Retrospectus: Iteration 2
Note: Compiled from older notes and transcribed to electronic format 08.21.1995.
March 15, 1984
As I believe journaling my experience will help me gleam all that is most beneficial from this situation, I will do my best to record my thoughts and plans here. There is too much to do this time to waste any opportunity. I’ve also decided to compose this record in the event that I decide to tell someone the truth of my story – which, for now, I’m adamantly against.
Where to begin…my name is John Christopher Harrison. I was born November 14, 1982, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and I died on December 1, 2053 at my home in Hawaii. I’ve been an atheist for most of my life, and so when I felt the heart attack hit, I expected oblivion. Of course, I had spent some time in my youth as a liberal Christian, so a small part of me expected heaven for being a good person. What I never expected was a blinding white light, pain all over, a hospital room…and the day of my birth all over again.
At first, I couldn’t believe it. I spent weeks in disbelief. I tried communicating, but without teeth I only babbled. Within a few months, my parents began to notice that I was different from other children. I didn’t play with toys; I wasn’t entertained by normal things. Their early attempts to keep me from destroying their books and magazines gave way to shock and fear as they saw their infant reading. That’s when the words “genius” and “prodigy” started getting tossed around. But make no mistake: I’m not a genius, and I never was. That’s not apparent now because the constant stream of evaluators assume I’m a sixteen month-old.
But these circumstances, irritating though they are now, are only a minor nuisance. My eyes are firmly set upon my long-term plans: a doctorate, the avoidance of the drama and mistakes of youth, cultivation of a peerless résumé. Who knows what unprecedented success I might achieve!
This time…this time I can do it right. This time I can avoid all the mistakes. The wisdom of a long life, and the advantages of an unspent youth! This is truly heaven.