The
Novel
Travelers
Science Fiction
By
James C. Harwood
Book 1: Life Unbound
The Novel Travelers is about an expedition to Earth from a distant world. The alien explorers named our planet Novel—not like a book but with the meaning of being unique. Their star ship crashed at a remote location and was destroyed about 4500 years ago. The few survivors, although much like humans, were unable to survive in our environment and soon died. Before they died, they buried a number of time capsules containing the knowledge of their home world and how to build a star ship. Their alien souls were then reincarnated, life after life, instead of ascending into heaven, because a great war in heaven has placed an ascension quarantine on all inhabited worlds. Eventually, they are born into present day Earth human life. As they grow up, they remember their alien past in dreams and nightmares. They remember where the time capsules were buried and recover them. Now they are finding ways to raise the money needed to build Earth’s first star ship at a secret location, so that they can eventually return home. This is one of their stories. It includes some of the controversial issues of real life on Earth today.
Part 1
Earth Year AD 1963 May 12 Sunday 0600AM
Wichita Kansas USA Earth
My name is Thomas Harrow. I was born 5 March 1956 in Wichita Kansas.
As usual, I awakened on a Sunday without the aid of an alarm clock, before any other members of my family.
I looked at the calendar hanging on the wall near my bed. Each month included an artist’s concept of one of the planets of Earth’s solar system: The sun for January, the Earth’s moon for May, and a section of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter for July.
This was the second Sunday in May of 1963. It was Mother’s Day.
I realized then that I’d only have to attend the first grade of public elementary school for only about three more weeks. I hadn’t enjoyed my first year of school at all, and so I very much looked forward to enjoying my freedom during the summer of ’63. My best friends lived in the Forest Hills neighborhood, and most of them went to a private Catholic school. I had a few good friends at the public school, but I was not well treated by the majority of students and teachers.
Sunday school was worse. I had no friends at the church my family attended. I liked the pastor. But the Sunday school teacher, who taught the class for kids my age, was—in my opinion—insane. And she was passing her insanity on to the other students. I was not as easily hoodwinked as the others were. I did not fit in there. Where I fit in was a question that had been bugging me for some time. Yes, bugging me, and I was not a big fan of bugs.
That early on a Sunday, it wasn’t time yet to get dressed for Sunday school and church. I put on my robe over my pajamas, and then stepped into my house slippers. Quietly, I left my private bedroom, and then walked down the hallway toward the kitchen.
In the kitchen, I pulled a chair over to a counter, and climbed up on the chair to reach a large box of cold cereal in a cabinet. While up there, I also reached for a plastic bowl. I obtained a spoon from a drawer on the way down. A glass jug of milk from the refrigerator was next. Then I sat on a bar stool over at the breakfast bar. There, I added just a few large spoonfuls of real sugar to the milk and cereal in the bowl. My sister would sometimes ask me about how many truckloads of sugar I put on my cereal. Sometimes, I actually had cereal with sugar.
It would be two more years before I’d be diagnosed with fluctuating blood glucose balance disorder, hypoglycemia—being the opposite of diabetics. Apparently it was a genetic disorder impacting my health. It tied in with my already diagnosed bronchial asthma. I felt as if I belonged on a world with less pollen and junk in the air, thinner atmosphere, higher altitude, lower gravity.
That was my regular routine for Sunday mornings. I had the usual cold breakfast before the usual hot breakfast. My father always fixed the hot breakfast on Sundays, so that my mother could have extra time to sleep. By 0730AM, dad would start fixing the scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, and orange juice squeezed from fresh oranges. Before having any of those items, my father and sister would split a grapefruit. That was their usual routine. I’d try, without much success, to avoid being squirted in my eyes, each time they would stab their spoons into a section of the grapefruit. Lucy, my sister, was getting much better with improving her aim, I discovered. She was born 8 years before I was. I had no other sisters, and I had no brothers.
Published by Turner Maxwell Books
Copyright © James C. Harwood 2009
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