The story I'm going to tell you is completely true. Whether or not it actually happened is beside the point.

I was seventeen at the time, having traded my baby fat for about 18 inches of height, a plenitude of pimples, sweaty sleepless nights and the first timid traces of a moustache. I was doing what I was usually doing at that age: sitting alone near the playing fields of my high school, wondering what the hell was wrong with me and everything else in the world.

In the distance I saw a man approaching. He wore dark clothes, in some strange fashion I can't really describe. It looked like he was purposefully coming for me, but from a distance I couldn't be sure. I waited to see what he did.

He strode straight up and sat down next to me. He looked me over in an appraising, almost humorous way. "Hello," he said.

"Sorry, do I know you, mister?"

"...Maybe not as well as I know you," he said cryptically.

I was about to ask him what the hell he meant by that, but by then I had gotten a good look at his face. His eyes, the shape of his nose, the moustache –

"Yeah," he said.

No way, I thought. Absolutely impossible. He seemed to read my thoughts – of course he did – though my incredulity must have been written all over my face. He said:

"The first is "platypus." The second one is "Felicia."

As a child, I had made up those passwords in my head, just in case this very event should ever happen, as unlikely as I knew it was. I have never written them down or said them to anyone, or even so much as whispered them to myself when alone. (It's all right to reveal them now; obviously they will never be needed again.)

Something inside of me kind of went "thunk." This man was really, truly who he appeared to be. Incredible as it was, I had to accept it.

He got straight down to business. "Do you have something to write with?"

I scrambled in my bag, and pulled out my History notebook (ironically) and a pencil.

"Right," he said. "Let's start with stocks. Now, sometime around 1980 – I can't remember exactly when – you're going to hear of a company called 'Ap—'"

A thin, tinny tune burst out of nowhere. Actually, weird to say, it seemed to come from his hip. He hesitated, then shook his head and ignored it. "A company cal—"

The beeping came again. He looked at me appraisingly for a moment. Then with a sort of humorous resignation, he drew from a small holster on his belt a small silvery box that fit in the palm of his hand, and – I know you're not going to believe this – he flipped it open, just like Captain Kirk, and pushed a button. "Yes?" he said a bit testily.

"You gotta be kidding me," I said. But from the box, I swear, came a small tinny voice in a British accent:

"Edward, where are you?"

"I'm visiting an old school buddy," he answered wryly. "Would you like to say hello to him?"

"Listen to me. Get out of there. Now. Just get up, and walk away."

"I'm sorry, Doc, I'm afraid I can't do that," he said very reasonably. (And yes, the 'HAL' reference was intentional.)

"No – please, trust me. You can't do this!"

"Why not? It's what you do all the time, isn't it?"

"That's different –"

"Yes, it's different because you're doing it. It's all right for you. You know all about these things, don't you?" The bitterness with which he said it startled me.

"Edward." The voice in the box was obviously struggling to stay calm. "I'm not patronizing you. You're intelligent enough to know that what you're doing is wrong. But you cannot possibly know how wrong it actually is!"

"I'm sure you're right." But there was no concession in his tone. "I'm risking it anyway. Besides, 'wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.' Isn't that what you say?"

"You can't change the past. I know how much you want to, but you can't undo what's been done. You'll only make things worse – much, much worse! I know you know that!"

"And you know that I'm human. I have to try."

"...And I'm a Time Lord. I have to stop you."

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"I know. 'Just business, nothing personal.' It's all right." He snapped his communicator shut.

You can imagine what all this was doing to me. I had barely had time to take all this in, but I could tell that whatever was going on, was about to go badly. Very badly. "What's going on?" I cried.

He just shook his head. "We don't have much time. Forget the stocks – that's not important." He leaned toward me urgently. "One day, you're going to meet a girl. And you're going to –"

A look of utter pain and sadness wrenched his face as a weird noise suddenly filled the air. I can't describe it – a sort of cross between scraping metal and the howling of a wolf. A grinding growl that seemed to come from every direction, even from inside my head, all at the same time. It was honestly hard to tell whether the sound came from some sort of machine, or some sort of beast.

