We walk down the hallway from interviewing room #27 to room #3. Having already probed her for more information I wave for Sherri to return to the other room and guard against anyone from speaking to Aly. 

This better not be who I think it is.

I open the door to see a cute and nearly naked smooth-skinned baby sitting on the table in the middle of the room. Our eyes meet for a moment and he lifts his little arms as if to say ‘hold me’.

Fine, I’ll play along… 

“Awww… aren’t you just the cutest…” I say as I walk closer to the child. I reach out for the child as if I’m about to pick him up, but then, at the last second, I grab its head and throw it at the wall near the door. “…the cutest little CREEP!”

The infant goes face first into the wall. His face slides down from the place of impact on towards the floor. The little guy then puts his hands to the wall to unstick his face from it and he plops to his butt and rubs his face. 

“Wha…” the infant says in a deep voice, “what… kind of MANIAC THROWS A BABY AT THE WALL!!!” 

He turns around and stares daggers at me. I give him an equally annoyed look. “The kind that doesn’t take kindly to creeps.”

“A creeper…? Mmeeee?!” He tries to argue.

“Cut the crap dad, I know it’s you!”

He smiles as he remarks, “I thought I surely had you this time.”

“Nope, not even close.”

The little guy stumbles onto his bare little feet and then grows at an alarming rate. As he grows, an old, timely marian-blue suit jacket with darkish gray slacks appears upon his body. Gloves form on his hands and out of nowhere a tophat falls onto his head of balding black hair as he fits a monocle onto his left eye. 

Yup, he looks as old as ever…

He opens his arms and I react the same as we hug.

“It’s good to see you, dad."

“As to you Daniella.”

I pull away from him, “It's Dani, remember.”

“Oh, right, I keep forgetting.” He taps his head, “This old mind of mine…”

“No,” I let go as I walk over to lean against the wall, “you choose not to remember.”

He simply chuckles to himself, “Can’t I at least pretend to be human for a mere moment?”

Smirking at his little facade I finally ask, “So, what brings you to my territory, dad? Tea and Coffee? It has been a while after all...”

“Ah, coffee would be nice, however there’s a pressing matter to discuss.” 

My skin crawls at the statement. Does he know? I think to myself.

“Well, let’s take this to my office then.”

My father opens his right hand and a hook umbrella with a metal spike drops to the floor from his hand, seeming to appear from nowhere. He taps it on the ground twice and a large clock face gleams on the floor encompassing us both. The room shifts beneath us as we teleport. 

I look up to see we’re in my office.

“I’m sorry for the impatience, but this really is a pressing matter of importance.”

This really must be serious, “Okay then… but since we are here, I’ll get started on the refreshments.” 

Now, in my rectangular room of an office, I walk over to the right side wall where a long table sits underneath a portrait of several steaming cups resting on saucers that surround a plate of sugars and creamer on a wooden bench. I reach into the portrait and grab one cup of hot water for myself and grab a dark roast coffee cup for my father.  As always, once I pull the drinks out, the portrait remains unchanged with all the cups still steaming away in silence. 

I also grab the sugar tray as my father sends his jacket, hat, and umbrella to the coat rack in the corner. We take a seat next to each other in front of my desk.

“You see, Daniel—” he suddenly feels my authority intently focused on him, “Dani…, one of my Hollydays just came from an overseer mission, he gave me a chilling report.”

Overseer… don’t tell me he saw her point of expiration…

“My Hollyday tells me that no one but a single girl died in an incident today. I was quite shocked, since that incident had the probability of killing 52 individuals and the actuality to kill 22.”

I take a sip of my tea to hide my poker face, “Hhhmm…. Impressive, did your agent happen to get a name or Time-Stamp from the girl who died? We can track her soul with either of those.”

“Well, dear, that’s just the strangest thing... She has no current Time-Stamp. In fact, when she died, her Time-Table froze and then flashed like it was one of Louie’s slot machines. Then it blinked out of existence.” 

‘’What?!” I utter, genuinely surprised, “That's not possible...” 

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said.” He takes a sip of his coffee, no sugar, no creamer. 

“Well, maybe your man is mistaken. Time-Tables don’t just simply vanish. Surely if there was such an anomaly, I would have noticed it. I’ve looked over everyone who came through today just because I had a feeling that today might be off. But, unfortunately, nothing has turned up as of late.”

I take another sip to relieve my dry tongue from all the lying. To make it worse, my father just stares at me and I can’t hold eye contact with his piercing golden gaze.

Finally he says, “Perhaps, only the Time-Line will tell.” 

I choke mid sip and almost spit the whole cup over my desk. He always does that to get his point across when he doesn’t trust something. Unlike me, he focused his intent of authority solely on the words, not to me or anyone in particular. If anything, my father probably just sent a message to himself in the distant future… or the far off past.

Father stares at me for a moment.

“There’s no need for such use of your Territory and Authority, dad. I’m sure this lost soul will either turn up eventually or they may have found their way straight into Sheol, which would save us both the hassle.

“Hmmhm,” my father hums in unassured agreeance. He puts his empty cup of coffee on my desk and gets up from his seat. 

When did he even take a sip?

 “Ah, well, I’ve already taken up too much of your time, things are already starting to pile up for you.” He nods at the door, where three knocks chime. 

“Thank you for the coffee, Dani,” He says as he heads for the coat rack.

“Aww, you remembered this time,” I say, getting up from my seat, “hopefully you remember for next time too.”

My dad smiles before raising his hand towards the coat rack. The hat, jacket, and umbrella that were on the coat rack now flash onto him. He then pokes at the air with his umbrella until he finds the fold he was looking for. He pushes the fold like a tent flap, and the tv-static background of the doorway spills out slightly. 

I notice the outline of a silhouette as the doorway gets wider revealing a boy with a long coat, scarf, and cabbie hat waiting at the fold. He looked like a chimney sweep child from the early 5000’s. 

“Greetings Director Death,” the young man says, bowing. 

“Hello, Stevie.” 

Stevie looks to my dad, “Father Time, there’s been a change in the stream…”

“Oh, it would seem that I’ve been away far too long as well, I take my leave Dani. Please, do well to identify this ‘tickless-girl’. I would hate to have to send you to Sheol to look for her yourself.” 

Shivers run down my spine as he casually mentions the place of utter despair. Even we Hostly Entities don’t like to enter there. 

“Surely I will, father,” I say as I wave.

I watch him step through the doorway. The door-flap closes and I’m left in silence. 

Immediately I grab the empty cup my father drank out of and throw it back at the portrait in frustration. Of course the cup returning to the portrait does nothing to it but at least I feel a tad bit better.

I lean on the edge of my desk and bury my head into my hands with a quiet, nervous sigh. 

He’s gonna seal me twice over when he finds out. Everything is going to be ruined if he interferes too soon. It’s all falling apart once again….

I think back to the moments before Aly’s arrival. A herald of the Lord of Hosts, came by and left a cryptic message. 

|| …the end of a millennium… || 

A few more knocks chime from the other side of my office door breaking me out of my stress induced thoughts.

I recover my bearings before calling to the door, “Come in.”

The door opens and I see the one person I really didn’t want to see right now.

Without fully looking at her I complain, “Sherri, if it’s about the girl, I’ll go see her now.” 

Sherri walks in first, “Actually Director… I’m so terribly sorry...”

I look up to see Sherri quivering, unable to finish her sentence. “Sherri, what’s wrong now?!”

She swallows and stutters before replying, “S-she’s gone.”

Not exactly sure whom she’s pertaining to, I regrettably ask, “Who’s gone?”

“That girl, Aly… we’ve lost her...”

“YOU WHAT?!”