Quietly, like a shadow, I watch this drama unfold scene by scene. A huge creature appears just a few steps away. The first thought that comes to me is that it's a dinosaur.

People know me as a writer but I prefer to call myself a lazy dreamer. I have always been interested in things which are either very exciting or very mundane, then spinning them around into stories. Well, this has made me a popular figure today. Yet like many others I am beginning to feel the menace of the writer's block. So I am travelling to Assam, my birthplace, alone. Travelling on a train is always tiresome, and the atmosphere of the aeroplane seems boring. So I am driving my car with my favourite music playing, to a destination 400 kms. away. I plan to reach before nightfall.

Since it's winter, the air is cold and the road is covered in fog. It feels like I am moving through the clouds when suddenly I lose control of my car and it stops. The engine won't start. I decide not to go out as I lean against my seat. Anything beyond a metre is invisible outside.

I look at my watch: seven minutes past 4 p.m. The hands of the watch aren't moving! Even my new phone won't work. "Who am I to blame than my own silly self?" I keep lamenting. But the next scene takes my breath away. The fog has cleared up and I seem to have landed in a clearing in the midst of a forest. Quietly, like a shadow, I watch this drama unfold scene by scene. A huge creature appears just a few steps away. The first thought that comes to me is that it's a dinosaur. That means, I am in the Jurassic age!

I get the shock of my life. But the creature seems very timid, unlike my impression of dinosaurs. As it notices me, it moves away into the forest. Since I am almost sure of dying, I decide to follow it on foot. But as I walk towards it, it breaks into a run. The thought that a big dinosaur is frightened of me, amuses me thoroughly. I follow its footsteps till I reach a huge fenced area. But at that age, there were no human settlements. Was I hallucinating?

I walk around the fence till I reach an entrance with a sign in English, saying, Paleonto Agris. As I walk through it, a buzzer goes off. A creature similar to humans, no a human comes out and calls out to me. I am taken inside and a young lady asks me my cause of visit. Instead, I question her back if she too has been transported to the past. She smiles back and tells me that it is not the past but the future, the year 3074 and I am standing on a piece of land which was called Assam, a thousand years ago. She adds that a few others like me had travelled into the future, some of them by choice and others by chance. She says that my dress marks me as one of those from the past. She then explains that due to lack of food and other resources, 4/5th of the human population has been wiped off. The scientists of the future have developed a new hybrid of dinosaurs (one of which I met) using the DNA found in fossils, which is herbivorous and can be used for tilling large stretches of land, as most other fuels had been exhausted. These creatures were timid and faithful.

Then I am taken to a room with music playing, where I fall asleep...

I suddenly wake up at the sound of some music. As I register my surroundings, I find myself leaning against the seat of my car with the music system on and everything back to normal. I can't decide if it was just a dream or reality. I look at my watch. It is running and shows the time to be 10 minutes past 4 p.m. Had time stopped? Or did I have this strange dream in just three minutes? I don't know. But who cares! I finally have a new story!

Thank You