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

Dickie L. Rowbotham

It’s becoming more and more difficult to stay sane with all this self-isolation going on. So, I decided to write a flash fiction piece; a parody of the corona virus pandemic, main-stream media, social media blabbering, being clueless and the idea of hope. All characters here are fictional and have no relation to real world people or events. Here’s the punchline of the story: “One day, a loser wakes up to discover he made the headlines everywhere during a lethal Pandemic.” You can read the complete story by scrolling down. I would love to see some honest comments! Cheers!

Covered in sweat and feeling a pain of uneasiness in his chest, Dickie woke up almost an hour before his alarm clock set off. He quickly hurried to the bathroom, turned on the tap, squirted some liquid soap onto his palm and began rubbing his hands in the harshest way anybody had ever done. He started silent counting and stopped when he reached 22. Twenty seconds were enough to kill the virus that might have been residing on his hands, but he’d always do a couple of seconds extra just to be on the safe side. He dried his hands with a paper towel and disposed it right away. With the corner of his eye, he checked his paper towel stock sitting proudly on the shelves. Yep, the remaining 37 huge rolls would be more than enough to last him in case paper-towel shortages started. Encouraged by his vast paper towel collection and not feeling well to his usual standards, he turned on the tap for another 22 seconds and peeled more skin off his hands.

It was the beginning of a huge day. The previous week he’d gone to the emergency service of the memorial hospital for Anoroc-91 testing. He had all the symptoms; a mild diarrhea, a little muscle pain especially in the back, dry coughing a couple of times throughout the day, shortness of breath accompanied by a mild fever. He’d waited a couple of days before he went to the hospital for a test as he couldn’t be sure if he was developing symptoms due to his own precautious actions. Since the world has been taken over by this pandemic, he’d completely changed the way he lived his life. He set up the heater at least ten degrees as he was informed by social media that the virus couldn’t survive in higher temperatures. This could be the reason he felt his elevated body heat. His diarrhea could be just because he’d changed his diet to natural Anoroc-repelling food advertised by a well-being specialist he’d been following on Twitter. His shortness of breath could be explained by not taking his protective mask off even when he was home alone. On another note, he was always home alone. Not that he was following strict self isolation techniques, but because he didn’t have any friends. “Darn!” he mumbled to himself. Where did he put the new batch of masks?

The landline phone rang, but he couldn’t get it in time as he was too busy putting on his latex gloves to pick it up. It was too bad that these old models didn’t display missed calls. He was sure though that he missed the call about his test results as his phone only rang three or four times during a full year. And it was only March! Angry to himself, he ditched the gloves into the bin and sanitized the receiver thoroughly to save time for the next ring. He just hoped they would call soon as the wait had already been messing up his nearly non-existent sanity. Not having anything better to do, he turned on his laptop and logged-in to his Twitter account. It was a pity that his cell phone, where he usually checked his messages and social media, was totally wrecked after laying it in alcohol bed for quick sterilization. The coffee table the laptop was on, was just making him bend lower than usual and have back pain after an hour of computer time. But, this time he wasn’t planning on spending more than ten minutes on Twitter, perhaps only a bit longer if he found some new information on the virus itself.

Surprisingly, the Twitter trending topic list had his name on the very top: “#dickielrowbotham”. That was strange. He never thought someone sharing his uncommon full name to be trending. It wasn’t him for sure. He was a nobody. But seriously, how many Dickie L. Rowbothams, down to the middle initial, could be in the whole world? He tapped on the topic and started scrolling down millions of uninformative tweets:

Terence Woodbury, a guy with a profile pic of a slam dunk close-up tweeted: “Don’t be a dick! Be a dickie and save the world! #dickielrowbotham #anoroc-91 #anaroc91 #anaracvirus

The next few tweets were emojis of thumbs-up or closed fists… or combinations of these two with varying smileys.

Another tweet by a certain well-known celebrity, complete with a blue tick next to the name, was saying: “Yay #dickielrowbotham“. It had nearly 90k likes, 28k retweets and nearly as many comments.

Dickie got frustrated as he scrolled down the never-ending tweets. There was not a single tweet giving him an insight on what was happening!

Then, he saw it! A doctor, or at least that was what his username “dr.chadwick8080” implied, had tweeted: “As the acting director of Springwell Memorial Hospital, I can neither confirm nor deny the discovery of immune cells in a suspected patients blood work. It’s just too early for a final verdict and false hope does not help in this case. #dickielrowbotham #anoroc-91 #stayhome

Dr. Chadwick? Springwell Memorial? That was where Dickie had his Anoroc test! The tweet didn’t really seem like it was written by a real doctor, but even if that was true, it was still a weird coincidence.

The phone started ringing while Dickie was still trying to make heads or tails of the whole thing. This time he was quickly on his feet and answered the phone in record time:

“Hello! This is Dickie speaking.” He said with a trembling voice.

“Hello Mr. Rowbotham,” The voice answered. “I am Doctor Richard Chadwick from Springwell Memorial Hospital. I am calling about your blood test results regarding Anoroc-91.”

