Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them. Regarding
Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an
ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows
the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity.
Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of
ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa
McPhail.
Fantasy Trope: “Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Clarke’s Third
Law (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClarkesThirdLaw)
Current Event: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/magical-technologies-just-over-the-horizon/
“Real tech magic is simplicity plus awe.”
The Most Magical
Cities on Earth (https://www.ranker.com/list/the-most-magical-cities-in-the-world/island-hopper-dan)
Jerusalem: “One of
the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem is considered one of the holiest
cities as well. Its many museums and important artifacts bring tourists from
all over the world, as well as the deep religious significance it holds.
Jerusalem has been completely destroyed twice, attacked 52 times, and captured
44 times.”
Yosef Halabi, youngest
captain of the revived Palestinian Liberation Army, stared at the whirling
vortex even though it made him feel like he was going to throw up. The elders,
every one a general or higher ranking, stared on in unconcealed anger. The most
honored among their members had tried the vortex – and every one had died,
writhing on the floor of the lab. Their shame was so great that their
compatriots had simply shot them in the head.
The scientist –
the lone survivor – had told them that only the young had the plastic brain
engrams necessary to allow time travel into the past. He resisted flipping off
his elders, instead, jumping feet first into the maelstrom. It was time to end
the stalemate. The plan was to land a hundred years in the past, but his secret
questioning of the survivor had let him know that it might in fact be a
century, though it might be more, maybe less. Frankly, he found that he didn’t
care. He jumped a flipped them off anyway, shouting…well, he’d wanted to shout,
“Alahu akbar!” – because the crazy old men funding the project clearly only one
God – Power – in their hearts. He would shout it “because it would strike fear
in the hearts of the non-believers.” But the whirlwind cleared his lungs with a
solar plexus kick.
Noa Avital sighed.
Among the volunteers, she’d drawn the long straw. She was supposed to feel
honored to leap blindly into the time vortex and happily agree to be thrown a
hundred years into the past; possibly more, maybe less. She didn’t know and frankly,
after fruitless negotiations with the leadership, she didn’t care. She jumped
and as she did, began to shout, “F….” but the whirlwind cleared her lungs with
a solar plexus kick.
Noa and Yosef
materialized together, dropping thirty centimeters to land on their feet, then
stagger ahead. Both of them also threw up immediately, though managed to remain
standing.
Noa was first to
recover. She looked at the young man standing across the room from her and said
in sequence Hebrew, Arabic, French, English, and Spanish.
He looked up and
said, “English will do.”
She nodded and
said, “Palestinian?”
He took a breath
to calm his roiling innards, admiring her iron constitution if she felt as
crappy as he did, and said, “Yes. Israeli?”
“Of course. You’re
here to kill me?”
“Not you
specifically, but something like that.”
“The same, though
I also happen to be a temporal scientist.”
He nodded and
sighed. Of course. Every woman who had intrigued him in the least small way was
bound to be a hundred times smarter than he was. He cursed, “Allah sayukhti min
aldhy yardi…”
Noa added, “…waman
hu biliasith 'anah sawf yadae fi altariq alsahih, Swarat 6:39.” – “Allah will lead into error whom he
pleaseth, and whom He pleaseth He will put in the right way” (Sura 6:39)
He said, “You know
Koran?”
She shrugged, “I
know a lot of things.” She looked around, “What I don’t know is where we are.”
“In the past…” he
began, but gulped back a surge from his stomach. He noticed she was adjusting
better than he was. Fine then, smart woman, iron constitution – and Jewish as
well.
“Obviously. But
how far?”
“You’re the
scientist.”
“Didn’t your
scientists send you back?”
“‘Scientist.’
Singular. They shot all the rest.” She used very vulgar Hebrew, which he
understood quite well. He couldn’t help but smile.
“What are you
laughing at?”
“Nothing. I’m
trying not to throw up on your feet.”
He saw the twitch
on her lips before she said, “You’re awfully…not radical…for a time-traveling
terrorist.”
He shook his head
and countered, “You’re awfully not radical for a time-traveling terrorist, too.”
She paused for a
long time, took a quick look around the room and said, “There’s nothing here I’d
recognize as coming from the 21st Century.”
He did the same
survey and frowned. “There should at least be a gun or knives – maybe a radio.
This is supposed to be somewhere around 1948 or 1949.”
She nodded, pursed
her lips, then went to a window and said something vulgar in all of the
languages she’d tried on him to begin with. He held his breath to move as smoothly
as he could to keep from jostling his queasy innards. He echoed her when he
looked out the window – though he noticed for the first time that there was no
glass involved here. It was cut from the stone or bricks and had no covering
but a curtain pushed to one side.
They were in a
city, that much was clear. But there were no antennae, and, his gaze flicked
upward to confirm that there were arrow-straight contrails. It was silent below
them and with a glance, he could see that there were no cars, bicycles, or
scooters. Certainly no jets, motorcycles, automated mobiles, hoverboards, or gMod
disks. “Where the hell are we?”
Pressure in the room
seemed to peak abruptly, as if there’d been an explosion. When they both spun
around, a bluish being floated above the ground. It said, “I have summoned you
from the future – a future which has none of the problems of this cursed place!”
This time Yosef
was the first to speak, “Where are we?”
“The same place
you started from.”
“Not…”
The djinn, for
that was clearly what it was, down to the ancient lamp sitting on the roughly
carved floor, laughed and said, “It is possible; but this reality diverged from
the one you are used to shortly after Creation. In this reality, science is a
poor and suspect cousin of magic.” Abruptly, he djinn swelled and grew darker
as the light in the room seemed to be sucked into it, “And in this reality, you
have been condemned to death for your heretical beliefs in science…”
Names: ♀ Hebrew-Israeli ; ♂
Arab-Israeli
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