6 Interlude : The Life & Death of Joshua Lockman (1/2)
How does one even begin when talking about the life of the man known as Joshua Lockman?
Some people think he was a brilliant man, others think he was utterly insane. As for Joshua, he was a simple man, he just let others decide.
He was born on Earth around the half-turn of the 21st century. He was the middle child of the family, squeezed between an elder and a younger sister. His parents both had well-paying jobs, so while the family wasn't what you could consider rich, they were leading a decent life and Joshua didn't lack anything growing up. Of course, mankind was ongoing a revolution since a couple of decades, new technologies were being developed at an impressive pace. The young child was therefore surrounded by machines since the day he was born and he couldn't help to find those things wonderful.
Little Joshua could always be seen examining stuff around him, with a near-permanent smile on his face. His parents saw it as a sign of innocence, while his sisters couldn't help to find their brother adorable.
Unfortunately, his attitude turned out to be very detrimental to his school life. He was a very bright child, so he didn't have any problems following classes, the problem was discipline.
When class started, he obviously had to sit behind his desk until it was over. This turned out to be incredibly difficult for him, he had a need to move around. He was often standing up and moving around in the classroom, which drove his teacher crazy. This was usually the case when she tasked the children with something and he was done long before the rest. He was just bored.
His teacher tried several ways to get him to stay still like threatening him with punishment, talking to his parents but to no avail. Once she even removed his chair, saying if he couldn't stay still he didn't need one anyway. That turned out to be the dumbest decision of her life, he wandered around even more than usual. She was the kind of teacher who had her favorites, and the aloof Joshua who kept ignoring her while being top of the class and doing better than some of her few beloved students made her furious.
This whole incident happened while he was in the first grade. Luckily, as he grew up he finally started to learn to stay still, mostly by doing other stuff behind his desk while waiting for the rest. It remained difficult for him however and he often felt cramps in his legs, wanting to move around. You may think this whole incident was a little detail not worth mentioning, but it was just an early sign of Joshua's inability to function properly in society.
Things started to go really downhill in his teenage years. You probably know that when teenagers grow up, they tend to be rebellious. That wasn't really applicable to Joshua, he was still that aloof looking kid, he was taller but still acted like a child. The issue here was that the rest was changing. If you've ever been to high school you probably know the golden rule: 'No one wants to be friends with the weirdo.' As a result, he found himself isolated. Sure, his schoolwork was still top notch, but the rejection he was feeling from everyone slowly but surely affected him.
Over time his smiling face vanished and was replaced by a melancholic gaze in his eyes. He even became more distant toward his family since their interest didn't really match up. In the end, he turned back to his interest in technology. He was leaving in a golden age of human technology, so using the internet he was able to focus on his passion and started to learn several programming languages. In the meantime, his personality turned more and more into a pure geek, he developed his bizarre sense of humor and became what people usually refer to as a 'memelord' online.
His family observed the change, they were obviously unhappy he became so isolated, but his interest in computers and programming was something they encouraged, after all, in a few years he would have to pick a profession, and software development was known to pay well.
They did, however, force him to take breaks sometimes. Staying inside all the time apart from going to school wasn't healthy. Joshua was reluctant at first but he eventually agreed when he thought about something. There was an old forest near their house, he decided to take an hour walk through it every day. You see, Joshua considered nature as a type of system in itself, in fact, it was the oldest system one could find, so he thought those walks could inspire him somehow. It certainly was a unique way of thinking, but nothing about Joshua was really standard.
It's during one of those walks that Joshua met someone who would change the course of his life. One day, as a 14 year old Joshua was walking through the forest, it started to rain heavily. Joshua knew there was an old shack nearby and ran inside to cover himself. Inside the place, there was a homeless man, who had made this old building his home.
Seeing the teenager enter the place, the man smiled and invited him to take a seat until the rain calmed down. The shack was small but there was a wooden table and two chairs present, so Joshua sat in front of the man. Joshua noticed something unusual about the occupant of the place, but it had a hard time identifying what it was. The man started to talk, he mentioned he had seen Joshua wander in the forest before and asked him what exactly he was doing here. Joshua saw no reason to conceal the information so he explained his situation. The man nodded as he listened. After he was done, the man started to talk about himself. He once was a man with influence, but due to an incident had lost everything. Still, he knew he could make it back to the top someday, he had plans. He just needed to find means.
As Joshua listened, he became more and more impressed with the man. He always had the impression he was surrounded by idiots, the man in front of him, however, was clearly a cut above most people he ever met. Joshua found himself surprised to keep talking to the man, he had become such a reserved person, yet this man knew how to loosen his tongue. They talked for a few hours, long after the rain had stopped. By the end of the conversation, Joshua had realized what he found so unusual about the man, it was his eyes. He was there in the middle of a shack, living as a homeless person, yet his eyes were full of determination. Before leaving Joshua gave the man all the money he had on him, about 50 $ due to something the man said:
”Our meeting today is not by chance,” the man told him. ”I have a dream. Someday I will surprise the whole world. If you help me today, I'll make sure to repay you someday.”
Joshua continued his daily strolls in the wood, but the homeless man had vanished from the shack. He was confident about the man though, somehow he was sure he would have a fresh start.
After graduating from high school, it didn't surprise anyone Joshua chose to study computer sciences. The most positive thing about his college life was that the average level of intellect of his fellow students was a clear cut above those idiots he was in class with in high school. He did feel a bit more at home in that department, and the people were much nicer.
One day, he even tried out what every student does: getting completely wasted. This was an experiment to see if he could be more open to people while drunk. Bear in mind he almost never drank alcohol so this ended up being a terrible idea. He entered the campus bar one evening and started to order beer after beer. Conclusion, he woke up in his room the next morning in his bedroom with no memories of what happened the night before and a terrible headache. Worse, there was a girl in bed with him and he had no idea who she was. When she woke up, he asked her about her identity, she punched him and left. The girl ended up regretting it a few years later when he became a millionaire and she saw him on television though. After the whole incident, Joshua never touched alcohol again. His logic was: 'What's the point of getting laid after drinking so much if you can't recall any of it?'
Apart from this anecdote, Joshua's college life was relatively peaceful. He continued to be a shut-in focused on his work and graduated in his early twenties. That's when his life took a turn for the worse.
You see, Joshua's programming skills were outstanding, but it's not like he was the only programmer on the market. His technical skills couldn't compensate for his social skills in one particular domain: job interviews. He applied to a lot of companies and saw rejection after rejection. Some told him they were looking for people with more experience, which left him wondering how you were supposed to get it if no one wanted freshly graduated. Others told him they didn't find him communicative enough, which he found funny: all he was meeting was human resource people, he almost never saw people of a technical field. They asked him about his skills, he explained them and he watched as they looked at him and had no idea what he was talking about. Interviews like those really frustrated him. One day, after rejection he asked for feedback and the woman in front of him told him 'You are psychologically incapable of working in a team.' What the hell did that even mean? This woman was straight up saying he was crazy.