A Casual Interview with me on Turkish Sci-fi and More…

Below is an interview conducted with me by Mr. Emad Aysha, an insightful, British-Egyptian academic and a gifted writer. He’s an avid fan of science fiction with an expertise especially on Arab and Muslim sci-fi. What’s special about this interview is that it has made me think about implementing more cultural elements into my future work (and perhaps writing more in my native tongue, Turkish). You can find the full interview by scrolling down. If you’re short on time, you can also visit “The Liberum“, where the interview has been published for a concise version… or just take a digital stroll onto their homepage to access loads of pretty cool articles and interviews on various subjects. Enough with the talk… and onto more talk. Here comes the interview:

The Talk of Turkey – Baris Cansevgisi on Cultural Rapprochement and Sales Tactics for SFF in the Global Village

This is a talk with a literary counterpart of ours, Baris Cansevgisi, from Turkey this time round. He specializes in the short end of fiction – novellas, short stories, flash fiction – and in both science fiction and horror. Even his SF has a psychological and philosophical bent to it. He’s clearly the thinking man’s genre writer, never content to stick to action and adventure and preferring the journey inwards as well as outwards. (For a comprehensive overview of his work, including essays and commentary, please visit his website, and for one of his delightfully whimsical stories please check out “The Night Couple”).

Interview conducted by Emad Aysha

Dear Mr Baris, it’s always great to talk to fellow authors and share trials and tribulations. To date I have published interviews of literary figures from Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Algeria, China and Yemen. I’m sure Turkey is a galaxy unto its own and you are our magic door into it. And let me commend you on your skill and dexterity with English.

Please give us the lowdown on your good person and what attracted you to genre literature, your favourite authors, and what made you want to write it in English specifically?

Watching popular SF series like V,Blake’s 7, Star Trek and Doctor Who as well as reading books like Dune (Frank Herbert), The Time Machine(H.G. Wells) and Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes) while growing up, one tends to fall in love with SF. That’s basically what happened to me. Adding my interest in psychology, sociology and anthropology into the mixture, I have begun to explore endless possibilities that one can create in SF in terms of world-building and plotting.The genre is fueled from scientific knowledge but does not require the writers or the readers to be hardcore science fans. SF is limited only by the writer’s creativity and the reader’s imagination. I mostly write SF in English as I find the language to be more settled for this genre. Some SF terms does not sound quite right in Turkish, but perhaps that’s because there has been limited SF works in Turkish when compared to English. Besides, more people get to read my work when I write in English.

To date you have published with Sky Island Journal and Lucent Dreaming Mag, or are self-published. Am I correct in assuming that writing is more of a hobby for you than anything else? Can a Turkish author – genre or otherwise – make a decent living just from writing and publishing? And have you thought of teaching SF?

Writing has to stay a hobby for me for the time being. Apart from a few mainstream and well-known authors, I believe Turkish writers do not earn enough to make a living by sticking only to writing. Not at least until they have traditionally published a book or have a solid fan base just like Orhan Pamuk, Elif Şafak and Ahmet Ümit.As for me, I have a regular day job and I can only lead a nocturnal life when it comes to pursuing my passion. I do earn from writing, but that’s mostly in the form of ghostwriting.When it comes to teaching SF, I have never taught SF as a lesson on its own. However, I tend to use SF as background if there’s a willing group of students when I teach English at university.

Are you a member of Bilimkurgu Kulübü, the premier sci-fi association in Turkey? Do they have a national writer’s federation in Turkey and do you have to have a minimum of three published works to be a full member? (They do in Egypt).

No, I am not a member of Bilimkurgu Kulübü. Sadly, due to my hectic teaching schedule, I can hardly find the time to attend their activities, which mostly take place in Istanbul. This is something I currently lack in my life– participating in social activities (in person) with like-minded people, networking and sharing ideas of course. I believe there’s a national writers’ federation in Turkey called Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği, but I don’t have much information about them as I mostly write in English. However, I know that in order to become a member of the association, it is required to have been writing in one or more periodicals for at least five years or to have published at least one work (in Turkish of course).

What is your fanbase like (age, gender) and what subgenres do you write in – cyberpunk, steampunk, social science fiction, military SF, etc.?

Apart from family and friends, my fan base mostly consists of women between the ages 30 to 70. I believe this type of fan base is mostly attracted to softer SF with a stronger emphasis on human psychology, which is basically what I mostly write about:Social and psychological effects of SF elements like time travel or parallel worlds on ordinary people. Besides social science fiction, I also write short pieces of apocalyptic SF and stories about lucid dreaming, which I try to integrate into SF settings.

On the topic of military SF, there is the famous 2004 novel Metal Fırtına (or Metal Storm) by Orkun Uçar and Burak Turna – I’d read about it in a US foreign policy magazine. Were people in Turkey genuinely scared that the Americans would invade, just like they did Iraq? And how has the Metal Fırtına series fared critically and commercially?

First of all, let me say that Metal Fırtına is considered to be Political/Military Fiction as the novel lacks common sci-fi elements (not even laser rifles or aliens). The book, having a plausible plot of the US forces invading Turkey, had initially made it a best-seller amongst the Turkish population.

Well, some people were scared at first because it’s the first novel of its kind… but the feeling transformed into anti-Americanism shortly after. I guess it was seen as something that could easily happen at the time. And we had the example of Iraq. The core idea was very credible. However, it seemed unlikely for US invasion (ground) forces to be able to move through the mountainous Turkey in 2-3 days… This and some other aspects caused pauses in the suspension of disbelief, I guess…

Metal Fırtına did not fare well critically as it had been criticised about the writers lacking knowledge on military strategies, the proper militaristic jargon or even geographical knowledge of Turkey. Later on, the writers decided to continue the series on their own, both publishing a set of different Metal Storm follow-ups (Orkun Uçar – 4 more books) and (Burak Turna – 6 more books).

Is this the sci-fi action equivalent of Ertuğrul or Valley of the Wolves?

In that sense, yes, they are very similar. But nearly every action-adventure Turkish series or film are similar in that sense. Have you seen Tarkan movies (played by Kartal Tibet)? Or Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam (The Man who Saved the World)… I am ashamed of this film as it is considered to be one of the worst SF movies in history.

What’s the anime scene like in Turkey? Are they just dubbed or does Turkey have its own distinctive sci-fi cartoon brand? Is cyberpunk popular in general?

Anime has been gaining popularity especially among the younger generation in Turkey in the last couple of decades. I am really happy about this as I am an anime fan and now it’s easier to access a wide range of anime (and manga) both in English and Turkish. Up to this date Turkey has produced children’s cartoons focusing on traditional folk stories, but we do not have a sci-fi cartoon brand of our own. There have been a couple of attempts, but I am certain this will change soon. Although being a fairly new genre for the Turkish society, Cyberpunk is getting more and more popular these days and I have started hearing about some cyberpunk anime projects. But, they are still rumours as of this day.

Here’s a wild economic question. A whole generation of Egyptians and Arabs have been raised watching Turkish soap operas and period dramas, and you can find a goodly number of translated texts by Orhan Pamuk and Elif Shafak in Egyptian bookstore. Do you think Turkish SF (in translation) would sell well here?

I don’t see why not. Egyptian and Arab readers are more likely to find common cultural elements like religion, geography and social life in Turkish SF stories. There are few but some good published Turkish SF writers such as Müfit Özdeş (short stories), Aşkın Güngör, Zühtü Bayar and Sadık Yemni (along with fantasy).