“Yes?” Dickie said in a shaky tone after a brief pause.

“We have discovered certain antibodies in your blood that prevent the Aronoc virus,” he said. “To put it boldly, you are immune Mr. Rowbotham. We would like to invite you here and run some more tests and perhaps you could be the one saving all of us,” he concluded.

“Wait! Wait! How is it possible that I am just hearing about this now. Twitter is flooding with this ‘new discovery’,” he glared.

“We couldn’t reach you before Mr. Rowbotham!” Dr. Chadwick said calmly.

“Yeah, like 20 minutes ago. And I’ve been staying home since I got tested.” Dickie replied losing the timid tone. “It’s been spreading on Twitter faster than Anoroc ever could. Just tell me how this happened and I might consider coming there.”

Dr. Chadwick cleared his throat before answering. “Your test results came yesterday morning and we… yadda, yadda, yadda…” The doctor spoke some more. but all Dickie could make out from the long technical details were the words: “immune cells”, “antibodies” and “vaccine”. He finally came to Dickie’s initial question. “… and I told my wife about it. I didn’t know she had a whatsapp group of about 80 senior citizens. And the rest is that people have been sharing this story for the past ten hours or so. I am so sorry, but we had to make sure before we contacted you.”

“But, you tweeted as well.”

“I don’t have a Twitter account, Mr. Rowbotham,” he replied. “Please drop by today, as soon as possible.”

“Ok.” Dickie said before hanging up.

He ran his hand through his hair slowly as he could. God, how he missed these simplest actions. Fearing infection, he’d been refraining himself from touching his face or head for the past couple of months. Next, he binned the sanitizers in his house. He hated the smell, besides he didn’t need protection now. And the best of all, he didn’t have to isolate himself in a 2-bedroomed-house anymore. He wasn’t really a people person, but observing them from time to time while seated at a cafe, sipping his latte did make him feel a bit more joyous. Whistling to himself, he got dressed and got out without wearing the usual latex gloves. He walked all the way to the hospital.

It was way more crowded at the front door of the hospital. Media outlets, reporters, ordinary people who didn’t look sick swarmed the steps leading to the entrance. The security guards were not allowing anyone to pass. So, Dickie had to shout from the back to be able to get through:

“Hey! I am Dickie L. Rowbotham. Dr. Chadwick is expecting me!” The clamor instantly ended and every glare was pinned on him in no time.

People made way just enough for him to pass, but kept touching him; rubbing their hands all over him as he got closer to the security guards. Just before he reached the top step, one very attractive blonde held him by the collar, drew him towards her and gave him a firm, longish kiss, possibly with the intentions of healthy droplets transfer… A shortcut to immunity perhaps. A media reporter also made a move with her mike, but was blocked by one of the guards before he could take action. After presenting his ID, Dickie was taken to an empty waiting lounge. 5 minutes later, a couple of doctors showed up and introduced themselves. One was Dr. Chadwick, and the other one, the woman was Dr. Hill.

Dr. Hill was the one who spoke:

“Mr. Rowbotham, thank you for coming. We prepared a spacious room exclusive for you,” she smiled.

“A room?” Dickie echoed. “What for?”

“To start working on a cure right away, of course.” Dr. Chadwick said. “Your room has an en-suite bathroom and a marvelous view from its window.”

“No, I won’t be staying!” Dickie said raising his voice. “Just take my blood and let me go.”

“I’m afraid we can’t allow that.” Dr. Chadwick said as he signaled to a couple of orderlies in the distance. “You’re the cure and we’re doing this for the greater good.”

“Noooo!” Dickie shouted as the orderlies began dragging him to his isolated room.

“Don’t worry, the vaccine will be out and approved in less than a couple of years.” Dr. Hill smiled behind her mask. “The clock already started ticking!”

How the Collective Unconscious can Eradicate a Pandemic

With the Corona Virus pandemic starting to manipulate our old way of living in terms of social distancing, most of us have confined ourselves in our homes and we have become more dreamers than ever; day-dreaming when the sun is up and plain old dreaming when darkness sets in after we finally get to sleep.

Without being fully aware, we have been dreaming for centuries for various reasons, such as self-healing, entertainment, inspiration and most importantly problem-solving as our minds keep working on a problem in the background while we’re shutting off from the material world.

Here’s a true story about how the needle in a sewing machine was invented after a dream showed Elias Howe, the inventor, how placing a hole on the tip of the needle could solve his automated stitching problem that made the machine useless as the thread incapacitated the needle by winding around it after a short while. In Elias Howe’s dream, he was being surrounded by a tribe of fierce cannibals, poking him with the tips of their spears and… weirdly enough, all the spear tips had small holes in them!

The power of dreams in problem-solving and creativity can be seen in other cases as well, like Mendeleev’s precise categorization of periodic elements, or Einstein’s theory of relativity, which were all inspired by dreams.

So, personal problems can be tackled by each relevant person in their dreams, but how about global problems such as famine, global warming, deforestation, traffic, deadly pandemics?

