Poor Jeremiah Horrocks

The mirror showed a reflection that wasn't my own. Who was that young and tortured soul staring back at me from the depths of the now misshapened and distorted mirror. I jumped back in horror at the awful look of pure hatred which, upon it's visage had been clearly written a long time ago. So intense were the deep lines around it's eyes, one could only think of a tree which had stood for hundreds of years.

"Who are you". I enquired, my voice breaking in fear and terror.

"I am Jeremiah Harrocks. I have come to right a wrong that was long ago done to me. I have waited long and impatiently for you to find me inside of this ancient and cursed mirror". His voice cracked and croaked, it was clearly apparent that it hurt for him to speak.

"Me, what have I to do with you"? I enquired, becoming a little curious.

Could the creature reach forth and grab me from within the mirror, I wondered. What malevolent deed was he planning, for with a face such as his, nothing good was sure to be forthcoming.

"So often we forget the real architects of an idea, or the ones who encourage our humble beginnings that lead to great and marvelous successes in our many and varied achievements". Jeremiah said broodingly, as if staring down the annals of a long forgotten time.

"Of what do you speak. I am confused. Do you mean to do me harm. I can no longer see my own reflection in the mirror. Am I dreaming. Are you real"? I pinched my arm.

"Ouch". He groaned. "I am afraid you and I are now joined as one".

What on earth was going on. Am I being haunted, possessed by the spirit of a man I did not know, and who seemed to be long dead.

"I have need to borrow your body for a short while. I shall now explain". Terror gripped my body as the awful reality of my situation started to sink in.

"I am Jeremiah Harrocks, the forgotten Math genius who laid the early foundations for Isaac Newton. You are my last direct descendant by many cousins many times removed. Listen, while I narrate my story".

"On a cloudy afternoon in England in 1639, at 20 years of age, I, Jeremiah Horrocks, became the first person to accurately predict the transit of Venus, and measure the distance from the Earth to the sun.

My work proved, for the first time, that Earth is not at the center of the universe, but revolves around the sun, refuting contemporary religious beliefs and laying the foundations for Isaac Newton’s groundbreaking work on gravity.

Yet today I have been “almost forgotten” and few are aware of the important contributions I made to the field of astronomy. Due to my untimely death at the age of 22, my work was never published in my lifetime and I never gained widespread recognition for my dazzling and genius mathematical achievements". Ok. He was a bit smug.

“Without me, all the pieces wouldn’t have been in place for Newton". He grew angrier as he spoke.

"What do you want from me. Why are you telling me this"? I asked nervously.

The hands reached out and dragged me into the mirror. I felt myself sailing headfirst into a dark vacuum, horrible sounds could be heard, moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I have gone to Hell, was my grim thought as I passed out from sheer terror. I awakened in Newton's studio. He was sitting at a table doing mathematical calculations.

Harrocks, or I, I'm not sure which, picked up an old telescope and whacked Newton over the head with great force. He fell to the floor, Dead?

He was very definitely dead. There was a lot of blood seeping from his head as I watched in utter consternation and shock.

"What have we done, oh God! The world will never be the same". I was traumatized.

"Come. Kepler and Galileo are next. The three were all famous and gave me no credit"! We next ended up in a house where the two men were having supper.

Grabbing a large and sharp sword off the wall, Harrocks sliced off their heads without saying a word. I remember clearly and distinctly the horrified look in their eyes.

This all made no sense, the three men lived in different times, two were illogically sitting breaking bread together, though they lived in different centuries . Yet we were murdering them to avenge the wrath of the ghost of a madman. Newton I understood, but why the other two. They had no direct bearing on the situation. But who can argue with an avenging, clinically obsessed spirit.

"Now let's go back to three days before I died. In your pocket you will find the medicine which will save my life, administer it and wait for me to begin feeling better". I did as he asked, having no knowledge of how the Penicillin got into my pocket. While we waited he ranted on.

“The world had no idea of the scale of the universe until I discovered it. I was the first person to prove that the Earth was not the center of creation, destroying key precepts of Christian teachings and the primacy of a literal interpretation of the Bible in the process.

Despite this, my great treatise on the transit of Venus was nearly lost for ever. Only a Latin manuscript survived the ravages of the civil war and the Great Fire of London. Passed from one astronomer to another for 20 years after my death, it would not be published until 1662, in an appendage to a Polish astronomer’s work.

“Nobody understood the significance of my work until Newton picked it up".

I was only 20 when, in 1639, I made a crucial mathematical breakthrough: “I found an error in the Math of a very famous astronomer, Johannes Kepler, and corrected it".

"This correction revealed that the next transit of Venus would happen in a matter of days, and would not occur again until 1761. I was the only person who knew it was going to happen.

I rushed to inform my friend and fellow amateur astronomer, William Crabtree, a draper from Manchester.

The pair of us had just enough time to coordinate, and we seized the rare opportunity to observe Venus in silhouette from two different locations, enabling them to record vital measurements that had eluded other astronomers".

"The only way you could measure the distance to the sun at the time was by getting an object to fix on, between the Earth and the sun, and then triangulating through".