Casually, without any fuss, something materialized on the field in front of us. Out from between the very cracks in the air it emerged into reality with a very earthly "thump." It looked like, of all things, a phone booth. Like one of those red pay-phone kiosks that they have in England; only a bit bigger, and painted blue. It actually had little windows in it. I'd swear that it was made of wood.

The door opened, and a man stepped out. He's a bit hard to describe. He wore clothes in a fashion similar to my newfound friend's; dapper, but somehow at the same time a bit goofy – almost self-consciously so. You know when you see somebody who looks like he's trying to wear a disguise, even though he isn't? – No, of course you don't. I'm not finding the right words. He just looked like somebody who wasn't what he seemed. I can't put it any better than that.

We stood up. Without a word, the man-in-the box strode forward and held his arm up stiffly towards my companion. I couldn't quite make out what he held; sort of a cross between a fountain pen and a Mood Ring. But I can tell when a weapon is being aimed.

"Hello, Doc," said my friend.

The pointing guy was in no mood for pleasantry. He looked serious. I have never seen anyone look so deadly serious.

And there they stood, face to face in the field like gunslingers at high noon.

"Edward – don't make me do this."

That was the third time someone had called my name while speaking to someone else. Third time's the charm. I know that I went a bit nuts, but I'd had enough. Not understanding what's going on is anathema to a teenage boy. I've never been a live-for-the-mystery kind of guy, but as a teenager it maddened me. I jumped between them.

"What the HELL IS GOING ON?!" I screamed. "Who are you?" I yelled at the Man with the Pen. I whirled on the other one. "Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want from me? And what the hell is THAT?" (Somehow pointing to his communicator, the big blue box and the space pen all at the same time.) "What is going on?" I actually jumped up and down, fists clenched.

I awaited answers. ...And calmed down a little bit. And began to realize that I was now standing in the line of fire.

No emotion can be evoked that is quite like having two strange men staring at you in deadly fear, and you don't yet know why.

"Get... out... of... the... way," said the man called 'Doc,' with very British emphasis.

But I stood my ground. I turned to my companion. "What is it? What were you going to tell me?"

He stepped towards me. "One day –" he looked up at the other one, who had his I'm-warning-you-for-the-last-time face back on. "Someday..." Then something inside of him sort of collapsed. "Someday when you're older, you'll understand." He winced.

"I can't believe you just actually said that."

"The thing is," he went on, "by then it'll be too late to do anything about it. I think that's what they call 'hell."

Not the sort of thing a rebellious teen wants to hear. I stared. "That's what you wanted to tell me. You came all the way from – wherever the hell you came from – to tell me that. That there's no point in trying. Everything is fixed and can't be changed. There's nothing I can do. Just live my life the way it's ordained, like a puppet on a string."

"It's not –" he started. He looked over my shoulder at his friend for help, but I don't know what help there was; I didn't turn to see. "It's still you," he went on, hunting for the words. "It's still your life, your choices. It's just that –"

I waited, the unspoken years between us hanging thick in the air.

"...You're going to make mistakes. It's not your fault. You can't help it, you can't stop it. You can't even fix it." He looked again at the Doc. "But you can... forgive yourself."

Hesitatingly, he touched me. He put his hand on my shoulder. "Can you do that for me? Can you try to forgive yourself?"

I may have nodded; I don't know. But I couldn't bear to look into his eyes any longer. I turned towards the Doc, his arms limp by his sides, and for the first time I saw what he really was.

He looked like I felt. I wasn't angry anymore. The sun set over the field.

I don't know if we said goodbye. Maybe one of us said something witty, like "see you later." I just don't remember. But at some point the two of them went back into the box.

And as casually as it arrived, the box disappeared. The same grinding growl that seemed to come from inside my head as well as through my ears. As it slipped away into the world of memory there was a high, lonely cry, like that of some bird of prey. The feral wail of some creature that looked down from on high and saw too much.

And that was it. Life started up again, and went on in that awful way it does.

To this day, I still don't fully know what it was all about. I don't know how I came to meet "Doc," or how I ended up flying through Time and Space in a blue wooden box. I haven't reached that part of my story yet.

But someday, when I'm older, I will understand.