I Want
“I want to be a genius.” The boy dropped his small red truck onto the floor. He turned his eyes to the old man in the door way and stared. Simply stared.
And yet, the old man trembled. He trembled at the depth of the child’s pale green eyes. At the way the light seemed to skim over the boy’s sheet white skin. The old man trembled even as he knelt before the staring child. He trembled…
Warmth spread over the old man’s head. He looked up. The boy’s hand was on his forehead. Hope welled in the old man’s stomach. He closed his eyes. Finally. He would finally be a…
“Name?” The old man’s eyes burst open and searched the room for the source of that voice. That terrible voice. He looked from the narrow door way to the tinted blue windows. From the soft brown ceiling to the rough brown floor.
“Name?” The old man froze. His eyes glazed over. That voice. That terrible voice. The voice that numbed his fingers and brittled his bones. The voice that seemed to pierce his soul and hold his mind under its sway. Its ever changing tremor. That voice came from the boy.
“Name?” Life shot back into the old man’s eyes.
“John,” the old man whimpered in a manner contrary to his age. It was the type of whimper that one would expect from a new born babe. The type that would evoke pity from anyone. No. Anything that possessed even the slightest drop of empathy. Of…
John felt the boy’s hand tighten on his forehead. He looked up. The boy was smiling. “My name is Emmanuel.” The boy’s free hand fell on John’s shoulders. John managed a weak smile. as…
An explosion of heat racked John’s brain. His vision blurred white. The air thickened. Sweat greased his skin. Then slowly, ever so slowly, John’s vision cleared. It cleared to reveal a wooden table and, had John been a normal person, the wooden table would have been a wooden table. John, however, was an aspiring genius. One who had long since committed his life to acquiring all humanities knowledge and to him, it was no mere wooden table. It was a 17th century work of art. He could almost see the fine grains that ran along the table’s edge. That flowed down its legs and trickled to its very core.
It was fascinating. Enthralling. But it paled in comparison to what he saw on the table’s surface. To the simple metal balls that rested on top of the small platforms and the stark strips of wood that rose to meet them.
It was not that they were finely crafted. No. Definitely not that. It was that they represented one of humanities greatest achievements. They represented the origin of modern physics. The pinnacle of genius. Of…
John’s breath caught in his throat. His hand twitched. Then it threw itself against his leg and darted erratically over his body. It darted over the long dark robe that now covered his skin and the smooth linen collar that now circled his neck; over the thick beard that now blanketed his chin and the vibrant wrinkles that now adorned his face. Then it stopped. It stopped and dropped uselessly to his side.
A smile appeared on John’s face as he realized. He was Galileo. He was humanities’ greatest genius. And with that realization came a blaze of joy. One that burned at every atom of his body and every particle of his soul. One that…
Rough hands grasped John’s arms. They threw him onto the floor and, as John opened his mouth to protest, he felt a blunt object fall onto the back of his head. He felt the blaze of joy fade to a spark of content. He was still Galileo. He was still…
A rough hand grasped John by his hair and cracked his skull against the cool floor. The hand raised John’s head slowly and once again slammed his head against the floor; it slammed John’s head onto the floor until his mind was unable to form a coherent thought. Until his vision was consumed by blackness and his content overwhelmed by pain.
And then it vanished. The pain. The darkness. All of it. Replaced by a sort of emptiness. The type that numbs the skin’s nerves and petrifies the body’s heart. And then came a familiar voice. Emmanuel’s voice.
“Do you still want to be a genius?”
“Yes,” John replied without hesitation. Emmanuel sighed.
“It doesn’t get any easi-“
“I know!” interrupted John vehemently. “I’ve spent my entire life trying to become a genius. Do you honestly think that I don’t realize how painful it is? That I don’t know...”
“Yes I do,” interrupted Emmanuel coolly, his voice somehow assaulting John’s every sense. “I have existed since humanities conception. I have seen genius after genius and trust me, the pain you just experienced is nothing compared to the pain of true genius. To the pain of having your soul intertwined with even your most inconsequential of ideas.”
Any creature possessed with even the slightest capacity for reason would have considered Emmanuel’s warning. They would have hesitated at the thought of experiencing pain overwhelming enough to shake the very foundation of their being.
At that moment, however, John was a creature of unbounded desire. He’d tasted genius. Tasted the passion that coursed through his veins and the clarity that massaged his mind. He’d tasted it and, despite Emmanuel’s warning, he wanted more.
He wanted more so he so he said to Emmanuel, “I want to be a genius.” Silence. Emmanuel stared at John, thinking. Thinking of some way to curb the old man’s desire. He called upon his millennia of experience. He recalled every face he’d ever seen, every lesson he’d ever learned and he realized; there was nothing he could do.
Short of refusing to perform the very basis of his existence. Of refusing to perform his duty as a wish granter, there was nothing he could do. And so he placed his hand on John’s forehead and smiled with resignation.
John smiled back and said “I want to be a genius.” As he finished those words he felt the room cool and his skin ripple. He felt the air thin and his vision blur.
And then, as before, his vision cleared. But this time it cleared to reveal ten robed men sitting before him. Normally John would have admired the quality of their robes. Would have admired the immaculate manner in which the threads wound about each other and the subtle manner in which the stitches flowed down the robes extremities.
But any thought of such admiration disappeared as John realized. He stood before the Inquisition. The force that purged Europe of anyone pretentious enough to stand against so much as a syllable of the Catholic Church’s doctrine. And Galileo was one of the most pretentious men the Inquisition ever had the pleasure of crushing.
“Galileo Galilei, rise,” said one of the robed men. John stood with hesitation. “Galileo, are you a proponent of the heretical Copernicus model?”
John wanted to say yes. He wanted to say that he was a proponent of facts. Of conclusions reached through tireless experimentation and investigation. He wanted to throw every manner of profanity at the fools before him, but all such words caught in his throat. It was then that he once again realized. He was Galileo and Galileo had done no such thing.
And yet, John fought. He fought as he felt his lips part to renounce the Copernicus model. He fought even as the words slithered toward his mouth and bit at the walls of his throat. He fought against every syllable, but the outcome was never in doubt and, with each syllable of renunciation, came pain. Not the sort of pain that would shorten John’s breath and enflame his nerves. No, nothing so meager as that. Rather, it was the type of pain that grasped John’s being and twisted it beyond recognition. The type that left in its wake a bestial creature with only the most base of desires. Of compulsions and instincts. Of…
Emmanuel pulled his hand from John’s forehead. Moisture formed in the corner of his left eye as he put two fingers against the old man’s wrist and began to search.
He searched for even the most erratic of beats. But there was nothing. Not even the gentle drumming of a fading life.
---Ohi D.
!!! Three strikes and you're outta here, bud.
Think long and hard about your characters (who they are, what they're like, what they want, what they're afraid of), setting (time period, location), and conflict (person versus person, person versus society, person versus fate). They make the story interesting.