In 1687, Newton acknowledged the importance of my 'Horrocks’s observations' in his Principia: Newton wouldn’t have been able to complete his work on gravity, if I hadn’t done these observations at the time that I did. He relied on this earlier work".

We now flew back through the mirror. Back to the ill-omened bedroom in my house.

"Here is a newspaper with the relevant information. You may read it". Out of the mirror a modern day newspaper fell at my feet.

"They are putting on a play at which I intend to appear, I will make then understand my role in the historical achievements of the past".

I was not sure that this would be a very good idea. He would be sure to scare people half to death.

"But if you already killed Newton, would history not have changed"? I enquired.

"I will change it today, 28 March, 2024, I wish to be there to see the looks on people's faces when the truth is revealed". I tried to tell him that time doesn't work like that. He refuted my claim.

"You modern day folks have no idea how time works. Don't try to tell me what I have already proven. I have altered it to how I want it to play out this day". I wondered if he had the foggiest idea of how modern day science had evolved.

I read the paper.

"Horrox, which will run in Cambridge’s ADC theatre from 28 March to 1 April as part of the Cambridge festival, begins in 1632 as Horrocks makes his way to university in the city on foot. Sear, an astronomer, said: “At the age of 14 or 15 – no one is quite sure – he walked to Cambridge from Lancashire, to study the stars.”

The son of a watchmaker, who was largely self-taught, Horrocks worked as a sizar while studying at Cambridge, serving his fellow students and even emptying their bedpans to pay his way. “He begged and borrowed books from the various Cambridge colleges, and left without a degree, probably because he’d run out of things to read,” said Sear. “We would be looking at him as some kind of child phenomenon today. At his age, understanding the math he did, making these amazing observations on rudimentary telescopes and then drawing conclusions that overturned established religious and scientific beliefs about the nature of the universe – he was a genius and 400 years ahead of his time.”

He thinks the key reason Horrocks has not received the recognition he deserves is because “he committed the sin of dying young”. This meant Horrocks did not have a chance to publicize his work and gain the respect of his fellow astronomers, and so was not publicly lauded for his discoveries the way Kepler and Galileo were".

When we arrived at the theatre, it was packed to capacity with all manner of scientific, astronomy and religious personages. The face from the mirror was just as grotesque and horrible as when I had first seen it. A face which was now superimposed onto my face. No one would know the difference.

Jeremiah (Me), appeared on the stage. People gasped in horror. At first they thought that maybe Frankenstein had been resurrected. Some scientists, becoming fascinated, stormed the stage, grabbing at me, while others pulled from the other direction. Harrocks lost all control, he ripped the men and women apart in uncontrolled rage. The stage became a virtual bloodbath as the ghost inside me went berserk. Others started to run. He chased them and arms, legs, heads and many other body parts went flying everywhere.

"I will kill you all. You are all just as bad as Newton, no one cares". He ranted.

The security and police forces grabbed me and started to beat me, I tried to explain my situation, but no one was listening. In the struggle, my body was separated from Harrocks. The cops forgot all about me as a battle broke out amidst the crowd. Three men and a woman appeared with a funny looking backpack machine thing.

Unfortunately for Harrocks, the Ghostbusters were present with their Proton Pack, which had a hand-held wand ("Neutrona Wand" or particle thrower) connected to a backpack-sized nuclear accelerator. They trapped poor Harrocks inside, and listened while I explained what had happened. The police EMT patched me up, and they agreed to allow me to leave with the Ghostbusters while they followed. They were not sure if I needed to be arrested.

Back at my house, I told the GB guys that we had murdered Galileo, Newton and Kepler, but Harrocks had arranged to allow time to remain constant until he had been publicly recognized and be made famous.

"Is he God then". They asked, looking grim as they thought of all the people who had died.

"Well, they are very dead and nothing has changed. So maybe he discovered how to play God in the centuries he had to plan his revenge". I told them.

The mirror was still a portal to other dimensions allowing us to return to the scenes of the crimes and undoing the deaths of the famous historical figures. The GB's had threatened Harrocks with Ectoplasmic evaporation if he had not co-operated and given us the coordinates or whatever they called it, in order to undo the damage that he had done.

Fortunately for us we were able to use the Proton Reversal pack to make things right again.

Harrocks is now happy. His story was made public and despite the fact that he was now in Ghost Ghostbuster's jail, he was happy.

He was famous! Plus with good behavior, in five years he would be able to go on patrol with them. In the meantime, he could teach them a lot of scientific stuff.

As far as he was concerned now. Newton had done him a great favor!

Fini!

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Written from an original story by Donna Ferguson, The Guardian, UK News.

The story of Jeremiah Harrocks is a true story. He never murdered anyone as far as I know. I have intertwined truth, fantasy and History into a horror story, which is both fictional in some aspects, and true in other historical aspects.

Johannes Kepler ( 1571-1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (1564 – 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer. Galileo studied speed and velocity, gravity and free fall, the principle of relativity, inertia, projectile motion and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of pendulums and "hydrostatic balances". He invented the thermoscope and various military compasses, and used the telescope for scientific observations of celestial objects. His contributions to observational astronomy include telescopic confirmation of the phases of Venus, observation of the four largest satellites of Jupiter, observation of Saturn's rings, and analysis of lunar craters and sunspots.