Finally, what are your future plans and what kind of cooperation would you like to see from your counterparts in the Arab world? I’d like to ‘think’ we have much to learn from each other and can help each other out. What about you?

My future plans? Well, I have so many projects in mind but so little time to complete them all. Firstly, as I’m a pantser and not a plotter, I have a lot of short stories that need to be heavily edited by me. I also have an incomplete novel, which had been untouched for the last five years. I want to finish that. I also want to write more in Turkish to see how well I can fare. And, finally, work on a space opera TV series script I have been thinking of lately. For the near future, I think I’ll focus more on my blog and keep on writing short pieces on anything that ticks my brain.

I would love to connect with SF writers from the Arab world to exchange ideas and more. Wouldn’t it be great if we all worked on an SF short story anthology focusing on a certain topic?

Thank you!

Emad Aysha is a member of both the Egyptian Society for Science Fiction (ESSF) and Egyptian Writers’ Union.

Why we are secretly obsessed with ball games, round objects and other circular things

Ball games, later evolving to a concept called ball sports, have become million dollar industries since humanity first discovered the joy of moving round objects with their extremities or with equipment designed for this.

Throughout history ball games have always been popular. Ancient Mayans played a violent game similar to basketball called Pok-a-Tok, where the players were not allowed to touch the ball with their hands or feet while trying to get the ball through a vertically fixed loop above. The Chinese played a similar game to soccer called Cuju which dated back to 1600 BC. The Ethiopian Genna could be considered as the predecessor of field hockey while Ancient Greeks played a ball game called Episkyros in the 5th century BC.

_{The Mayan Pok-a-Tok Game. Image Credit: Channel 5 Belize}

The idea of using balls as a form of entertainment is not that surprising considering the ball-shape to be perfect as it rolls on the ground upon impact, adding a hint of unpredictability to the game depending on the momentum and the players’ skills. Secondly, thanks to aerodynamics, a ball can also be guided much more easily than any other shape and this skill can be improved by training. Lastly, the ball-shape is safe; it does not have sharp edges, pointy ends or damaging looks. It’s as smooth as it can be, even in high velocity. A ball can hit a player countless times and it still won’t do any kind of damage to players (See Dodgeball) (I am also excluding bowling balls here for obvious reasons :)).

_{Circular metal cage protection for fans provide safety}

Perhaps it’s not the ball-shape but the circle that drives us into obsession. We are born and one of the first things we see is the eyes… the perfectly round irises of our mother’s, the midwife’s or any other person who slaps our butts to initiate the first breath. We are mesmerised by the sight of the shining sun and the full moon, both of which are perfect circles, as we grow up. Moreover, recent studies show that the circle shape triggers the sensations of calmness, safety and security in our minds. And that’s probably why the circular shape made it into designs in our daily lives: coins, medals, fabric buttons, elevator buttons, dinner plates, wedding bands, wreckballs, etc…

Maybe we should consider our secret obsession of round objects and circles from a different perspective. We all have stardust in our existence as every atom in our bodies were created inside some star before Earth even existed. The stars are where we come from and this obsession of circles and spheres may just be our longing to end up where we belong. How else could you justify our desire to explore space when we haven’t even solved the mysteries of our own planet? Or that all the celestial bodies in space are spheres? Or that crystal balls were used to predict the future?

The future where we end up where we belong!

The Time Trotter

It’s my sister’s birthday today, and this story is for her, but feel free to read it as everyone can find a piece of themselves in this story 🙂

Happy birthday sis!!!

THE TIME TROTTER

“This is it?” Nadine rolled her eyes in sheer disappointment as she pushed and rolled over the device to one side with her index finger. The three interlocking gears at the base were furnished with cobwebs. She pulled her hand back quickly and rubbed her fingers onto her t-shirt to ditch the possible presence of sticky web particles she’d nearly poked through.

“It is,” Jerzy said almost shouting. “All the indications are there, right in front of us…staring at our faces…”

Nadine fixed her gaze at the device once more and chuckled. “The only thing staring at our faces is most likely a hairy, little spider.”

Jerzy toppled the device back over and took out a small notebook from his back pocket. He started shuffling through the weathered pages.

“Your grandpa was nuts guys,” Leo said. He had helped himself onto a dusty chest in the far corner. “Old Felix’s attic is full of weird junk like this… and none of them is of any good.” He noticed Jerzy wasn’t listening, but carried on anyway: “Teleportation chamber? Clean energy generator? And now a time machine? Come on…”

“Here!” Jerzy shouted as he opened a page in the notebook and showed it to them. The diagram drawn on the page was no doubt the blueprint of the device that was lying on the table now; an antique pocket watch screwed to a sizeable wooden box with knobs and pegs on each side. The lidless cavity at the bottom of the box housed some kind of battery or a power source, impossible to identify in its current horrible condition. And wires… lots of wires coming out of the device in chaotic tangles. Each part of the device was labelled in almost illegible handwriting with the heading in all caps over the drawing: ‘The Time Trotter Prototype and its Parts’.

“So?” Leo still seemed uninterested.

“This,” Jerzy said as he picked up the device. “…is the only ‘junk’ we found in grandpa’s attic that came with a manual… including the blueprint and operating instructions!” He quickly skipped over a few pages with his free hand and showed Leo and Nadia the page titled: “Step by step instructions”.

“Step by step instructions? That doesn’t sound like something a scientist like grandpa would write,” Nadia said as she carefully took the device from Jerzy’s hand and placed it on the table before she bent over to examine the device more thoroughly. “Even the bedtime stories he used to tell us years ago were riddled with technical and scientific terms.”

“Not if the manual was intended to be found by the likes of us,” Jerzy protested waving the manual.

“Jerzy,” Nadia finally said. “You’re my brother and I love you for that… but a mechanical, antique pocket watch… it’s so outdated. I am not sure if it can even point out the right time, let alone travel.”

“All the early prototypes of great machines were… outdated at first. Think about the first mobile phones as thick as bricks, all the way to the smart phones of the modern era not much thicker than an ID card.”

“Ok genius, so how does it work?” Leo cut in with a hint of boredom in his tone. He was holding a ceramic jug with no labels on, possibly one of the scattered, ordinary junk in the attic with no superpowers allocated by Nadia and Jerzy’s granddad.

Jerzy was already on it, finger lining the relevant step on the manual. “Place the device on a steady surface,” he read aloud and checked whether his sister followed the first step. The device was indeed on the table, Jerzy just pressed hard on one corner of the table to see if the legs were even. It didn’t budge.

“Next, we press the stem until it clicks,” Jerzy read before pointing out the sticking metal piece on top of the watch. Nadia pressed it hard and they all heard the clicking sound. The hands started spinning at an incredible speed in opposite directions until they stopped, displaying five past four.

Jerzy quickly checked his phone and to his expectations the time was exactly the same as what the pocket watch was claiming it was.

“That was weird,” Nadia said as she looked at her own wristwatch. “Now what?”

“Look! It started ticking…” Jerzy was astonished to his limits. He kept on reading. “Pull the stem out and start turning it in the desired destination: Counter clockwise for the past, and clockwise for the future.” He put the manual back into his pocket and rushed to the device. He got hold of the stem in no time. He pulled it slightly out and began turning it counter clockwise… allegedly into the past.

After a couple of turns, he stopped. “This shouldn’t be the way,” he thought. The pocket watch read twenty past two, but as soon as he released the stem, it went back to the original time. A tiny spider started scurrying away to safety… towards the absence of mechanical tampering.

“You just scared off the operator,” Leo said laughing as the spider found new shelter under the junk posing as the clean energy generator.

