It may well have happened to anybody, but it happened to him.
He simply didn’t see it coming. All that took place on that particular morning probably transpired in a matter of moments.
He was crossing the town square at the time. There were not many people around, although it was late morning it was still too early for office workers to be taking their lunch breaks.
Out of nowhere, a stranger just walked up to him, pulled his arm out by the sleeve of his jacket, pushed something into his hand and walked on past him. It was all over in less than five seconds. That wasn’t the strangest part. No. When he looked around the man was gone. He was right there, moments ago. Now, looking around in all directions he was nowhere to be seen. He had been a very ordinary looking man in a suit, like hundreds of others that would soon emerge from the surrounding buildings.
He looked down at what he’d been given. It was a small metallic cube, not much bigger than a sugar cube. It was nicely rounded along its edges and had no visible markings of any kind. It looked a lot like a die that you might throw when playing a board game, but without the spots. In itself, it was a beautiful object.
It was on the flat palm of his hand and he was flipping it over with his fingertips, checking that none of the sides were marked in any way, when he felt a shudder. Actually, it was more like a tremor; he felt it through the soles of his shoes. The air around him seemed to vibrate and a hand appeared, gently plucking the cube from his palm.
Looking up, again he was face to face with the stranger, who smiled as he put the cube in his pocket. He nodded saying, “Thank you for holding this for me.”
The man, despite the fact that his head was swimming, managed to say “Look. What’s going on here?”
The stranger’s head shook.
“Just give me a clue,” he went on, “You owe me that much.”
A slight nod, and the stranger said, “That’s the problem you see. If I tried to explain what is actually going on here you would not comprehend anything I told you. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to accept the fact that holding on to this has meant a great deal to me and I’m very grateful.” He paused. “I would like to give you something as a token of my goodwill, but that would leave traces. We are not permitted to leave traces.”
“We?”
The stranger pointed over the man’s shoulder saying, “them.”
He turned to see.
When he looked back, confused… the stranger was gone.