I met Time once, not at the beginning or the end, but somewhere in between. He was at the point when plans were already made, and certainty had not yet arrived.

He did not announce himself. He never does.

He came as a Dream Wanderer carrying stories that were not his own. He walked lightly, as if every step had already been taken before, somewhere else.

“Why are you late?” I asked him.

He smiled; not kindly, not cruelly but I did not like it.  His smile. It almost as if he were belittling me, “I arrive,” he said. “That is all.”

I wanted to ask him why things unfold the way they do. Why some doors open too slowly, why others close before we are ready. I wanted to tell him about my careful plans, the lines I had drawn so neatly into the future.

He listened, the way one listens to the wind. Present, but never stopping it. “You plan,” he said, “because you need shape. I move because shape cannot hold.”

“Then what is the use of planning?” I asked.

Time adjusted the weight of the stories on his back.

“Planning teaches you what you want,” he said. “Timing decides what you receive.”

He did not promise me anything. He did not warn me either. Unlike Death, he was not certain. Unlike Life, he did not tempt. He simply moved through seasons, through bodies, through forgotten afternoons and unfinished conversations. Leaving traces that only made sense when looked at backward.

Before he left, I asked him one last question. “Will you come again?”

Time was already walking away. “I never leave,” he said. “You only notice me when you try to outrun me.”

And then he was gone, carrying my plans with him. Though I do not like him, I know that he will neither break them nor honor them, but place them where they belonged.

In their own time.