“No,” Nadia said. “The time on my watch also went back a couple of hours, but it’s back to normal now. Did we really go back in time?”

Jerzy shook his head. “I don’t know,” was all he could say.

At that moment, Leo smashed the ceramic jug in his hand by throwing it to the floor. “I have an idea,” he said. “Just try again, but go slow…super slow.”

Jerzy was at the wheel again. He started turning the stem in the same direction as before. Weirdly enough, he could take back the seconds which shouldn’t have been possible… Seconds at a time…

The smashed tiny bits of the jug started moving towards each other until they slowly started forming the original, unscathed jug. The pieces were sticking together on the floor with no indication of having been smashed before. When the jug was complete, it slowly started rising in mid-air and moved towards Leo’s open hand… the one that smashed it seconds ago… or the one that will smash it seconds later.

Jerzy let go off the stem in sheer joy, but now the time went back to its original position and they all had to witness the jug being smashed again in fast forward.

Nadia pulled out the manual out of Jerzy’s back pocket and quickly skimmed through it to the very last page. “Time is never steady, it can flow in both directions… but it’s intended to go only forward to avoid confusion and chaos. I invented the ‘time trotter’ for the sole purpose of providing myself tiny comforts like taking back time a couple of minutes before I made a huge mistake or travelling forward to avoid waiting hours for my favourite evening show. But even then, the need to hold the stem in an upright position was never worth the trouble. Time catches up in the end.” Nadia put the manual back into Jerzy’s pocket before mumbling “I’m outta here,” to herself as she left. Leo soon followed.

Jerzy spent the next couple of months experimenting with the device. He found out that he was stuck in the attic as he couldn’t take the device with him, he could never find a steady surface to allow the device to work elsewhere. All the unlabeled junk around him started to make sense now. The old TV unit in one corner, the bathtub and the toilet in the other with complete plumbing. The browned out mattress, too. Their grandpa lived nearly all his life here.

Just as Jerzy was about to give up, he found an old photo album buried deep in the shelves. The photos were of his childhood, Nadia and him as toddlers, grandpa and his youth… Something was strange… really strange… as the young grandpa Felix looked exactly the same as Leo in the present. He couldn’t stop now… there was a way… he needed to find it.. just like grandpa!

Morals of the story:

Stick to the present… don’t burden your life with the past and thus stop living the present, the moment. Same with the future in a way… Long live carpe diem.
Most things that seem complex at first like the time trotter device with lots of pegs, knobs and wires, can work with much less. Don’t scare yourself with possible obstructions that may arise in achieving your dreams.
Leo, in fact, isn’t the younger version of Felix, but we like making connections between unrelated things to support what we really want. Felix Leo!!! Even the photo Jerzy found had little resemblance to his grandpa’s youth but that’s how our minds work if we are inclined to believe in something. We only see what we want to see.
Family is important… but how you perceive family members and how they affect you is vital…

Urban Sounds, the Constant Noise and the Longing for Silence in Cities

Constantly humming engines each tasked for humanity’s various comforts, concerts where the pointless cheering of the audience surpasses the actual music being played, people shouting at each other for no good reason… the list goes on.

The world is getting more and more noisy each passing day. Naturally occurring sounds are much less heard and man-made clamor starts taking up most of our daily lives, especially in urban areas… It rains outside but frequent car honks replace the sound of raindrops. You cook but the soothing sound of crackling fire is almost always suppressed by a piece of metal or wood clashing into other cooking utensils in arrhythmic bursts of underestimated auditory disturbance. People downstairs argue in the loudest way possible about which side of the egg to pierce… the flat end wins by the power of extremely overused vocal chords.

We are living in a world where even complete silence is becoming white noise. When did we last enjoy watching the dumb night sky accompanied by silent but bright stars? The quiet of the sun rising over distant mountains? The soothing calmness of deep underwater? The mute work of art; a painting perhaps, telling us all kinds of stories silently if we have the imagination? The voiceless communication of two lovers carefully examining each other’s facial features while smiling occasionally (and sheepishly)?

The natural sounds on the other hand, add depth to whatever we are experiencing like condiments on fries… whether it’s sea gulls gawking over a deserted beach or logs crackling in a fireplace feeding it’s conqueror… but all these natural sounds have been exiting our lives silently, leaving their places to metallic, mechanic, digitized sounds.

Do you know how many words we have invented just to name all the different sounds that are being manufactured mechanically or electronically?

Whirring, buzzing, clanking, clinking, clicking, clunking, clattering, smashing, slamming, honking, ticking, banging, pinging, blipping, etc…

And add to this the fact that we use some words like “hissing” to describe escaping gas rather than the sound a slithering serpent makes.

Music has become the only cluster of man-made sounds that seem to work and change our moods for the better, but even so, it’s starting to decline in quality over the last couple of decades. More and more singers and bands pop out each year and soon forgotten… who could beat the satisfaction we got from the Beatles, the Doors, Queen, Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Muddy Waters and all the Classical music composers that have fed our souls for years (or even centuries)…

Music is food for the soul, but it has become junk food lately… And just as junk food being bad for our physical health, bad music or the disturbing noises we hear everyday in our lives is equally bad for our mental health.

So, what can be done to enjoy the world without all the disturbing noises the modern life throws at us?

No, we may not get rid of our alarm clocks and replace them with roosters if we are urban dwellers, but we may still…

Refrain using shouting and yelling of any caliber as the main form of communication with others.
Allocate more funds to invent motors or machinery that make less sound.
Build more soundproof houses with thicker walls so that we won’t get to hear the neighbor flush every time.
Spend more time in nature.
Make or encourage musicians to make better music.

Chronodemic

What can go wrong on the first trip going back in time?

Curious?

If yes, please delve into the flash fiction piece below…

If not, go elsewhere but keep in mind that fiction is the only viable way of time traveling in our era 🙂

CHRONODEMIC by Baris Cansevgisi

Releasing a soundly groan, Marlon opened his eyes on the ground. It was pitch black everywhere at his level of sight, but the guiding faint lights of the distant stars, illuminated the sky making sure the sky was still there. It was amazing! The awe in this sight quickly withered away as small rocks and pebbles started digging into his back, so he rolled on one side and forced himself up, still trying to keep his eyes fixed on the stunning night sky above… unassisted in the faint illumination of the surroundings. It was enough for his eyes to adjust to the dark void he initially thought he’d found himself in.

The journey had really taken its toll on Marlon; alongside the fatigue, the slight back pain and the nausea he was warned about, he felt much more battered than anticipated. His vision was blurry, his right wrist hurt and he shivered uncontrollably for a moment or two, out of chilliness in the air combined with a hint of eerirness he suddenly felt. This was his first journey. He checked the device strapped onto his hurting wrist and got a reading: It was 189 Sol 2019. He was off for 30 years. The device should have sent him a few days prior to the ‘Grand Launch Day’, the very sol to witness his home world getting the kickoff for its colonization– Mars… once called the red planet, was now much greener than Earth in 2103.

Marlon knew he had to wait at least two and a half sols to allow the wearable time travel device to recharge itself to be able to make the jump forward to his time. Then, he would have to recalibrate the device– which was impossible in this time with the technological advancement of the trimmed cavemen here, and make one journey back to the correct time: The Grand Launch Day. At least, delays were never a concern once the concept of time itself is mastered. He could still be at the launch, perhaps even a week in advance to enjoy a little bit more of the past. Not too much though… he knew he should focus more on why he’d come here. It was a matter of life and death!

