Imagine this. A young lad—let’s call him Joshua—travels through time (I know, I know, it’s been done to death, but hear me out, this one’s different).
While some kids are strong baseball players and others perhaps musically inclined. Joshua possesses no such talents. His innate skill is time-projection, and he does it on a whim, sans the prerequisite time capsules or flux capacitors. From his concerned parents, his flummoxed teachers, and his curious doctors, the consensus is that Joshua simply zones out. While he’s physically present—at a classroom desk, at the dinner table—it’s obvious that his mind is elsewhere, up in the clouds, pie in the sky.
All of which is no big deal really. Hell, there are dozens of other kids in Joshua’s school twice as bad. The unfortunate thing is, it gets worse. The unfortunate thing is Joshua is argumentative, scoffing at concepts and factoids that, by rights, he should not be challenging. In history class he avows, with unshakable fervor, that Columbus never found America. That discovery, so Joshua asserts, was the handiwork of a lowly shipmate named Bonifacio. In geography, Joshua forcibly contends that Atlantis was no myth; that island, and those gods, really did exist. On and on it goes, one outrageous claim after another; Newton was feeling mischievous when he drafted his laws, it was all a lark, really. Shakespeare, while admittedly a gifted actor and strong orator, was illiterate. Couldn’t write his own name, that Sir William.
Imagine the consternation. Imagine the ridicule. And all of it made worse by Joshua’s inability to explain any of his outbursts (it’s not until much later that he realizes his remarkable gift), he just knows he’s right and that everyone else—historians, especially—plain wrong.
Finally, it’s the ridicule that sets things in motion, instilling both anger and the blind need for revenge….
What do you think? An interesting story? There’s a bunch more too, a lot of other ideas I’m thinking about and haven’t yet told you. Now some of you might wonder why I am even thinking about another novel, with my current one still unreleased. Shouldn’t I be working on that one instead? The truth, you see, is I don’t even want to think about the first novel right now. In fact, I’m trying very hard to put it out of my mind. At least until I hear from the two editors of the publishing house—the one considering it for publication. Because to do otherwise is, simply put, going to drive me crazy. Even crazier than Johsua.
