Delivery from the Future

It was a Tuesday evening when the package appeared on my doorstep.

I had not ordered anything. No packages were due, no neighbors with borrowed items to pass along. Just a small cardboard box standing neatly against the doormat, its surface parched dry despite the rain that had been pouring down all afternoon.

The first odd thing was the stamp. There was my name, big black letters. My address was correct, right down to the apartment number. But for "Sender," there was a single word: Tomorrow.

I initially assumed it was a publicity stunt. Any business will do whatever it takes to be heard these days, right? But once I understood it, I was amazed at how weighted it was. Not too heavy, not too light—just kind of medium, like a book.

I brought it inside, sat it on the kitchen table, and stared at it for longer than I'd like to admit. Packages aren't interesting. Rip the tape off, recycle the box, done. This one radiated a quiet otherness.

Finally, curiosity won out. I sliced through the tape with my keys.

Inside was a smaller box of silver foil wrap, and inside that, a folded piece of paper.

The note was:

"Do not open this package. Its contents must find you. Trust yourself. —2025"

I frowned. The date was wrong. It was not 2025 yet.

Below the note was a thing that I can only best describe as… a phone, but it was not like any phone I had ever known. Thinner, lighter, with a glass screen that softly glowed in soft colors. No buttons. No charging port.

The screen had flashed the moment I touched it. There was one message that flashed:

"This is yours. Do not share it. You will need it in three days."

I placed the thing on the table as if it had burned me.

The rest of the night, I was striding around it the way you stride around a wild animal. Each time I went by, the screen would flash again with that same message.

By nightfall, I'd talked myself into believing it was some kind of elaborate joke. Perhaps one of my friends was experimenting, or perhaps a high-tech firm had sent out sample units for hype. But inside, I felt an unsettling doubt.

The following morning, I decided to put it to the test. I touched my finger to the surface and breathed softly, "Who sent you?"

The screen flashed and then displayed three words:

"You did. Later."

The following days blurred together. I carried the strange device in my pack, reading it compulsively. Most often, it did not illuminate. Sometimes, however, it flashed messages of gnomic command: "Wait." "Turn left." "Don't answer."

I followed them.

Onced, while walking home from work, it flashed with "Stop." I braked short of stepping into the crosswalk. A vehicle ran the red light, tires screeching inches away from where I would have been.

Another time, in the grocery store, it spoke quietly "Not that one." I exchanged a carton of milk. Afterwards, an employee told me about the batch which had soured early.

By the third day, I stopped asking questions. The thing knew things—small things, big things, things I couldn't get out of my mind.

That night, as I opened my apartment door, the screen flashed once more.

"Bring me back tomorrow. Set the box outside. Trust the loop."

I did not sleep that night.

The idea gnawed at me: if I returned it, that meant some future incarnation of me would someday return it. It meant this cycle wasn't strange coincidence—then—it was intentional. On my part.

I placed the device in the silver wrapping at dawn, restuffed the cardboard box, and left it on the outside of my door.

One hour later, I visited. It was gone.

It's weeks now, and no one else has received a package.

Sometimes I question who did it. Was I really the one? If so, what kind of life do I have ahead of me where I have to save my own life through cryptic messages and some mysterious device?

At other times, I tell myself it doesn't matter. The fact is that I'm alive because of it.

But every evening when I come home, I glance at the doormat—half hoping for a second package marked "Tomorrow."

And if it comes, I'm certain I'll open it.

For how do you refuse a package from yourself?