Marlon was vagabonding in the mostly empty streets when a young woman in her early twenties ran towards him from the opposite side of the street. She stopped and placed her hand onto his shoulder. Feeling uneasy, Marlon was about to take a step back, but he remembered that ancient people tended to touch, use hand gestures and other outdated skills when communicating.

“Are you lost?” the woman asked with a curious look.

Marlon bent his arms back and held them together behind his back before activating the historical translator with a touch to the device. The language hadn’t changed much, but he didn’t want to sound weird by using popular expressions of his time like ‘synthastic’ or ‘benevalous’. He recited the mechanical voice that echoed in his mind: “Nah, I’m alright,” he said, smiling the best he could. “I am exploring!”

“Ok, but you shouldn’t be out… exploring here so late… it’s dangerous you know, where are your -czzzzt-” the woman said after taking her hand off Marlon’s shoulder. The last word she said remained a mystery as the translator crackled in the exact moment by some kind of interference. He was hoping it wasn’t damaged for good. Marlon just pointed to a random direction to stop any upcoming questions from the woman, hoping his answer would satisfy her… whatever her question was. The woman looked towards where Marlon had pointed out and half-satisfied, nodded her head before going on. “Chilly too, you might get sick. Here!” The woman untied her out-of-place denim jacket loosely covering her lower waist and placed it on Marlon’s shoulders.

Marlon nodded, said thanks, smiled again while thinking if he was overdoing it and then started walking in the opposite direction. When he peeked back, he saw the woman on her hand-held communication device. People of this era were weird in every way. But, a good kind of weird.

He wasn’t very far when Marlon heard the approaching sound of sirens– annoying repetitive, high-pitched cacophony! He juggled his mind to remember the use of the horrid audio from history lessons, but his memory failed him… or perhaps it was because history lessons never grabbed his attention. And all this journey was because of that. He was about to fail history class unless he handed in a perfect paper outlining the most significant event in the 21st century. That was surely the Launch Day. Failing history meant a lifetime career of mining asteroids where automation of labor was too expensive. So, indeed it was a matter of life and death for him.

Every educational subject in 2103 had to be taught in its own unique way; astrochemistry lessons took place on satellite labs orbiting Mars with pupils being able to access holographic materials or engage in 4D simulations while history lessons were limited only to teaching through books, an obsolete idea in the form of papers sewn together– no holographic help, no simulations, no incentive for learning. It was believed that the method should suit the subject. And history was best learned with the ancient method! Time travel devices were only assigned to HOES– History Overseer, and Educators, which were only supposed to be used for research solely.

The temperature was dropping fast, so he folded the jacket and carefully placed it on the ground like a divine offering and tapped on the device to initiate the body heat control function. Warm air started surrounding him and he found himself enclosed in an invisible bubble– generating enough heat and trapping it close to the body. Then, something popped up in his mind… something he’d learned in the virology lesson– ancient viruses could make one really sick and that people were practically defenseless against mutating variations. They hadn’t mastered virology in this era and couldn’t possibly know that people of 2098 could breed different viruses in their own bodies to fend off unknown diseases. It was fighting fire with fire. Bred viruses were compartmentalised in their bodies thus not making them sick, but attacked every other foreign organism they came into contact with. It was the perfect coexistence…

Marlon checked the device and to his surprise, the viral defense system was automatically triggered upon his arrival to 2019. The pain in his wrist must have been due to the five needles extending out from the device and digging into his skin to start the colonization of the super virus. He took a deep breath of relief and started walking again.

The sirens were really close now and Marlon decided to stop and wait to see what the fuss was about. In a moment, the street was filled with cars producing the horrid sound. Men with matching uniforms and the woman who had given him the jacket got out of the cars and approached him. The man with the weird facial hair started speaking:

“Hello son, are you okay?”

The man was not Marlon’s father. But, he just nodded anyhow. The woman was now standing next to the man who claimed to be his father. She said, “Is he lost, or is he one of those kids gangs use in this area to lure people?”

“I think he’s lost… the gangs use much older kids, this one here looks ten or eleven at most.” The man bent on his knees to have a better look at Marlon. “Did he tell you where his parents were?” She asked the woman.

The woman raised her finger towards the direction Marlon had pointed out when she first met him.

The fake father looked at the old buildings the woman was pointing towards and shook his head. “Those are abandoned.” Then he turned to the other costumed men and said, “Let’s take him to the station and try to find his parents.” Marlon noticed the costumed strange men were carrying some sort of weaponry on their belts. They didn’t seem to be getting ready to attack, but he couldn’t take the risk. He was defenseless.

Marlon started running. He couldn’t understand why he was to be taken somewhere. He didn’t trust the man either as he first claimed to be his father, then screwed up and told others to find his parents. Ancient people were not good liars. Marlon ran as fast as he could and when he turned a corner, he initiated the cloaking system from the device and instantly he was invisible to the passing men trying to figure out where he went.

The next two sols, Marlon enjoyed the past by eating what they called ice cream– which was strangely not ice nor cream, went to a place called playground, where primitive gym equipment in a smaller scale were populated by kids close to his age. He even made a friend. Todd.

When the two and a half sols passed and the device was recharged, he went back to his time. Disconnected the device and fell asleep in his own time. The past had been adventurous but exhausting. When he woke up the next day, he couldn’t reactivate the device. He was terrified as he wouldn’t be able to visit the Launch Day now. No paper meant instant failure and it was impossible to nick another one. They must have remotely deactivated it he thought. After a panicky sol, Marlon calmed himself down and believed he could write the paper on Launch Day… he hadn’t been there but spending almost three sols in the past helped him to visualise how it could be… crowds, cheers, a rocket launch and live TV coverage… lots of noise. He spent the rest of the sol, inventing a story about the Launch Day.

The next sol, Marlon walked into the class proud of himself and he presented the paper to his HOE. The HOE put his marking spectacles and scanned through his paper before turning to Marlon in disbelief:

“This was supposed to be nonfiction Marlon,” he said looking at him directly in the eye.

Marlon was taken by surprise. His work couldn’t have been immediately identified as fiction as it had real life experiences which couldn’t be felt by reading books unless lived in the era. “It’s not fiction,” he protested.

“You know the most significant event in the 21st century was the pandemic of 2019, the Launch Day you babbled about never happened. It’s good fiction, but still fiction.” The HOE removed his spectacles. “I am afraid you failed, Marlon… I am sorry.”

In an instant, it all dawned on Marlon… he had changed history and thus the future… and not only his future. The Viral Defense system had manufactured a powerful virus to be able to fight off whatever the 21st century threw at him, but it just made him contagious and unaware he spread a deadly disease to people who weren’t ready to control viruses.

If only he could get his hands on another time travel device.

If only it had been invented.

THE END

Xenolinguistics Part II – The Conscious Mayonnaise and Other Irregularities: Etymology of Common Words and the Aspect of Culture

Imagine that a highly advanced alien race in a galaxy far far away, somehow decide to study English after catching rogue radio signals all over the planet with their super-ranged intergalactic receptors. Before making first contact, they devise an English to intergalactic language dictionary after many years of eavesdropping. The radio signals are their only source of information as they don’t have eyes on Earth, yet. Hell, they might not even have eyes at all.

[We are assuming the aliens can distinguish between languages in the story above and focus solely on English. In reality, they would be utterly puzzled by hearing the words ‘astronaut’, ‘cosmonaut’, and ‘taikonaut’ being used for the same Earthly space men!]