Do we encounter them in our “personal” dreams?

I believe the answer is “yes”, it’s just that our individual minds are too weak to solve any of the above… unless we work together. It’s a fact that collaboration is most effective in problem solving regardless of being in a dream or not.

The idea of “unconscious collaboration” was first noted by me after watching a Japanese anime series (I remember it as “Stein’s Gate”, but might be mistaken), where a man was telling a friend’s child to do her homework just before going to bed if she wanted to do it more easily. With most of the kids having already done their homework, he said she would be able to tap into the collective unconscious and spend less time and effort to finish it.

And yesterday, I had a weird dream that got me thinking about the coronavirus, the collective unconscious, dream problem-solving, supercomputers and the true potential of our brains! and perhaps aliens!

Here’s my theory!

Think of our brains as individual super-computers…

And the collective unconscious as a network database…

Dreams as a hub to connect into the network…

The Corona Virus as the problem in hand…

Every seemingly unimportant detail logged into the database…

Some discarded… some marked as “important”

Until a solution presents itself to an able-minded individual…

This “stream of unconsciousness” kept me thinking how our minds are like supercomputers when we are dreaming. Think about it;

* The human mind works like a computer’s RAM, tackling a problem in dreams until we wake up and have no memory of the dream… just like how RAM is wiped clean after a computer shutdown!

* RAM is computer memory, while REM is our dream memory! See, how similar they are in terms of “lexicality”. (I’m definitely overthinking here :))

* SETI has been using computers all around the world on a voluntary basis, in aid to seek extraterrestrial life with focus on “the more the better”!

* Whether it’s the Corona Virus or a computer virus, viruses are bad and they infect.

* And all computers have users…

Dream on!

A New Perspective on Corona virus, the weather and Social Distancing

It wasn’t before bodies started dropping at an increased rate, people all around the world finally realized how serious the Corona virus pandemic was. We tend not to take things seriously unless it hits directly home. And when it does, we feel we have been sucker-punched for reasons unknown.

Catastrophes on this scale tend to teach humanity some invaluable lessons. Japan has become the birthplace of master architects, designing earthquake-proof, durable buildings that bend before break, due to the devastating effects of suffering from years of earth-shaking experience over the centuries. Fierce fires have helped us invent fire extinguishers, foam and strategies to contain them before spreading wildly. Floods likewise. What has the Corona virus taught us, then? Well, it taught a whole generation the importance of personal hygiene and how to wash hands!

Sadly, it has also shown us (those who can see) that our education systems fail big time. With extensive spoon-feeding over decades, young minds (but not limited to) never get the chance to develop creative thinking skills, questioning skills or basic reasoning. Here’s a tiny example of what millions of people shared on their social media, spreading false info without bothering to take a minute to think:

“Corona virus threat will be over by summer as it cannot survive over 28 degrees Celsius (82.4 Fahrenheit).”

Sounds reasonable, right? As we’ve been taught to assume viruses don’t like it hot!

But… the average body temperature of a person is around 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit)! Which means it should die out as soon as it makes it’s way into our bodies.

Or…

The fact that Southern hemisphere countries are going through summer while northerners experience winter. As you can see, basic geographical knowledge does not help unless it’s paired with some kind of reasoning.

I am not even going to mention toilet paper hoarders that stockpile to last them decades, the self-quarantine gatherings with 15 or more friends coming from all over the city or some people having the habit of licking their fingertips when they count money, turn pages of a book etc… we seem like we understand… or that we care… but actually, we are all wearing masks, and none of them are for the right reasons.

Let’s focus on the weather a bit more:

The infection rate in warmer countries are skyrocketing (see Italy, Spain, France and Turkey) while cooler countries are more consistent with the infection rate. There are several reasons for this distinction:

People born in warmer countries have always:

Spent a huge proportion of their times outdoors due to the nice weather all year round.
Had more outdoor hobbies like swimming etc..
Showed their love of people by firm hugs, touches and kisses… (personal space does not exist in some warmer cultures)…
Enjoyed large group gatherings…
Taken life less seriously…

Now that they have to socially distance themselves from what they had been doing all their lives, they are having difficulty of changing their habits… so, they tend to sneak out and have a day off of their briefest cabin fever experience.

Social distancing can be great for a while (both for us and the world itself) if we stop whining.

We tend to present ourselves to others as what we are not, we lie, hide the truth, get jealous of people without showing them or share useless small talk. Perhaps, it’s time to turn to our inner selves and take a break, focusing on our true needs. This is an opportunity to improve ourselves, which we really didn’t have time before because of extensive socializing.

On the other side of the coin, the pollution over Wuhan, China has dispersed since people stopped going out… the fish in the canals of Venice, Italy have resurfaced again (this needs confirmation)… The world’s taking a break from us. Perhaps, we are the disease and the Earth is just trying to recover.

Barış Cansevgisi

Author

Tag: pandemic

Chronodemic

How the Collective Unconscious can Eradicate a Pandemic

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