it had broken down exactly when she needed it the most. Or had she truly been projected into the future? She didn’t know what to believe any more, she was at the same time amazed, panicked, worried, upset... and who knows what other feelings she couldn’t find a name for at the moment. Her first reaction was to look for a public phone, wondering if she had any phone card left in her bag, searching desperately for one while walking and searching for a public phone. She spotted a public phone, but she soon realized she had been feeling relieved in vain, as it was clearly out of order and couldn’t be used. It had been destroyed, its wires had been pulled out and it stood there as if reminding her that there was no way out and she was hopelessly trapped there... where she didn’t even know where exactly she was, concerning both time and space. She had nothing left to do but wander on the streets which looked in no way familiar. and her purpose while doing so was finding another public phone which could be used... A phone... she must find a phone... and then things may get a little cleared up, she might find out whether she had really been projected into the future. And if so, she hoped she could establish a phone connection with someone in the past. And if she had been projected into the future, how did that happen, and when precisely, had it happened because of the streets or because of her cell phone, or how was that possible?. And was she ever going to get back to her own time, how was she going to do that, and what will she do if she were to be trapped in there for the rest of her life?. She couldn’t even go back to that bus station, where there was a certain way out of the maze of streets... she was still in the maze and wandering looking desperately for a phone and for some street names, which weren’t written anywhere or she hadn’t noticed them. While having got back to the broken public phone and staring at it hopelessly, she heard someone behind her. Finally, someone else, for during her wanderings she had seen no passers-by. It was a man, dark-haired and dressed in black, projected into the future just like her, who was apparently on his way to work when he arrived there. How long had he been there? Who could tell? Time there was difficult to tell. Indeed, she looked at her watch and she saw it showed some crazy numbers. The man told her that all public phones he’d seen there were broken. That was it. No formal introductions. No names. Only the implied “I am also projected into the future, and lost.” And maybe that was enough. She saw no need for formality and no use for it anyway given the situation they were stuck in. She had looked at his face without seeing it, that is without really noticing it, with its features and everything... just like when she’d be too nervous when meeting new people and hearing their names without actually understanding what she heard or remembering neither their names nor their faces. She still hoped to find a public phone. That was, she believed, the closest to a solution. Then she’d know more about her situation and see if it was worth it to feel truly hopeless. Wandering like that together, she realized that she sort of recognized a street. They had somehow managed to get out of that maze of streets, but so what, a new maze awaited for them probably... as the streets were completely different from what they used to know, the whole town looked differently as they were a big distance into the future. But that street reminded her of one close to the University where she had studied... the street where a bookshop selling old, used books was. Some passers-by, though rare. When they saw an outside vendor, selling jewels, the man offered to buy some jewel for her... as a souvenir of the happening, he said, half serious half humorously. If they ever found a way out, she thought. She had a bad feeling about being stuck there with no way out. She wondered what her parents and other people would make of her absence, she’d probably be reported as missing. Of course the man offered the vendor money from their time, it was a huge amount of banknotes which puzzled the vendor who said that it said on the ticket how much the jewel cost. The man said, puzzled, that the jewel was far more worth than that and he thought it was a mistake. The vendor said that it wasn’t. From what the vendor said, they could infer that the value of money in the country had fallen down after having joined the European Union. Soon she felt like the phone was less and less of a solution. She was afraid that her last and possible only hope of ever getting back would crash. It seemed to her like it was impossible to establish contact with someone in the past, it seemed more and more a crazy idea as she contemplated it in her mind. All the people she used to know were without a doubt dead judging by the year she’d seen displayed on her mobile phone and she should have been long gone herself... and if so, how could she hope for finding a job, a place to stay, if undoubtedly her papers must say that she’d been dead for some time. Indeed, the more she reflected on her situation she realized the sheer absurdity of it, and what made it more absurd was that although it would have been impossible and absurd to happen it actually did and she was in the middle of living it. She regretted not being able to know how her life would have been like, had she still lived during her time... but at the same time she knew, or rather supposed, that she had a past but she didn’t know anything about it but she knew about the future, not her future, but a future which was now her present... a present-future away from everything and everybody she knew. And if so, did she actually exist there in the present-future?. Hard to say... These thoughts were tangling up in her mind and exhausting her... all this confusion... It seemed in a way to be a conspiracy of some kind... like somebody – heaven knows who – having made sure that all links with the past were broken to them... yes, those public phones and their own cell phones which had been destroyed and gone out of order. Who and how, and last but not least, why? were the basic questions she kept asking herself... all the while knowing there was little hope – if any at all - for ever finding an answer. A voice called her. She felt as if she had awaken from some light, brief sleep. She was sitting in an armchair. She was told she had been accepted for the job and that she will start in a few weeks. She was confused, but she tried to seem self-possessed. She tried figuring out where she was, and she soon realized she had just passed the interview... without knowing how it went on! She thanked the principal and she seemed confused on how to find her way out, but the principal found nothing strange about that, as she had never been there before... Outside, she checked her bag. The cell phone was ok, seemed like it had never been broken and the date was a normal one. She phoned home to tell her parents the good news. Still trying to understand what had happened to her, she spotted in her bag the pack in which she knew the jewel had been put. She hadn’t got a chance to open it and see how the jewel looked like... and regretted not having looked more careful at the man’s face. She won’t recognize him and maybe she will never meet him again, and he was the only one with whom she could talk freely about the strange adventure. The jewel was a gold horse and it had a gold chain to be placed on. This stood as a proof that it had happened for real. She didn’t know anything about the dark man, nothing at all, not even where he worked, no name at all, let alone a phone number and an address... not even a clear-cut image of his physical appearance. Also her not knowing how the interview went on and how she found the school and went inside was a proof of the reality of the strange adventure... and she would have liked to talk to somebody about it, but now she had to keep it to herself and imagine how the interview could have went on. And yes, she was glad she was back. And deep down she hoped that maybe the man could recognize her, maybe he had taken a better look at her... maybe he could remember as well what they had been through, and maybe their paths will cross again some day... hopefully in this world, not that of the far-away future... Her thoughts were scattered all over her mind. She remembered not having found an answer as to how, and why did all that happen. Or who did that? She was never going to find out anything certain, now she was sure of it. Deep down she hoped she won’t participate in any other such adventure... unless she’d still return... But considering that certainty was something clearly out of order there... Anyway, it was not up to her to decide. She felt like a toy someone had been playing a crazy game with. The sun was shining brightly and the streets were quiet. They looked familiar.