_{From left to right: Astronaut Helmet – Cosmonaut Helmet – Taikonaut Helmet}

After these extraterrestrials think they have enough knowledge of the language to tackle the next message they pick up for the sake of translation, they come across some messages communicated by two unsuccessful fiction writers exchanging parts of their latest work for mutual advice. The first statement the aliens hear is:

“a chunk of mayo slithered down the hamburger paris bit in a hurry and landed on her brandnew denim leaving a nasty stain” [The correct punctuation isn’t applied as they wouldn’t know.]

A simple, single statement describing a daily mishap to someone’s jeans might be tough to crack for those who speak little or no English. Luckily, we have dictionaries! So, do these aliens! Remember, they made one! But, dictionaries may still provide more problems than solutions without context as:

The verb ‘Slither’ is usually credited for the movement of desert animals like snakes… so, the word ‘mayo’ sounds more like an animal than a condiment. Duly noted.

‘Land’ is both a verb and a noun, but it would be confusing for a member of a tribe in a landlocked region or beings from another planet with no bodies of water; in short, for those who do not have the word ‘sea’ or ‘land’ in their native tongues. Assuming they eliminated the noun form and accepted the verb form to be right definition. Why use ‘to land’ though? They would think the more appropriate word should have been something similar to ‘drop’ as ‘land’ is attributed to controlled actions like ‘the landing of a bird’ or ‘the touchdown of an airplane’ (by a pilot)… how much control can a chunk of mayo have? Does it have a conscience?

As suspected, the word ‘mayo’ is not in their dictionary, yet, as it’s the first time they picked up this word! It’s logical as it’s a really slim chance the word circulates in space between NASA and the space stations. They add the new word into their dictionary as:

Mayo: A conscious life form on Earth that attack by short leaps and known to discolour its prey by a form of spitting or dampening.

**_{Mayo does go for the heart in the long run!}**

All the world languages (not only English) are riddled with similes, idioms, and ironies. Mingle these with our diverse, unique cultures and set up grammatical systems with a lot of rule exceptions and voila; languages of planet Earth, which are bound to change as our way of lives change via new inventions and the advancement of technology!

Our vocabularies are full of made-up lexical items with little or no pattern, as we seem to name things randomly, by not following a general set of rules. Keep in mind, words make up sentences and sentences make the language itself. The above mayo message could also be deciphered as a list of place names as we can name words derived from toponyms (words derived from place names). Look:

Mayo: short for mayonnaise meaning from Mahon, Menorca – Spain
Hamburger: from Hamburg – Germany
Paris: from Paris – France
Denim: from Nimes – a town in France (de Nimes)

That’s not all, we also make up words derived from people’s names (eponyms):

Boycott (Captain Charles C. Boycott), Saxophone (Adolphe Sax), Guillotine (Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin), Sandwich (Earl of Sandwich), Nicotine (Jean Nicot) and even Bluetooth (Harold Bluetooth)

Toponyms and Eponyms are just two of the ways we name new words or concepts… there are many more but again no pattern in naming lexical items. Let’s mention one more to seal this part, which is ‘naming new locations, things or concepts by mistake or miscommunication’:

Nome (A town in Alaska): According to a theory, Nome received its name through an error: allegedly when a British cartographer copied an ambiguous annotation made by a British officer on a nautical chart, while on a voyage up the Bering Strait. The officer had written “? Name” next to the unnamed cape. The mapmaker misread the annotation as “C. Nome”, or Cape Nome, and used that name on his own chart; the city in turn took its name from the cape. (Source: Wikipedia)

Canary Islands (A group of Islands): The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Islands of the Dogs”. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the island Canaria contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size”. There were no canaries (birds) on the islands. It was a simple translation error as Canariae (Canis), the Latin word for ‘dogs’ sounded a lot like ‘Canaries’.

Yucatan Peninsula: There are countless theories about how Yucatan was named. Below are just two of those theories (In both versions, the Spaniards asked in Spanish and the Mayans they encountered there replied in Mayan, their native tongue.):

The first one, points out to Francisco López de Gómara in 1552 in Cabo Catoche when the Spaniards asked some men what the name of the town was and they said “tectetan”,which would roughly translate to “I don’t understand you”. They thought it was called that way, and, corrupting the word, they called that land Yucatan.

Another version indicates that the Spaniards gave the name of Yucatan to the region because the Mayans answered their questions with the expression “Uh yu ka t’ann”, which in Mayan means “listen how they speak”, and the Spaniards understood Yucatan.

The West Indies (A group of Islands in the Caribbean): Christophe Columbus, who thought he had reached islands in the West of India, named them. Well, technically, he is right. The West Indies in the Caribbean is indeed located to the west of India…

Now, let’s add the effect of our cultural diversity into the mix and look at some interesting facts about other languages:

At one point, Arabic had over 1000 words for ‘camel’, which were abundant in the region. Although most of these words are not used today, there are still over 100 words in contemporary Arabic for ‘camels’.

There’s a theory that the Eskimos have over 50 words to describe snow and ice. These include; ‘qanik – snow falling’, ‘aputi – snow on the ground’, ‘pukak – crystalline snow on the ground’ and ‘ainu – snow to make water’. No wonder so many words, where everywhere is literally snow and ice.

Even aristocracy and wealth can alter words– the words beef and pork come from French, while the English equivalents are cow (ox) and pig. Now, the original English words are used, to describe the live animals while French originated words are used when these animals are served as food. The distinction dates back to the Norman invasion of Britain, where English peasants looked after the animals and the French nobility ate them.

Each language has unique words that don’t exist in other languages: Gigil (Filipino) is the sudden urge to want to squeeze someone out of extreme cuteness or irritation. Fernweh (German) is feeling homesick for somewhere you’ve never been before. Slampadato (Italian) is a word to describe people who are addicted to tanning saloons. Yoko Meshi (Japanese) is the stress you feel when speaking a foreign language and Yakamoz (Turkish), which is the sight of the reflection of moonlight on a body of water.

We speak language(s), where both milk and white wine sound like they’re the same colour or that black berries, a bruised eye and coffee are considered black, just as black as a piece of obsidian rock. Seriously, how are we ever going to manage to communicate with extraterrestrials when our languages follow no real pattern and we are nearly always confused?

***_{Fifty Shades of Black and the actual colour!}***

Xenolinguistics – The Intercultural Barrier (Part 1.5)

In my last post, we explored the impossibility of successful communication with the first aliens we make contact (unless they are Hollywood aliens, which are all fluent in English). Before diving deep into the aspect of culture in the next post, which is vital in inter-species understanding, I’d like to give a short pause and share a freshly-written, absurd flash fiction piece I wrote to give a brief glimpse of what I think might happen in the event that humanity makes contact with an inter-galactic race. Let’s see what happens:

8 minutes 44 seconds in Earth time. The final stronghold fell much easier than its definition suggested. It was strategically a terrible location to fend off the final assault for the remaining few Orgics that had chosen to hole up here– weak concrete walls that could easily be bashed in, inviting, thin metal sheet reinforced glass doors, with no booby traps inside and all.

Lost deep in his own, proper stronghold of thoughts, Captain Anders lingered through the main hallway, pushing aside the scattered glass remnants of the display cases on the floor with the side of his boots after each step. The Orgics had chosen to sacrifice their lives for whatever those fragile containers housed. What could be more important than life? Still preoccupied, Captain Anders hadn’t noticed he was standing right in front of a shattered glass door. He gently pushed the massive crack barely holding up in the centre with his gloved hand and watched the remaining glass fall and break into smaller pieces beneath his feet. So fragile! Then, it made sense a bit- the last of the Orgics weren’t the military type as those were the ones first wiped out. What would they know about fortifications? Anders bent his head slightly and passed through the doorway.

