I always knew I was different. In fact, I knew it when I first had memories, I remembered it so specifically, that day near Christmas holidays. My parents had a fight and were screaming at each other, my mother had picked me up, put me down all the while arguing with my father. The heightened emotions on both of my parents' faces seemed apt for the world to give me sentience in that one moment where I was watching my mother grow red faced.
When I first saw things or rather could remember things, everything changed. I couldn't see things in the same light anymore, or at least that is what I assumed. I am no neuroscientist but I was sure that I had memories even before that time. I even remembered thinking about remembering them but for some reason those memories seemed erased from my mind as I think back on it now. My brain vibrated or at least my scalp seemed to vibrate each time I received what I came to call "revelations".
It all started when I had been baptized not long after I could retain memories and have a piece of sentience for myself. I think I was almost three back then when it happened that time. My scalp felt the awkward sensation as if my hair follicles were falling and goosebumps rose all over my body as I received the revelation that I assumed to be from god. In my toddler brain, I had received crystal clear memories detailing practice of baptism and information about the Protestant and Catholic churches. Of course, it didn't quite make sense that the memories where god given because most of what I received in revelation were about terrible things that organized religion had inflicted upon the world.
I didn't or couldn't think much on it at that time, as my first few years of life had been spent mostly following each line of revelation into its roots. For example, I couldn't tell what atheism was despite having the world revealed to me in one vision but learning the word itself triggered another vision/revelation which told me what it was. Inevitably, learning new things would involve me having to learn exponential amount of more things just to understand those concepts.
Of course, it didn't take long until I no longer believed that the revelations were given to me by god, or if there was such a being, the revelation didn't seem to think it was likely. Have you ever wondered if you were actually crazy? Your mind fractured, or having some sort of false memories planted into you or someone evil making you believe in crazy things. I had felt like that but then my mind had spat out possible illnesses that could be affecting me. It never sat right with me but it was clear that revelation had its limits. For one, illnesses given in the revelations had fragmentation, not the first I had encountered but in this revelation the memory had forgotten the word for schizoprenia yet had minutes of knowledge for a word "Schizo" and its various uses.
I had started to have a theory about having lived this life before but it was hard to prove given that I had never received revelation about myself. For some reason, whoever allowed me to see these memories didn't want me to know about myself. Wilfred Ingrid Price, my name hadn't triggered any new revelation. Yet, my eyes had seen a two hour worth of movie in my mind as my eyes stared at the mandrill in Chester Zoo. With how recent the supposed film was, I asked my father to get me Lion King and we had watched the movie together. It was great to see it in its entirety and in real time but the real life experience was more limited than the revelations' had been. It worried me how odd the revelations were, some things had too much information for me, yet some things had almost none.
There also seemed to be something exceptionally sad about living a memory of the future and growing reminisce toward events that would take place in the future. My memory revelation seemed to calm down as I stared into the paper test laying before me, this was a special test just for me. This particilar test did not follow the national curriculum our school followed and it was certainly out of the primary school range for the class I was in.
Paper itself had a simple triangle and notations showing angles from certain points. When I saw the triangle, I had a revelation about geometry and specifically trigonometry, which told me how to solve for the missing side in mere moments. These new tests jogged my mind and I just loved how fresh it all was to me. I had to look around, my gaze briefly lingered over at Mrs. Ramsdale, she had changed somehow in just last few weeks, hadn't she? After our school trip to the Chester Zoo, she had started asking for me to complete tests every day. At first, it was simple and easy for me and slight bit of a brain tease because it triggered small amount of new revelations to me.
My theory had finally settled on myself somehow repeating my life, so I was eager to remember everything I had forgotten. If god wouldn't let me remember my family or friends, I will have to remember everything else first.
"Are you done, sweet?" Mrs. Ramsdale asked me, sweetly. Too sweet maybe, but I didn't mind.
"Yes, thank you." I replied and handed her the paper.
Mrs. Ramsdale hemmed and hawed over the paper until she smiled. Her green eyes set itself on my own sea green.
"Well done, Will." Mrs. Ramsdale said and just left.
I just didn't understand her, she seemed eager to tell me something but always held herself back. But I forgot about it almost as soon as I started thinking about it. There was no point, I had to go feed the chickens.
•✦—✦•
"Wilfred is a special child." Chris said to Mr. Price.
"I know he is, what will you do about it?" Oliver asked the balding man.
