There’s and amazing thing about this exchange we’re having here. Where and when and how I am writing and you are reading. Where I am sitting here and listening to Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello in iTunes whilst Robbye is sewing in the background. Whilst the sun is trying its damnedest to cut through the clouds.

Semi-delirious. Semi-conscious. My head buzzing; my face a mask that doesn’t quite feel connected to the muscle tissue under my countenance.

This is my place. This is my context. This is my time.

And this conglomeration of words in front of you–this is my time travel.

Because I am not real to you except through these words. I don’t, in fact, even exist, except for inside your head. Am I a real person? Something in the world? Maybe so, but maybe not. Reading this is not an act of trust, but believing it is another thing entirely. A leap of faith is what it is.

For I am only my words. And I live nowhere else, except inside of your head.

And yet, for me. I know that I am real, reaching out to you in another time and another place-the future. But this for me is also something of a leap. For I know nothing about the eventual disposition of these words set down. Will they survive to find eye to read them? This computer could crash and burn. The world could crash and burn, for that matter. Or they could simply languish.

The bottom line is that I, myself, do not know who you are. I am not certain you even exist. You, my good friend, are at press time, merely a figment of my imagination. My imaginary audience.

And yet, I write to you. With love. With my all, I set down this tale because I am hoping that you read it and that it means something to you. Perhaps that it means everything for you.

And though neither of us is entirely certain with regard to the other’s existence in the Universe, here we are, bound up together in this journey. Thanks for that, by the way. Thanks for being here. Or there…wherever you are. But thank you, I mean, for following the trail of these words.

Our proverbial rabbit hole, I suppose. All pretend. Yet ultimately real, if only inside our heads.

It is thus, that I begin to tell you.

I’ve walked in this world—my world—lonely in the supreme. In disconnect. Outside of the circuit.

What do I mean?

I don’t know what it’s like where and when you live. You might be reading this tomorrow. You might be reading it 100 years from now. If it’s the latter, your world likely looks almost nothing like mine. Then again, maybe I’m wrong about that. It could surprise me how much it looks like mine.

If you’re living 100 years from now, I, unfortunately, will never have the opportunity to make such a judgment. You’ll have to take that mantle. Will, you please? Take that moment to ponder? Read through to the end and ask the question for me? Can we make that agreement now?

Again…thank you. I appreciate that. Because if I really do exist, I will be dead by then. I think. And if you really exist, you’re my only hope.