Anders was greeted by Lieutenant Orrin once he entered the main room where a 10-feet marble sculpture of an orgic freshly riddled with bullet holes stood.

“We’ve secured the place,” Lieutenant Orrin said.

Captain Anders saw the dead bodies of half a dozen Orgics piled up in a far corner. “Any survivors?”

“One, but it’s in a bad shape,” Lieutenant Orrin pointed at the giant statue. “Fought well trying to defend this. Didn’t leave its side.”

“I am guessing this one was too heavy to move.” Anders touched the feet of the giant statue and drove his hand up. It was hard and cold… just like death. “Why sacrifice life to save something so lifeless?”

The lieutenant shook his head, but Anders didn’t notice. His gaze was still fixed on the the colossal hardened form. “Take me to it.” He finally said, first prying his looks, then his touch away from the statue.

The small storage room had nothing but a wobbly metal chair in the centre. On it, was a loosely tied female orgic. Judging by the severity of her wounds, the loose ropes were there for her not to fall off the chair rather than prevent her escape. She had a couple of hours of life in her at most. Maybe less.

Anders lifted her chin up and saw the diminishing light in her empty gaze. Time was of essence and he had to pick the right questions to be able to make sense of the orgics’ purposeless actions. “Why?” He asked. “Why did you sacrifice your life for a heap of stone?”

Laura looked up and came into direct contact with the android leader’s blinking crimson eyes. She knew she was dying fast, and there was nothing else left the android could threaten her with to get answers. Besides, how would she be able to describe an alien concept to an alien race in the very limited time she had left? How could she explain art to those that never experienced it? On one note, the android seemed familiar with the concept of ‘sacrifice’ as it was the word it’d used. But, sacrificing one for other lives was one thing and willing to die for inanimate creations of their own doing was another. Besides even if she were able to make a little bit of sense, would it not get lost in translation on the way from the AI underlings to the alien masters? The androids were highly adaptable. They were the foot soldiers created to learn and adapt… To do the dirty work of their masters. And that adaptability alone caused Earth to fall in under a week: Thousands of live Trojan horses, dealing the unexpected final blow to the unaware human race. But, the whole dagger and cloak thing wasn’t to take humanity by surprise, it was merely to learn and record a race that was to be annihilated for good. The events of the past week started playing in Laura’s mind…

The androids were sent to Earth by their extraterrestrial overlords. Humanity has always been naïve in thinking we would make contact with the real deal alien entities, but just as automobiles replaced horse carriages and factory workers with machinery on Earth, it was only logical to think dangerous space exploration or planetary invasions would be made remotely with easily controllable androids from the comfort of their spaceships by galactic conquistadors. The droids were a form of liquid machinery disguised in flesh that could take any shape and blend in for planetary missions and sadly, copying the physical appearance of humans were not that challenging for the creations of a far superior intergalactic race. The whole invasion happened in under a week and didn’t even requiring probing. Without humanity even noticing, the droids learned everything about humanity to ease off the invasion. Well, learned about almost everything… culture and art wouldn’t make any sense to them even if they stayed concealed on Earth for a millennia. They had never had art. Nor culture!

“Why?” Captain Anders roared in frustration of the fact that a lowly race had secrets they weren’t able to figure out.

“Art… Culture…,” Laura mumbled in pain. “It’s what makes us human.” With her last breath, she wanted to make them understand that humanity was something to be preserved rather than destroyed. She’d always thought art was universal… literally… They would understand. They had to. The ropes holding Laura tightened as her head dropped down.

Upon arrival, the droids learned that art was a way of expression and imagination of the human creative skill, and paintings or sculptures were the byproduct of… art. But, what exactly was ‘Culture’?

Anders looked at Lieutenant Orrin for collaborative brainstorming. The definitions he got by connecting to the planet’s database were conflicting. But, that wasn’t surprising. The Orgics spoke languages based on conflict. A stronghold didn’t always mean a difficult place to take over, yet he clearly heard an Orgic mentioning this place as one. They had names for non-existent concepts like god, religion, soul, magic, ghost, monster… and he would never understand why they used the same word to describe existent but unrelated concepts or things. For instance, among other meanings, ‘Coach’ meant both a ‘large wheeled transport to carry a large amount of people from one place to another’ and a ‘trainer in sporting events’. There seemed to be no logical connection.

Orrin started speaking; giving definitions of the term ‘culture’:

“The manifestations of human intellectual achievement-“

“That can’t be it,” Anders cut in. “Not worth dying for something you can recreate. Besides, humans are not the intellectual type.”

“The ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular-“

“Not a chance. Creating a stone representation of yourself isn’t really an idea… as for social behaviour, there’s no scientific explanation to why they keep producing things that would never give them benefits.”

“Perhaps, it gives them benefits,” Orrin said. “We weren’t able to fully analyse them, yet.”

Anders shook his head. “They have 3D printers to create such things quicker and more efficiently. If one gets lost or broken, replication shouldn’t be an issue. Yet, they are willing to die for their own creations that can be recreated easily.”

“Thinking in Orgic’s way and speaking in their language affects my line of thinking and reasoning, is it necessary as I fail to understand even what you’re saying.”

“You know that total immersion is the best way to learn,” Anders coughed to clear his throat, which he felt no actual need to do so.

“I think I got it,” Orrin said. “It must be this one… maintain tissue cells, bacteria, etc. in conditions suitable for growth.”

Anders paused for a minute before speaking. “Have we detected any living organisms on… art?”

“Yes,” Orrin nodded. “Not on the newer creations, but older art is sometimes covered by vegetation and there’s also moss growth in time. It’s basically their breeding grounds! They ensure survival through inter-species transformation.”

“That’s it,” Anders agreed. “I am sending the report now.” He remained motionless as his eyes fluttered at intervals while compiling the final report.

And, a moment later he sent it. The final report that reached the outer ring of the 3149-R planet, read:

“The Orgics have found a way of immortality through creating lifeless representations of themselves and other things. Naturally induced tissue cells and bacteria are carefully preserved on these creations, only for them to spring out as a different life form in the future. This makes it possible for them to completely alter their DNA for a more suitable life form. Further study is not needed. Requesting permission to go on to the next planet.”

_{Transformation of the human DNA? or just plain old moss?}

—- The End —-

Xenolinguistics – Deciphering the Impossible? (Part I)

It’s always been mind boggling how humans in sci-fi movies could communicate with Hollywood aliens whether they’ve come to our planet in peace, or just for the kicks of a planetary invasion. I’m well aware that it’s just for the sake of viewers’ getting the hang of the plot, but the ease of communication and getting fluent in alien language in less than an hour of screen time, is still an illogicality that doesn’t make any sense, just like extraterrestrial beings speaking with a distinctive English accent. A massive, interstellar galactic federation consisting of hundreds of super advanced alien races with the universal language being standard American English is yet another cosmic mystery.

_{A still from a great sci-fi movie: “Guardians of the Galaxy – Vol.2”, where the design of different alien races suffer either from lack of imagination and creativity or the fact that some people just watch these for the humanoid cast.}

Xenolinguistics is a hypothetical subject which is basically the study and research of the languages of never-encountered-before extraterrestrial beings. Surprisingly, despite the missing extraterrestrials, xenolinguistics has been becoming more and more popular among linguists over the past decade. Surely, without ever encountering an alien race, allocating time and resources seems like a fruitless effort, but it might also be wise to brainstorm beforehand and be prepared to solve several issues likely to come up regarding the first contact with our very first aliens. For instance, the idea of using toddlers, who are just learning to speak, to communicate with aliens upon first contact, rather than expert linguists is the byproduct of such brainstorming. These toddlers would be the perfect candidates for picking up language in a natural way, as they’re just figuring out how to receive and give information in a world less known and somewhat still alien to them.

