The Second Hand Man

Without Freddy Harris, the bully, around to terrorize me anymore, I had thought that my time at school might be more pleasant. But although, recess and similar such times outside the classroom are marginally bearable, the actual class is a living nightmare.

I was once a research professor dealing with intricate scientific formulae that would have had most heads spinning. I was also one of the country’s most renowned reverse engineers in both electronics and biological matter. I built, albeit with the indispensable assistance of my very good friend and partner Steve Ferran, the most sophisticated Bio-Scanner capable of mapping the human brain in detail never before imagined or even considered possible. And together we then also constructed the device that most would believe to be the unachievable fancy of either madmen or science fiction - the Consciousness Projector.

It was that same device that saved my life by projecting my fifty five-year-old consciousness back through the very fabric of time and into the mind of my former six-year-old self.

With all that in mind, one cannot even begin to understand the extent of my frustration when having to pretend that I am now a naïve juvenile still in the stages of learning to read properly and do simple basic arithmetic.

Getting through a school day has become near overwhelming. I don’t know how much more I can take before I…snap. Yes, I sometimes think I’m going insane…on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sometimes in the middle of a lesson I feel a tremendous urge to stand up and yell and rip the hair from my scalp. How much more can I take? How much longer will I be able to endure before I scream the truth to the world?

No! I must persist! I have to persevere! It would be foolish and extremely dangerous not to. It is absolutely necessary for me to keep up this charade in order to protect my secret. I must be sure that none ever suspect the true nature behind the innocent youthful appearance of Cornelius Crane. For I know only too well that if the truth were ever to be revealed, there are scores of people out there who would consider me a hazard far more lethal than a thousand weapons of mass destruction.

Many would consider me a fly in the ointment of life; a foreign body in the crystal-clear stream of time. I would be killed, or even worse - locked away forever in a secret facility to be studied like a lab rat; interrogated like some super terrorist criminal. My knowledge of the future is power – a power that too many would want to possess.