“This is all my fault.” I said to myself, horror in my voice. The destruction that stretched out before me was undeniable. In the short time that I had been back from my journey, I had learned that this had been the norm for generations (not that anyone was keeping track).

It is the wasteland of nightmares. It could have been the wasteland envisioned by Hollywood, but in this world, there is no such thing as Hollywood. My God, how I regretted what I had done. The world I left is not the same one that I now came back to.

Life in this world is a free for all, the concept of morality is all but lost and civilization is stuck where I had left it. Progress is a term that none are familiar with for survival is the only language that is spoken now and it is a harsh one. Friends turn against each other, families abandon each other, and enemies don’t exist anymore, why have a term to define everyone?

I was warned by theorists, by moralists and futurists. I was warned by scientists, the religious, and the common man. I heeded no such warnings. I tinkered with the past and this is the result. I had told myself it was purely academic, that no harm could come from intellectual pursuits.

The contraption that I had created to warp space-time was an ugly thing, but it had worked. I could send myself into the past and see and meet all the people that I had always desired to. It only took one trip to bring it all crashing down.

386 BC. Athens, Greece. I found myself talking to one of the greatest minds the world has ever seen. He spoke quietly but with vigor. “What is a just man? Now that is a question worthy of answering.” Plato said.

“Will you be the one to answer it?” I asked.

He sighed deeply. “I should like to. My mentor, Socrates, he could have found the solution.”

I wanted so eagerly to help him, to point him on the right track, to be part of the formation of what would become a basis for western philosophy. “Well, I couldn’t imagine trying to dissect what it means to be just for one man. Maybe in the terms of a whole community, a republic so to speak, you could break it down into manageable pieces.”

Plato pulled at his beard, obviously deep in thought. “Maybe, maybe.” he murmured to himself. We talked for a while longer, but like Cinderella, once the bell strikes midnight, the magic begins to fade. My machine pulled me back to the present, but when I arrived, it was a different world. I was outside on a dusty landscape with my machine in pieces all around me as if it had imploded and then exploded. Smoke rose from every horizon and hasn’t stopped yet.

I have been exploring the past two days and found naught but pain and suffering. The world I knew is gone. Technology has not progressed since I left Plato and humankind has regressed into little more than beasts. It wasn’t until a few minutes ago that I remembered the book I carried with me through the time machine as inspiration. Republic, by Plato.

It is tattered and hardly recognizable. I had flipped through it and quickly realized it felt smaller. I began to read the print and noticed something terrible. This was not the same text I had in my world. It was the work of some poor mind, not the work of genius.

At that moment, the image of a butterfly came into my mind. It was in its cocoon and as I watched, a hand, my hand, pulled it open so the butterfly wouldn’t have to struggle free. I felt the grip of terror at the realization of what I had done. I had stunted Plato’s intellectual struggle. He never did find the answer to what a just man is. He never passed on that knowledge. The Academy never came into fruition. Plato never taught Aristotle, Aristotle never taught Alexander the Great, humanity never learned morality. We had reverted to scavengers.

The books old and brittle pages turned to dust in my hands and floats away in the wind. This brings another thought into my mind, another reminder of something that will never be. The song by Kansas echoes in my mind:

I close my eyes

only for a moment

and the moments gone.

Day One

It was a Monday when Gio died. Gio the infallible, Gio the virtuous, Gio the beautiful and brave, Gio the everything that I wanted to be. He was my opposite, brilliant, funny, popular and most importantly, happy. He had the world and nothing could touch him. At least, that’s what I thought.

I started my day as any other, I woke up, lay in bed for as long as I could justify and then I forced my head off of the pillow, readying myself for another drudge through the swamps of my life. As usual I put in my headphones as soon as I stepped out of the shower so that I could drown out the rest of the world. Inevitably I caught a glance of myself in the mirror before I left the bathroom. I sized myself up, trying without success to puff out my chest and only feeling more pathetic for it. I stood at a miserable five feet and six inches tall with only 120 pounds clinging to my bones. My face is pimpled and awkward in a way that no one can describe but can’t deny. Glasses that are too big to my face cling onto the end of nose until I push them back to their proper place. Ribs poke out from my muscle lacking chest and stomach. I turn away in disgust and leave the image behind me. I put my head down like a footballer about to collide with an opponent and set a foot out of my room and then the current of routine washed me away.

My mom’s face smiled up at me as I came down the stairs and I did my best not to make eye contact. I snatched a bagel out of the pantry and tossed my backpack, untouched from the week before, over my shoulder as I shuffled out the door and into this punishing world. I heard the muffled sound of my mother’s voice call out after me, dripping with sweetness that made my face flush with embarrassment and shame and walked on.

