THE MOMENT
"I demand an explanation. What sorcery is this?" Willie read the letter aloud with a bored monotone, then sighed to distinguish his own thoughts after. "It was entertaining once on a lark, but I'm not about to make a habit of climbing up to the roof to drop a reply through the chimney every day," he further explained to the service technician, Jim.
"Well, let's just take a look...," Jim was a short, scrawny man in white coveralls with a red scissor logo. He knelt down into the dusty fireplace and leaned back to look up into the darkness. He held a thin, transparent glass card in front of his eyes as he stared upward, then he moved the card to reach upward for a second. After that, he nodded and stood up again while dusting his pants off.
"Hah! Yup, looks like you had an open portal," Jim chuckled as the clear card disintegrated into white powder from one hand while he presented Willie a glowing golden cube with his other hand. "Seems like we've been looking for that one. Sharp Development apologizes for any inconvenience, and thanks you for your assistance in locating one of our portals."
"Looking for it?" Willie asked. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know, I'm just a contractor," Jim shrugged. "It was marked as 'missing property' and I was prompted to give you an extra reward. But, a rookie Santa would be my guess," Jim nodded. "Sharp Development hires their own Santas, and they don't always stick to the script. It's probably as simple as one of them forgetting to close the portal for some reason. He might not have logged it correctly, or any number of reasons," he shrugged.
"Will you be replying to this, or should I plan to make that trip?" Willie asked. He felt bad about the portal being closed without giving the stranger an answer.
"The company will send someone to answer their questions," Jim nodded. "Anything else?" He asked as he started his walk toward the front door.
Meanwhile, in a neighboring universe in 1897.
"Yes? What is it?" Bartholomew opened the door a crack for the attractive, but suspicious woman wearing a gleaming white leather coat, and she had vibrant purple hair.
"Hi, my name's Victoria, and I represent Sharp Development," she said. "I'm here to give you that explanation you demanded," she smiled. Bartholomew was quick-minded enough to understand she was strangely dressed, and he'd recently 'demanded an explanation' through strange happenings in his chimney.
"Are you from the future?" he asked.
"I'm going to answer yes, just so you'll let me in and then I can go on to explain the more nuanced version where the answer is 'No'," she said. She waited for a moment as she pulled out a clear glass card, then nodded. "Yes, I am from the future." The time lit up in red digital numbers on the otherwise transparent card.
Bartholomew didn't need more proof than that.
"Come in, come in!"