_{Perhaps imaginary friends in childhood are in fact aliens in disguise. Image Credit: Thrive}

There is a fat chance that we will not even be able to communicate with aliens (unless they are gray and from Hollywood) through conventional methods like the use of sound, gestures, mimics, writing, mathematics or visuals. What if the first ones we meet are an advanced galactic race of invisible blob-like organisms that communicate through smell, giving bursts of different smells at various intervals to chat about a vast amount of subjects from interstellar travel to cosmic small talk. Will we even be aware of their presence, let alone communicate?

Before venturing into the depths of the universe to have a chat, isn’t it a better idea to solve the inter-species language barriers in our own tiny world as we aren’t the only intelligent life forms inhabiting this planet? (And, yes, I believe animals have intelligence, it’s just different from ours.)

Let’s have a quick peek at the communication patterns and our efforts in communication with the different species of our own planet… the ones (meaning all) we yet to decipher fully:

The meows! Kittens only meow to let their mothers know if they are cold or hungry. Once a kitten becomes a cat, they stop meowing to each other, and only meow to humans to get attention, let us know they are hungry or just to say welcome home. The irony is that they are the ones attempting to communicate with us…

The round dance and the waggle dance of honeybees is used to convey the exact distance, the direction and the quality of the pollen source discovered, to other honeybees. Yes, we’ve figured this one out, but understanding the method and even the meaning of communication between the members of a different species is very different from two species initiating communication with each other. You may think we are far more intelligent than honeybees therefore, there’s no need for us to communicate with them, but it’s another irony as far more intelligent extraterrestrials that might visit us in the future might think the same way, and just refrain from communicating with us.

Speaking of intelligence, dolphins excel at intelligence-based tests, are capable of complex problem solving, can individually learn and pass on their new knowledge to their young. They are also highly social and certainly do have a language consisting of a series of clicking sounds and whistles. So, have we attempted to communicate with them? Nope. At least, not in ways we are determined to communicate with equally intelligent extraterrestrials.

Just admit it, we will never be true horse whisperers in a literal sense with this attitude.

Perhaps, the first aliens we encounter would be pale humanoids? And somehow believe that sharing similar physical features is the key to bring down the intergalactic language barrier. It would really be easier to wave our arms, nod or just point at things! Or we could always try writing, drawing or typing in binary codes on a computer screen. If you think that can work, I suggest we have a look at our own world history and face the fact that we are far from deciphering most ancient forms of communication… ancient human writing, but let’s start with the ones we could decipher to lift up the spirit:

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics is one… but it still was an indecipherable tough cookie until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone which was a slab bearing three scripts carved in two languages (serving as translation): Ancient Egyptian and Ancient Greek… So, it was more thanks to the efforts of translators rather than linguists (xenolinguists) that we were able to crack ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Ancient Babylonian was deciphered more or less the same way; using ancient Persian as a reference in bilingual texts…

So, on most occasions a reference source, a key, was needed to decipher an unknown writing system… and even after that it took years to decipher some of these ancient scripts created by and cracked by the members of the same race! As Yuri Knorozov, the linguist who cracked Mayan hieroglyphs once said:

“What is created by one human mind can be unraveled by another!”
Yuri Knorozov

So true! But, how about what is created by an unknown alien race? Can it ever be unraveled by us?

It’s a tough question as there are still ancient writing systems and languages in our own human history that is far from cracking like;

The Harappan script of the Indus Valley Civilization is suspected to use the Boustrophedon style, written from right to left in first line and from left to right in second line meaning the alternate lines were reversed, sometimes with reversed letters.

Reverse Boustrophedon, where the text in alternate lines was rotated 180 degrees rather than mirrored, just like Rongorongo, the writing of ancient Rapa Nui, which we could only decipher the direction of the text but are still mostly clueless about the content.

_{Image Credit: How Reverse Boustrophedon looks like in Modern English by Kwamikagami}

All these culs-de-sac were encountered in the attempts to decipher human originated scripts… now think about extraterrestrial language or writing systems! And, then add the effect of culture on top of that as culture, influences language greatly and it can never be ignored.

In the next post (Part II), we’ll look into how cultural elements influenced Earth languages up to now…

In the Trail of the Forbidden Fruit: Part I – The Apple

Feeling a bit snacky late last night, I found myself in the kitchen. Once lingering inside still unsure about whether to go for some crackers or a chunky cookie, my eyes fell on the singled out apple on the counter that tempted me with its perfectly smooth, polished crimson skin promising to quench my thirst while filling in the tiny void in my stomach about to be reborn as hunger. After the first bite, I felt so good as if I was in heaven… or… wait… now the confusion started settling in… wasn’t it the apple… the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil in paradise?… didn’t a bite out of an apple put in motion the events that led to Adam and Eve to be cast off the garden of Eden?

How could this marvelous fruit be the cause of the first sin, especially when it’s never been stated explicitly to be the culprit in the holy books or the ancient writings? I decided to dig in some more… both to the subject and the half-bitten apple in my hand… It was time to consult the holy texts, starting with the Genesis.

And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.
Genesis 1:29

Seeds? Guess what! Apples have seeds! Fruit with seeds are safe! The answer seemed to be clear… the forbidden fruit couldn’t be the apple… Perhaps the moment when Eve was tempted into taking a bite off the forbidden fruit by the talking snake needs to be explored a bit more.

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.”
Quote from King James Bible

**_{The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil}**

Still no direct mention of the apple here, but a fruit that can kill you by contact should hardly be even considered an apple. Perhaps, it’s some kind of poisonous fruit with no seeds within, but we’ll explore other options in another post. Wondering why the belief that apples were the cause of the original sin was so widespread, I dug in some more, and I could see the confusion and why it was to blame. Here’s a very condensed version of why:

Malus is the Latin name for both apple and evil… It is very well known today that the first impression is crucial and image is everything, so you wouldn’t expect your child whom you named “Devil” or “Hellby” to be accepted with open arms amongst others and live in peace even in today’s evolved society. This was misfortunate on behalf of the apple as in fact, “malus” was the generic name for any kind of foreign fruit except berries, and nations across the world named all the strange fruits in their language in relation to that fact… e.g: tomatoes: love apples or golden apples, potatoes: earth apples, oranges: Chinese apples, datura: thorn apples…

Although the homeland of the apple is scientifically proven to be Kazakhstan (hence the former name of its former capital city Alma-ata meaning father of apples), it is mostly agreed that the apple traveled through to the west from Syria and ancient Persia via the Silk road in reverse. Zoroastrianism, which was the religion of the pre-Islamic Persians, had a belief system based on dualistic cosmology of good and evil… a belief system that favoured the balance of opposites. Apples, having both sugar and sour taste perfectly represented this harmony through balance. Sounds just like the alleged fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, doesn’t it? Perhaps, this chunk of the belief had travelled with the apple to the new lands.

After the widespread of apples in Western lands, ancient artists often used it as a model in their works of divine art depicting deities and events of significance. The ancient Greek goddess Aphrodite, the Norse deity of fertility Idunn, and many other gods and goddesses were often painted holding, hurling or just looking at apples, which was basically why it was considered as the fruit originating from the heavens. Moreover, mythology frequently suggests apples to be closely linked with deities in stories like the apple of discord which started the war of Troy and the twelve labours of Hercules in which he had to retrieve golden apples from the garden of Hesperides as one of the tasks. So, seeing apples in divine art and reading or listening about them in mythology is more than enough to place them in paradise.