The morning sun rose in front of me, making me shade my eyes as I walked into it. I stopped at the intersection that would lead me to St. Benedict High after I crossed. After a glance at the stoic red hand that opposed me on the other side of the street, I tossed patience aside and started across the road. As I was reaching the double yellow lines that separated the missing traffic I heard a muffled wail in my right ear. I looked up just in time to see a cop car, followed by an ambulance, barrel into the intersection. I jumped back to avoid being crushed as they rushed by, turning in the direction that I was headed.

Once they had cleared the intersection, I continued across the street and followed in their wake, seeing the red and blue lights dance through the morning glare. They crested a hill and disappeared behind it, leaving me, once again, alone.

As I neared the top of the hill, I could see a thin trail of smoke floating into the sky. I followed it down as I climbed higher and higher until I was looking down on the source of the fumes. Below me was a scene of chaos. The street descended before me with a massive fire truck sitting at its base, cantered out to block all but the furthest portion of the road. Beyond that was the ambulance that had blew past me only minutes earlier. The cop car was parked the furthest from me, a uniformed officer waving his hands manically in all directions standing near its tail. The rear doors to the ambulance were open and a man wearing dark clothes was jumping out with a large computer looking device tossed over his shoulder. The wisps of smoke rose up from a red Mustang that was nose first into a ditch on the side of the road. A fireman stood on the side of the car with some sort of saw that was shooting sparks into the wind as he systemically cut the car to pieces. From my vantage point, the rest of town spread out beyond the scene, a steeple in the distance, my school a mere block away and a mixture of trees and suburbia spread for miles outward. The sun continued to rise and cast its light across the scene, casting shadows while illuminating others in a scene fit for a postcard, minus the ruin below.

The noise of havoc floated up to me and even through the drone of bass that accompanied Eminem’s Collide, I could hear the scream of sirens and the yelling of men trying to be heard over their tools. Then another noise, much closer this time and I realized that there was a presence next to me. I pulled a headphone from my ear and turned to see a small girl, clutching pair of books to her chest, next to me.

One could hardly argue against her cuteness. She had a certain innocence about her that stemmed not from naivete but from choice. Flowing brown curls drifted down from her head, one lock falling cautiously over the brim of her thick black glasses. Her eyes were cast halfway between the ground and my own as if nervous and a slight peachiness rose to her supple cheeks. She dressed modestly, a white cardigan covering her shoulders and running down her arms to the elbow while a skirt that ended right above her knees sat over a pair of yoga pants that otherwise would’ve purchased lustful glances from plenty-a young man.

I recognized her immediately. “What’s going on down there, Daniel?” she asked, her face radiating worry.

While I couldn’t help feel a certain attraction to her, I also remembered where she fell on the social hierarchy that dominated the lives of every high school student. If I got sucked into her orbit, it would also drag me down and I would be clumped into the same caste as her, a caste that I was desperately trying to swim away from.

I mumbled a curt reply expressing my own ignorance on whatever lay below and plugged my earphone back in and started down the hill. Maddison Hill was not someone that I wanted to be seen fraternizing with and so I left her standing there, looking after me with a sad look on her face. She is what you might classify as your stereotypical “nerd”. She only has a few friends and can always be found studying in the library or engaged in discussion with a professor on the merits of her work. She is someone who, if you care about your social status in a place like St. Benedict High, you don’t get caught associating with.

Even though she staggered herself behind me, I could still feel her presence following me down the slope. What if someone saw me with her? They couldn’t think less of me for walking by her, after all, we both had to go this way to get to school. Unconsciously, I looked around me, hoping that no one noticed Maddison walking in my vicinity but it was an unnecessary exercise, the only people around were solely focused on the wreck that grew nearer with every step.

The closer I got, the less my headphones did to damper out the noise that seeped in past the miniature speakers and into my eardrums. As I closed in on the scene, I heard yelling that seemed more pointed than any of the other shouts and bellows. I looked up to see a man in a white shirt that said “Paramedic J. Parker” over his left breast pointing aggressively to his right and walking towards me. I unplugged from my device so I could hear and his shouts began to stream in coherently.

“You need to get out of here! Go around the other side of the street if you have to but get out of here!” The man commanded authority with such confidence that it was easy to see that he was used to running the show. I felt a seed of rebellion growing inside of me but it instantly dissipated as the paramedic named Parker saw the fire in my eyes and once again began to march towards me. I cowed my head in shame and walked away from the turmoil ahead with his eyes following me.

