Tag: time travel

The Time Trotter

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Family is important… but how you perceive family members and how they affect you is vital…  

Chronodemic

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

8 Ways of time travel without a decent time machine…

8 Ways of time travel without a decent time machine…

 

Everyone who knows me knows how I am obsessed with time travel… and those who don’t – will acknowledge it… in time. By reading this little blog post, you will have the secret of time travel without a decent time machine or no machine at all. Proceed with extreme caution as secrets or time itself are not things to meddle with.

Here are the methods:

If you possess an unstable working prototype of a time machine:

  1. Wear appropriate clothes for your desired destination in time, pee until your bladder dries out, step into the machine, sit, set the desired time and pull the lever or hold and press the small red button by the far end of the console. That’s it!
  2. Same steps as described above… you just pee first, then dress up!

If you DO NOT have a time machine:

   1. The Musical Method: If you wish to go to the past, select a year and google the top 100 in that year’s billboards. Close your eyes and play each song starting from the bottom to the top of the list. Hum along if you know the songs! If your intention is to travel into the near future, the same method can help! Just gather up all the cutlery in the house, click on your phone’s voice recorder, and start dropping them one by one onto the kitchen floor. When each piece lands, say what you’ve just seen like “A fork fell down” or “I dropped a knife” in an untrained, monotonous tone (These are essential as they will make up the lyrics). When all the cutlery has been dropped, stop the recorder, plug earphones into your phone, close your eyes, start playing the audio and enjoy!

wine-glass-and-red-flowers-fall-on-the-floor-fragments

Too bad music isn’t in its golden years anymore and it’s getting worse. Just compare 60’s, 70’s or even 80’s, 90’s music to the hit songs in our present.

2. The Photo Effect: Just open your photo album (printed photos work best) and inspect each photo in full detail. Think about how old you were, where you were and who you were with. Then, focus on the tiny details in the background, are the surroundings the same? or have they changed? As you go down the memory lane, you will realize that you made a slight jump to the past. If you do not have a photo album, or want to time travel to places you’ve never been, enter a desired year into your favorite search engine’s search box, click on “images” and there… you have millions of photos to start with. If you wish to time travel into the future, enter the word “mugshots” into a search engine’s search box and enjoy (They look like selfies, don’t they?)

Now, 9 out of every 10 photos seem to be selfies and most of them do not even include faces as wholes. Mostly, they are close-ups of an eye here and a mouth there!

 3. The Photoshop Dilemma: A very similar method to the one above, but this one requires some photo-shopping skills. Travelling to the past? Find a suitable photo of yourself or have a friend take it on the spot and google for a historical background. Once you find it, just merge the two pictures and presto! You are in a trench in World War II. Going to the future? Find a CGI background using the above method and there you are, picking up alien flowers on Mars!

How-to-change-background-in-photoshop-tutorial-7

 4.  Conundrum of Objects: Find a flea market in your town. Go there preferably on foot. Once you are there, explore each stall in detail, pick up objects, feel their energy. Each object has its own “itstory” (We can’t call it “history”, can we?). Take a deep breath, sniff the air of antiquity. Buy something like an old cassette even if you don’t own a player for it. At least you are in contact with something out of your time. For the future, use your search engine skills to find weird and futuristic object photos. Use a 3D printer, to solidify them.

futuristic-design-d-design

5. Dream: One of the best ways to travel back or forward in time! Throughout the day, just think about a time and a place and focus on it in your coffee breaks. Your subconscious will get the message. When it’s bedtime, close your eyes and start focusing on what you’ve been focusing on all day. Sleep! When you wake up, you’ll find yourself with pleasant memories (if you can remember your dreams), check the time and discover that you’ve jumped at least a couple of hours forward in time. In some cases, you’ll have -what is seems like- hours of dreaming, but it has only been half-an hour at most. Try lucid dreaming for the best experience…

6. Read: Fortunately, books are abundant nowadays. (Even I, have some free books on the market). If you are a history enthusiast, find a historical novel and get to reading. If you are a sci-fi fan like me, choose an appropriate novel and start reading. In both cases, you’ll be mesmerized into the setting if the book is any good. Relate yourself to any character in the book to maximize the fun!

7. Write: Just like reading, but with a huge advantage! By writing, you create time itself in your stories. You can even find true love in the past or the future, which you have been searching for so long in the present.

8. Watch: Too lazy to read or write? Then, start going through your movie collection. Although stripped off the best parts, most good books are made into films. And strangely enough, this method requires peeing first (as you don’t want an interruption like a bathroom break in the middle of the film), sitting and pressing a button. Anyway, a surround system is a huge plus.

Why I am obsessed with time travel… and why you should be, too

IMG-20160521-WA0010-2

Being an avid reader/writer of cool science fiction stories, admiring traveling and having very little money most of the time could very well be used to describe some of my traits. I know I sound like a broke geek with the above description but I assure you I have a lot of other non-geeky qualities and likes, such as;….errr…..hmmm…..well….fantasizing about historical events.

Ok, now you can see how  my traits and time traveling meet up at a common point. Here’s why I can’t seem to keep myself away from thinking or writing about it:

  • I’ve always been a time-traveller, right from my birth to my current age. Although, I’ve only managed to travel forward in time in this period, it’s still a thing I’ve been doing so well for so long. And guess what? You’re just like me! (unless you are Benjamin Button)
  • There are endless possibilities in time travel and a whole, massive history of interesting times and events you can visit. You can run along dinosaurs, be on the Titanic when it sank, witness your grandpa hitting on your grannie or simply watch a good football match that you’ve missed,…live….
  • Paradoxes! Who doesn’t love a good time-travel paradox? Imagine, what would happen if you went back in time and shot Hitler before he rose into power? Hmmm…since you changed history by killing him, he wouldn’t have risen to power and we wouldn’t have heard about him in our time in the first place so that you couldn’t have gone back in time to kill him….Nice, right? What if you accidentally killed one of your ancestors? It’s good thought practice. Isn’t it?
  • You can read or write without paying attention to grammar as the statement “I’ll see you yesterday” would still be technically correct.
  • Believe me, there is always a good story in time travel. and tragedy. and mystery. and humor. and… every kind of emotion that you want to experience.
  • The best thing is that when you (read or write about) time travel, you won’t be spending a single penny. It’s indeed the cheapest way of vagabonding.

Can’t time-travel? Then, live your life to the fullest, make excellent memories, make love, take selfies (not necessarily in that order) and revisit your memories, thinking about all when you get older.