"Well, Woodfield has been dropping standards in the recent years. Our pupil numbers are decreasing day by day. But, we can bring him to UKMT, that's a challenge for mathematics for children his age. Juniors, that is to say, primary schoolers can compete for medals and the top scorers can join more olympiads like the Junior Kangaroo." Chris continued, "Mrs. Ramsdale will have extracurricular classes with Wilfred to make sure his knowledge is more complete. I'm afraid there's not much time until the next UKMT. But, Mr. Price, I'm sure Wilfred can win a medal." Chris chuckled slightly, still trying to get any information from Oliver's blank face.
"Don't take me for a prideful man, Mr. Hale. But I have been Wilfred's father for nine years. He's a special child indeed, I have never needed to teach him anything. He always knew everything or figured them out quickly." Oliver sighed,
"My point is, Mr. Hale, he can excel at these things. I'm just not sure if he is motivated to do so? He's never wanted for anything, trust me I've tried." Oliver finished.
"Ah, that is how his homeroom teacher described Wilfred too. But everything changed suddenly, Wilfred seems eager to learn advanced material."
"Advanced material? What do you mean by that?" Oliver asked.
"Mrs. Ramsdale gave Wilfred tests from Year 5, 6 and then 7, 8 and finally now at Year 9 levels. Wilfred can understand trigonometry and algebra at an instinctive level. It's quite scary." Chris gave a laugh, "Of course, it would be absolutely enormous, if we can keep his fire stoked. We can start the process to get him transferred to King's School. They'll have better resources than our school and of course he could skip years and graduate earlier." Chris hated selling a different school, but he didn't have to fool himself in thinking that Woodfield could compete.
Oliver rapped his knuckles and let his legs play a tune.
"Tell me more about this UKMT thing."
"It's an olympiad, they started a junior version a few years back for students under Year 8. It should be at your son's level and it's a short paper without much stress."
•✦—✦•
October 23rd, Woodfield Primary School
That hadn't taken that long. I didn't spend much time discovering my memories anymore and I was eager to learn subjects just by looking at a new challenge. It was addictive in a way and after completing quite a few of them, I was now stuck at school for extracurricular activities with Mrs. Ramsdale. She was a chubby lady on the wrong side of forties, her most prominent feature was the kindly face, widow's peak and a hooked nose, and laugh lines. Aging had done her no favors but for all that, she always seemed energetic for anything.
Today she had went through many examples of math problems with trick questions. Some problems were more of an English test rather than a math problem but I really enjoyed the endorphins from completing every problem on my first try. Fractions and multiplication were so simple, logic puzzles were childish and multiple choice questions made it too easy. Only problem that his revelations didn't help with was a visualization problem that asked how many sides a very odd shape would have given an image.
"Good job, Wilf. Let's go over your answers." Mrs. Ramsdale said before picking up my paper to mark it.
"I'm flabbergasted." Mrs. Ramsdale sighed, "You are so very good at this, I mean these are supposed to be completely new to you but you complete them without issue."
"I'm not sure what to say, ma'am. It's just simple logic, innit?" I replied not too sure what more I could say.
"That's right, never mind me ramblings. I have spoken to your father, turns out no one has any academic background. So all of your genius must be natural." Mrs. Ramsdale told me, I started to think about where this was going. I had an idea or two that had been revealed to me in the visions but so far nothing was set in stone.
"UKMT." Mrs. Ramsdale enunciated clearly in her northern accent.
I was stumped, no revelations and no visions. "What's UMKT?"
"It's an organization founded by a mathematician. Erm… you could say a very smart man started a competition that every boy and girl can take part in. Hundred thousand kids compete in the challenge. Isn't that brilliant?" Mrs. Ramsdale asked.
"Yeah, that sounds lovely. Why haven't I been allowed to before?" I had to ask.
"We make the Year 5 and 6 take it but I think you are sharp enough to take them now."
"Let's!" I replied enthusiastically. There were so many things that I just had no idea about, these revelations were brilliant of course but it was hard to attribute how much of my "genius" could even be related to my own brain or the revelations that allowed me to bear the fruit of learning without putting in the effort. But more than all of that, I wanted to know what the limit was. Was I truly a genius or was being given memories just something that can be mistaken for genius?
Too many questions and not enough answers, many revelations yet I seem to have more questions, more I've learned.
"I'll give you the papers from previous years. There are some general knowledge questions that would be good to study." Mrs. Ramsdale said, my brain settled into low hum of activity.