I skirted the edges of the circle that the firetrucks (for a second one had showed up as well, with every man that came spilling off of it carrying at least one tool, an axe, a saw and a hose), ambulance and police vehicle had made. I shouldered myself through a crowd of onlookers that had begun to gather around the edges of the accident with police barring their way in further. I didn’t bother with apologies as I bounced off of people in my attempt to weave closer to school and further from people.

I could hear the squeak of Maddison’s apologetic voice behind me as she tried to follow but, being even smaller than I, she quickly got lost in the crowd and fell off of my trail. I was less than a quarter mile from school now and could just make out the line of cars that were all trying to shove their way into the school parking lot. The arrogance and ignorance of teenage immortality made honking, cussing and reckless driving the norm in that everyday proceeding.

I relished the solitude that kept me company on that four-minute walk from the wreck to the doors of the school. No one to judge me or criticize me, not having to force any sort of exterior that was anything but my own. For those four minutes, I didn’t have to repaint my own portrait in an image that was pleasing to my mother, my teachers or least of all, my peers. The second that I reached the glass double doors that divided my many worlds, I hesitated as I always do. The moments that I pull that handle is the moment that I commit myself to another climb up Mount Everest, a climb that I am not conditioned for. I take a deep breath and grab the metal handle, it’s cool touch an uninviting challenge.

I am suddenly jolted aside as another, and much larger form, pushes past me. “Move it shit stain.” the form says. A colossus of a man yanks the door open and thunders inside, leaving me stumbling in his wake. A mop of dreadlocks that are the unmistakable trademark of the most terrifying kid in school are all that I see as he walks into the crowd of other students roaming the halls, his head and broad shoulders towering over the rest.

A pair of other boys from my grade glance nervously towards me as they plunge through the school doors, “I’m glad Dozer just ignores me.” one of them whispers, talking about the giant that had barreled through me.

Dozer. The one person at school that is more unanimously disliked than myself. Although it is not his real name, everyone calls him Dozer, even the teachers who are careful to tread lightly around him. The unspoken consensus is that Dozer is just short for bulldozer because of his tendency to bowl over anyone in his path.

The door doesn’t hold as much power as it did only seconds before, Dozer already acclimating me to my everyday reality, and I move into the bustling crowds of my four-year hell. Crowds swamp over me and I am sucked into anonymity. I pass a group of friends sitting on benches by the Art Garden, a section of school drizzled with sculpture, paintings and other creations by only the best of us, gabbing away about their weekends. I walk around the step team, practicing complex routines that entrance the eyes and ears with a crowd gathered around encouraging them on. I walk past a group that I see Maddison joining, books out with intense looks that are somehow gleeful as they compare homework. I find my class, room 77 and shuffle to the very back and corner desk, managing a sheepish hello to my professor who is bustling papers about on his desk.

I am alone, besides my teacher, Mr. Falhabur, who also takes no notice of me. I glance at the clock on the wall, the shorter analogue sitting just past the seven while the shorter one rests solidly on the seven. Twenty minutes before the bell rings to get to class, twenty-five minutes before class begins. I crossed my arms and sat back, my phone once again sending electronic pulses of sound into my ears. I stare at the lines of my desk and the carvings the people have left on its surface. “F U” says one, while another proclaims that “Adam was here”. The legacy that people leave behind.

After sitting stoically for twenty minutes, the bell rings. The rummaging of bodies in the wall increases as everyone shuffles past each other in their attempts to get to class. Slowly but steadily the desks in my class begin to become filled with my fellow peers. The row over and five seats up, I see Maddison smiling shyly back at me. I turn away but can’t help but feel the blood run to my face.

Seconds before the second bell rings signaling the start of class, a picture-perfect blonde struts in to fill the seat directly in front of me. Rachel. The girl that I have been fascinated with since I first laid eyes on her in elementary school. Her friend sitting in the chair next to her whispers something and she giggles, both of them turning to look at the empty desk on the opposite side of the room that is still waiting for a body to fill it. How she has changed over the years is nothing short of astonishing. While she has never lost her grace or beauty, she has slowly lost her personality, or at least, her personality as I saw it. Once we hit middle school she began to melt into a stereotype that claimed a once unique girl. After all of these years and all of these classes spent beside her, I know her well enough to still see the flame of who she once was sitting behind the typical cheerleader exterior that inhabited so many other girls in our school.

