This weekend’s writing challenge from 
Option one: The island paradise
You are banished to a tropical paradise island for five years and can bring only three people with you - none can be related to you, meaning family members - who are they and why would you bring those particular people? They can be people from history or currently alive.
Option two: The dinner party
You are holding a dinner party and can invite any three people on the planet however none can be related to you, meaning family members. One of the invitees must be from history (deceased) - who do you invite and why?
Option three: The elimination
You have the power to completely eliminate any three people from the planet, relatives included, either from the present or the past. Who would you choose, why and how do you think their elimination would affect the future, or your future specifically.
Option four: A mash up
Do a post incorporating elements of all three of the topics above, but you need to adhere to the no relatives rule where applicable.
The island paradise option offers many possibilities. Three supermodels eager to throw themselves at a pudgy dork day after day for five years? Oddly enough, my wife might have a problem with that. Three people with the skills to survive what was billed as paradise but turns out to be The Island of Doctor Moreau? No thanks, I’ll pass on the island.
The dinner party option is a “safer” option I suppose. Just one evening rather than five years. But what if Nikola Tesla is allergic to the shrimp I’m serving?
The mash up version was tempting but the “no relatives rule where applicable” caveat gave me the willies. Most of my relatives are/were damn fine people, but there are some I’d rather not touch with ten-foot poles. Let sleeping dogs lie.
So I’ll go with Door Number Three, the elimination.
There are so many tempting choices here. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Trump, and a host of other sociopaths. Or maybe some butterfly effect people who were in the right place at the wrong time or wrong place at the right time. Rasputin? Charles Guiteau? Lots of choices there too.
But let’s pick a few “thinking outside the box” candidates.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis. With him eliminated from history, Major League Baseball might have been integrated much earlier. The Jim Crow era might well have ended many years earlier.
Isoroku Yamamoto. A gentleman and a superb officer. Without his wise caution, the Japanese Empire probably would have attacked American and British outposts earlier and less effectively than they did with his coordination and planning. America would have entered the war earlier and been able to help the Brits earlier. Possible side effect, a shortened WW2? Nukes not used, or used against Germany instead?
Or going further back in history, Maximilien Robespierre. Might the French Revolution have taken a very different course? No Reign of Terror? No rise of Napoleon?
The question of how these might have affected my future specifically remains. I’d guess that if any of these three had been eliminated, I might never have been born. World history would have been changed in myriad ways. My parents might have never met, or possibly existed.
Beach photo credit: Pixabay (Mustangjoe) (source)
Dinner photo credit: Pixabay (stockpic) (source)