“Um…what? What?”
I was flustered and flabbergasted. Never in my life had I ever felt like the word “flabbergasted” applied to me. (Yes, I know it seems like I would’ve felt that way by now – what with me having discovered time-travel and having been killed innumerable times by a psycho ex-girlfriend and having gone into purgatory and having met multiples of myself and having essentially become immortal and having lived for literally millenia – but honestly, this first meeting with Zoe was a truly flabbergasting experience.)

“I know, I know, I’m flying over the cuckoo’s nest and I’m cuckoo for cocoa puffs. But please, don’t send me to a loony bin. I’ve already been in one, and that was the worst hour of my life.”

“You come from 2001?”

She may deny it today, but when I didn’t immediately call Nurse Ratchet, and instead began listening to her, I think I flabbergasted her, too.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Tell me honestly: you’re not fucking with me, right?”

She held my gaze intently. “Absolutely not, my friend.”