I remember when I first talked to her as clear as I remember Dozer swatting me aside. We were in third grade and had been delegated into groups for a project, one of my worst anxieties. I was in a group with a boy named Thomas Harper (I remember because he still patronizes me to this day), Abbey Whitefeld and of course, Rachel Hawkins.

“Okay, the people at your table will be your partners for the next week, follow the instructions on the handout and work together!” With that, our teacher, Ms. Fay, turned to the papers on her desk and left us to our devices. I remember looking around at the people I was sitting next to with mixed feelings. On one hand, the meanest kid in school, Thomas, was to be in my group but the two girls had always been decent to me.

“So, we just have to make something that would change the world, any ideas?” Abbey said, diving straight into it. Along one wall of the class was a table that had piles of craft materials on it. Aluminum foil rolls were stacked on one edge and boxes of beads and string on the other with just about anything else you could think of in between that we were to use to create our world changing design.

“How about a magic box that we can put Daniel into to make him disappear?” Thomas said, his eyes glaring into me with an evil smile on his face. I looked down into my lap, my eyes feeling wet. He laughed and then walked over to a group of his friends, leaving us to do his portion of the work. After a second he looked over and beckoned Abbey to come join them. She glanced in my direction, after giving me a look that was half pity and half sympathy, she also rose and left me sitting in my seat, the threat of tears now imminent.

“How about a ray gun so we can make him disappear?” I looked up startled. Rachel sat across from me, looking after Thomas with a disgust evident in her features. I let out a quiet chuckle that I had to stifle for fear of it turning into a sob. I wiped the wetness around my eyes and met Rachels eyes. She was looking at me with concern, a concern not born out of pity or self-interest but a genuine concern that made me gasp. “Thomas is a jerk. My mom always tells me that it is guys like him who always end up sad when they get older. You are too sweet to be sad Daniel.”

In that moment, I felt love. Not a romantic, mushy love, not one born out of lust or fantasy but a love that comes from human companionship. In that moment, I loved her, not because she was beautiful, but because she was kind. I felt a new sort of wonder rise within me, this girl was not like others, she was special.

Since that day, I have held a place for her in my heart and as we have grown together that place has grown colder and darker but never disappeared. Rachel and I were friendly throughout elementary school, if never quite friends but once middle school came and status became a more important aspect of daily life, she slowly became more distant. Whereas once we would sit together and compare the notes our moms left in our lunchboxes, over the years of middle school she went from saying hi in the hallway to purposefully avoiding even making eye contact. The words she had said to me when we were younger began to lose their meaning. While she still laughed and smiled with her new group of friends as we got older, there was always a tortured look in her eyes that made my stomach flip. I wanted to approach her, to say the same words to her that she had said to me, “You are too sweet to be sad.” but that day never came. I never had the courage that she once showed, the courage to speak up and put yourself on the line. So, I watched and still I watch.

“Psst, Rachel.” I whisper, back in the present. I see a slight flinch but she doesn’t turn, maybe she didn’t hear me. “Rachel.” I whisper again, this time louder. The friend sitting next to her casts a glance backwards at me with a smile on her face that was trying to hold back laughter, she meets Rachels eyes and they both snicker. My face turns firetruck red and I try to sink so far into my chair that I disappear. What would I have even said to her? It’s been years since she has even said more than two words to me, what could’ve possessed me to think that would change.

Mr. Falhabur gets up from his seat and pushes the door closed as the final bell rings. He then approaches the chalkboard and begins to write out a prompt for us to free write on for the first ten minutes of class. The words take form- “What gives you meaning?”.

I scribble young Rachels seven words on a piece of notebook paper unconsciously. I stare at it for a minute before I feel bile rise in my throat and tear it out, drawing conspicuous glances from those near me, including Rachel. I ball up the scrap and aim for the trashcan resting by the wall a couple seats ahead of me. As I let loose, the door slams back open as Dozer ducks through the doorframe. The concussion of the slamming door blows that little scrap from the air so instead of going up a few desks and to the right, it stops on the wood grain one desk ahead of me.

Rachels head pops up and she looks around self-consciously, she even dares to glance back at me. “Don’t open it, please don’t open it.” I pray as she stares down at the balled-up note meant for the trash. Dozer has crossed in front of a nervous looking Mr. Falhabur and fills the one last empty seat on the other side of the room, he shifts uncomfortably in the seat underneath him that looks as if it were made for a child in comparison with Dozers massive size.

Dozer fights with his desk, Rachel fights with indecision, I fight with fear, Mr. Falhabur fights to regain his sense of command and a voice fights to be heard over the PA system. The droning voice of our principle, Mrs. Koenig, comes through the speaker set in the corner of the room, leading us in a morning prayer and reminding us of parent-teacher conferences right around the corner. Then her voice changes, a pause in her announcements and a change in tone that quells the conversations between groups of friends.