_{Golden Apple of Discord by Jacob Jordaens (and just look how the angel at the back looks terrified by the sight of the apple!)}

Apples were often linked with immortality in mythology like the golden apples of Hesperides (or apples of immortality) that Hercules was tasked to retrieve and that Idunn in Norse mythology was the keeper of magic apples of immortality. Immortality is the one thing that separates man from god. Unlike gods, mankind can’t live forever. Well, ok, but Eve didn’t achieve immortality after eating the apple, so how does this work?… Remember it was the fruit of the tree of knowledge that was forbidden to touch or eat, and with apples symbolizing immortality, can it be something in the lines of what Dalai Lama once said: “Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.“

Let’s leave mythology behind and fast forward to the time when Christianity was flourishing among the Celts and Romans in eternal conflict. Originating from Dionysus paganism, the Roman Catholics loathed the Druid faith influenced Celts. Just as grapes and wine were favoured by the Roman Catholics; apples and cider were the favourites of the Celts. The conflict started rising even more when Celts started calling the Catholic grape “corrupt”, while the Romans spread the belief that apples were “hellish”. The battle of throwing dirt on each other was clearly won by the Roman Catholics, as stories about how evil the apple was, linking it to the tree of knowledge of good and evil in Eden and from that moment on, it spread like wildfire. These stories became beliefs in short time. For instance, to prove that the apple was the devil’s fruit, one could slice the apple vertically to witness Eve’s vagina embedded in the core, or when sliced horizontally the apple core revealed a pentagram; the symbol for the devil, engraved in its centre.

**_{From Left to Right: Eve’s Vagina and the devil’s pentagram}**

Ancient stories about apples being the forbidden fruit and symbolizing evil, immortality, and knowledge have seeped into our souls as it continued inspiring more modern beliefs, art, literature and culture not very different from the ancient versions. From Snow White munching on a poisonous apple… all the way to Apple Inc. adopting a half-bitten apple as its logo symbolizing a bite (or a byte) taken out of knowledge… At least, the apple isn’t as sinful as it used to be… So, go now, get an apple and bite into it. You’ve earned it!

For “In the Trail of the Forbidden Fruit: Part II”, I am planning on featuring the tomato!

Further reading and references for this article:

“In the Devil’s Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food” by Stewart Lee Allen.
“Apple: A Global History” by Erika Janik
“Paradise Lost” by John Milton

Resurfacing Obsolete or Old Habits for Post-Covid Life

Whether you believe Covid’s a pandemic or a plandemic, it has been more than a year since our lifestyles were changed drastically in almost all aspects of life. Social calls have been mostly put on hold, education became distanced, travel became more local, and the number of people washing their hands and stockpiling toilet paper has increased tenfold! Some businesses shut down while others used this opportunity to thrive. Corporately speaking, the greedy CEOkind is sure to come up with more new and costly inventions that would ease the transition of overly-concerned people towards a more hygienic, socially distanced and controlled life-style. Some post-covid lifestyle supporting innovations like scented masks that come in a variety of flavours are already on the market. But, the newest inventions, the latest fashion or whatever you may call these new ideas, they will always be too expensive for the general population in the earlier days.

So, what can people with less money to waste do? I believe there’s nothing better than reverting to old ways to fend off the virus in our daily lives and here’s how (listed under relevant topics):

Fashion:

Are you a young girl or a woman? Have Victorian origins by any chance? If you can answer both questions ‘yes’, then it’s high time to raid your great-grandmother’s wardrobe to look for a vintage Victorian dress! As most Victorian skirts were supported by crinolines worn underneath which made the skirt actually wider, these special dresses will also form a natural border of personal space around; keeping other people socially distanced while maintaining vintage fashion!

Have access to an ancient armour set? (If not, you can buy cheap, unauthentic sets online.) Not only will you look cooler strolling down the street in armour, but you will also be protected from floating viruses in the vicinity if a matching Corinthian helmet that only has a tiny space for the mouth, is also worn. Much better than plastic face shields, no? If you can also get a crossbow to complete your outfit, you can also shoot whoever violates your personal space. Moreover, you can polish your armour regularly and perhaps you can even become somebody’s ‘knight in shining armour’.

Is your digital wrist watch water-proof? Even if you answered ‘yes’ to this question, metal watch straps can corrode quicker when you frequently wash your hands to get rid of the virus clinging onto your hands. If the watch strap is leather, it still needs a viable solution as leather, too, is greatly affected by water. So, why not revert to carrying a pocket watch which would make your time-telling device need less spare part replacements.

Entertainment:

When was the last time you went to a proper masquerade party? Probably never. The 16th century renaissance entertainment can easily become popular post-covid, adding class to your fashion by replacing horrid-looking surgical masks with artsy counterparts as well as taking entertainment to a new level. Spread the dancing spirit, not the covid!

Imprisoned at our own homes by prolonged covid lockdowns, we got used to spending long hours indoors, improving our binge-watching skills as full time couch potatoes. Since most of us finished whatever they threw at us on Netflix in record times, and the fact that there are fewer productions due to covid restrictions, we are soon bound to run out of things to watch at home. That is unless we rediscover VHS or Betamax video players and loot whatever tape that remains in those old boxes in your storage. Whether it’s your parents’ wedding ceremony recording or a dozen ancient films never digitized, you are in luck!

Squash!!! Certainly not the vegetable… but I can’t call this one-person activity a sport either as losing to a wall using a racquet and a tennis ball is not quite the competition. So, I had to list this option under entertainment! Nevertheless, bouncing balls alone will never get you sick and it’s safe to say that squash and your worthy opponent; the wall is not contagious at all.

Healthcare:

Perhaps it’s time for the reemergence of medieval plague doctors and their infamous plague masks, which consisted of a long beak strapped to the nose, mainly for preventing miasma (the bad smell which was thought to be spreading diseases at the time) reaching the doctor’s olfactory sense. The beak could even hold dried flowers or fragrant herbs, making the virus work harder to be able to infect the doctor.

Emergence of witch doctors in less literate societies can be a solution as they can act like organic placebo, treating the sick, or protecting the uninfected with chants and benevolent magic. It’s in human nature to blindly believe people with higher social statuses. We do still believe politicians, don’t we? A respectable witch doctor can shoo away the virus and protect a society. Belief and hope can do miracles!

Transportation:

It’s getting more riskier day by day to use family automobiles and public transportation as they put the commuters in confined spaces with others, maximizing the risk of infection. Walking is still great, but doing that in a crowded urban city still poses a threat. So, how can we walk fearlessly amidst a crowd? The answer is stilt-walking, where the walker uses two long wooden poles with foot rests to walk above the crowd just like how some circus people walked. The poles can be cut into any desired height, making it nearly impossible to get infected from bypassing another stilt walker in the street. The sky is the limit here.

It’s different for longer journeys. Walking or stilt-walking will take ages if we are travelling far. And, since we are limited especially by international travel and the unwanted quarantine times when we reach our destination, the most viable thing left to do is any form of dreaming whether it’s a daydream when you can escape your boss and your mask half-dozing in your office or a lucid dream to escape the reality of these times and take full control of your next travel destination.

Reverting to these old ways will certainly not have the desired affects mentioned above, but they will surely drag us out of this vortex of boredom we’ve been thrown into.

Barış Cansevgisi

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Author: bcansevgisi