The Future Man.

Sensory overload is what would happen if a prehistoric man were instantly transported to the middle of a modern day city during rush hour. He is really no less intelligent than you or I, yet his brain would be unable to process the heavy barrage of stimuli.

It is hard to imagine what a speeding bus or taxi cab would look like to someone who has never even laid eyes on a wheel. Now try and picture many buses and taxis whipping by while pedestrians in strange, uniform skins bustle past. The noise alone might drive him quite insane. The alien music, the foreign speech, the mechanical hum of all the machinery that we take for granted, how could we expect this simple person from a hard but simple life, to even begin to make sense of it all? The answer is that he most likely could not.

Perhaps if he were gradually introduced in such a way that he could slowly absorb the information. One could start him off in a sterile, white room with nothing but a bed, table, sink and toilet. Maybe only allow him contact with one or two people at first. Show him photographs of many modern day inventions. Then, after a time, take him out on short excursions, eventually building up to longer and longer ones. We certainly could get him to speak some of our language, or perhaps ride in a car without trying to climb out the window and run away in fright. But, would he ever truly fit in to our society? It is doubtful.

After a time, I believe that the man would escape the population center and head in to the largest rural area he could find, shedding the modern day clothing he had been forced to wear, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief as his brain started to function again, the way he was used to. Simplified, find food, find water, find shelter, keep warm. Possibly the need for human companionship (especially of the opposite sex) might bring him back to a smaller town or village, but if given the choice he would most likely stay as far away from the twenty-first century as he was able to.

Fortunately for prehistoric humans, the people of today do not possess the technology to kidnap them out of their existence and try our little experiment for real. Though, what about the humans of the future? What if someday, somehow they develop this ability? Could we be in danger of falling in to this experiment ourselves? Would we be equipped to better handle it? Our imaginations have certainly been exercised more than a Stone Age man, with all of the science fiction books and movies out there; it seems likely that we might better accept a cavalcade of unexplainable input. Still, could we ever truly fit in to their society?

There are many unexplained cases of people disappearing. One minute they are there in their happy, little life and the next minute they are gone without a trace. It does not take place all that often, but it certainly does occur.

This brings us to the case of the disappearance of Manny Blackwell. He was no one of special importance, not a politician or CEO of a large corporation on the exchange.