After hesitating as if the person behind the voice does not know how to continue, she starts again. “I am sorry to say that a tragedy has befallen one St. Benedicts own this morning. One of our seniors perished this morning in a freak accident, we are still getting details but if anyone needs to be excused from classes, Ms. Fezzi, our social worker, will be available for anyone who needs to talk.” Another pause. The tension in the room is palpable as people look around the classroom to see who might be missing. I almost choke on my own saliva, now understanding what it was that I walked past this morning. “Giovani Strongbow is dead.”

A collective moan goes up from everyone in the room. Sobs break out without shame, some people sit in shocked silence, others turn to their neighbor with looks of confusion and fear on their faces, and Mr. Falhabur stands at the front of class unsure of how to continue.

There is a large snap as Dozer's desk breaks in half, a look of pain in his eyes no one has seen before. The broken section of desk still in his bulging hand. Veins stick out of his forearms and temple and there is a slight shake in his entire body. As if he feels me looking at him, he turns. Puffy red eyes glare at me and I can’t turn away fast enough. In front of me, Rachel is staring dumbly down at her hands resting on her desk. I lean slightly so I can see what is so interesting and see a piece of paper- torn at the edges- opened in front of her, the words “You are too sweet to be sad.” looking up at her in my handwriting.

I break.

-End excerpt

Did you recognize yourself in there anywhere? Good. My bet is that most people can in some fashion or another.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Joe Haack. Obviously, I enjoy the written word or I wouldn't be here. Since March 1st of this year I have read sixty-four full length adult novels. The reason I am appealing to you is because I want a chance to tell stories of my own to the world.

By trade I am a paramedic. I obtained a four year degree and went through extensive training to learn how to save a life and during my years on an ambulance I have experienced life and death as few ever do. I have met people from every walk of life and have given them courage to face their dying breaths. This gives me a unique perspective on what life and death is and my writing reflects those experiences.

When I am not writing or flying through the streets with lights and sirens blazing, I keep myself busy being a husband and a father. We ride bikes, tackle puzzles and love each other unconditionally. I live in the humble town of Barnhart, just south of St. Louis Missouri. I am a young man at the modest age of 24 and have a life of literature ahead of me. I hope it starts with you.

The novel I am pitching you is written specifically for high school and college aged individuals struggling to find out who exactly they are and the stereotypes that they fight to overcome. The message though is one that is ageless and is relatable throughout all the steps of life. It started as three individual novellas that evolved into the concept for a full novel. The first "perspective" (novella) is finished at 25,542 words and with the other two "perspectives" being expected to be of similar length, the finished project (time to completion approx two months) will be around 75,000 words.

Meet Daniel. His story is a common one, no friends, loves a girl that he cannot have, a troubled home life and full of self pity. He is found wanting by all except himself but even that is a thin wall that is starting to crack.

Meet Rachel. She is what the world sees when thinking of a cheerleader. She is popular, skinny and beautiful. Her friends are plenty and she is invited to everything. The only question is: is this what she wants, or someone else?

Meet Dozer. He is tall, he is muscled and he is black. His classmates are terrified of him, the school faculty avoid him and his family abuses him. That is how he is seen but what will it take for someone to see him as he is.

When a well-loved classmate dies, these three lives collide in a way that none of them would ever expect. With death as a catalyst, can Daniel, Rachel and Dozer learn how to live?

I hate to spoil it for you and if don't want to know where the story goes from there then stop here!

The rest of the story gets told over a seven day period and switches between the eyes of Daniel, Rachel and Dozer. They each cope with Gio's death in different ways and their individual realtionships with Gio are given unique backgrounds. Their paths cross daily and end up stereotyping each other while trying to break away from their own stereotypes. Daniel is in love with Rachel and constantly tries to impress her. Dozer shares those feelings but shys away for fear or being seen as weak. Rachel develops an eating disorder to feel good about herself and tolerates cruelity from her friends for sake of reputation. The story climaxes when Daniel drinks his sorrows away and attempts to kill himself, Dozers brother gets shot and his grandmother tells Dozer that this is a warning for him and Rachel's neglect of her personal health leads to a hospital visit. From there they all try to run from their problems by seeking out Gio's "sanctuary in the woods" which is an old treehouse that he found before his death. They stumble upon each other in the woods and help each other see that they are more than their stereotypes. They go back into the world with open eyes and an unburdened heart.