Blind Prophecy

Again, I’m taking advantage of the LJ “Writer’s Block” prompt…

If you could travel back in time to spend a day with someone, who would it be and why?

Wow, so many, many choices. But knowing me, I’d be realistic about it. It wouldn’t be much fun chatting with Camus or Sartre if I didn’t spend a lot of time brushing up on my foreign languages first (and just forget about “Olde” anything). It would have to be someone I reasonably expect to hit it off with, nothing’s worse than being stuck with someone you don’t actually like all that much in person. That would make an interesting short story, though… “The Day I Travelled to 1776 and Learned that Ben Franklin is Actually an Asshole” or “Kurt Cobain – the Worst Day of My Life.”

Again, I find myself shying away from celebrities or great figures in history. Too many risks of having high expectations and being disappointed.

An easy answer would be my Grandma Lu or my uncle Timmy. Grandma Lu (my maternal grandmother) was bedridden most of the time I knew her and passed away when I was young. My uncle Timmy had a relatively rare form of arthritis and turned to illegal drugs to cope with the pain, he died of an overdose when I was just barely old enough to remember him. I recall that he wore a bomber leather jacket (usually with gum hidden somewhere inside for his nieces and nephews) and loved to “tickle torture” us. Grandma Lu is a bit more vivid in my memory, but nothing like the stories my mother tells of this crazy (in a good way) mother of 10 who would chase her kids to school if they forgot to kiss her goodbye.

Yeah, it would be nice to spend time with either of them, although I’d feel guilty because so many of my cousins and siblings were born after those deaths… at least I have *some* memories, which is more than I can say for at least half the extended family.

Maybe the smartest move would be to pick a random stranger once again. Someone who lived a relatively comfortable–but mostly forgotten–life in Victorian England. Or spend a day with someone at Woodstock. Or witness the Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” speech at the side of someone whose only claim to fame is that they were there.

Filed under: livejournal by Jere Keys