Colors of Time

By Baris Cansevgisi

Time travels for everyone but not everyone can travel through time. Having a rare, dormant gene and a synthesized drug enables selected few to time travel. Blue, a social outcast, soon discovers he’s among the lucky few...or is he? as he has to leap through time in his debut to stabilize the timeline, prevent the end of the world and save the woman of his dreams. Alas, succeeding in the first two thus saving the world means the loss of his love forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Baris Cansevgisi
• Release date: Mar 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311836717

Baris Cansevgisi

Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Baris Cansevgisi has been a time-traveler (travelling only forward) since 1977. He currently resides in Ankara, Turkey, where he works as a language instructor. “Colors of Time” is his first digitally published work.

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PROLOGUE

Do you believe in time travel? Have you ever wondered why people go back in time and rarely forward, in movies? Some might think that this is because the future is uncertain while the past had already taken its place in history and it’s also easier and more entertaining to rewrite the past than imagining the future, altering one tiny event in the past and changing the future. Actually, that’s true, but to what extent? You may have heard of the butterfly effect; when a tiny change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system would result in huge different outcomes in a later state. Just like a butterfly flapping its wings at a specific location and time, causing a hurricane thousands of miles away, perhaps a week later. Let me give you an example or rather something that really happened. Something that only a handful of people know the real reason behind a major event in history: World War I.

In 1914, a young Serbian nationalist assassinated the archduke of Austria-Hungary which led to the breaking out of one of the most destructive wars in history. Could it have been prevented in any way by going back in time? Perhaps by killing the young Serbian before he acted? It’s not as you think! In fact, there had already been an intervention by a time-travelling agent, who had to remain in the shadows at the time. You know, not to interfere directly. Did the agent want to start a war that claimed millions of lives? Was he evil in nature? Of course not, but he didn’t have a choice. If he hadn’t acted the way he did, the world population would have been reduced by 92% because of a pandemic, which would have commenced, had the archduke continued to live. It was believed at the time that Franz Ferdinand, the archduke had been trying to cultivate black roses and for that era, the appearance of a black rose meant war and destruction. Anyway, if the archduke hadn’t been killed, he would have been successful in growing a black rose, resulting in more than half of Europe covered in fields of black roses. You see, all those fields of black roses would have triggered a world-wide pandemic: A lethal disease spread by the pollens of the hellish flower. We only survived thanks to the actions of that time-travelling agent, who had to choose between the annihilation of the human race and sacrificing millions of lives through a world war. He did fine and prevented our total annihilation but he had made some mistakes as well and the details of those mistakes were written all over history. Those with some deduction skills can interpret history correctly and spot them: The agent had recruited seven Serbian nationals and convinced them to take out the archduke by giving them nationalistic pep talks. He also gave cyanide pills to each of the men to be consumed after their assassination attempts whether they succeeded or not. The initial plan seemed perfect. These seven, armed with bombs and pistols, would scatter along the road from the station in Sarajevo through Appel Quay, the main road which would be followed by archduke’s driver and attempt to assassinate the archduke on the way. If one failed, any of the others would have been able to finish him off. There were seven of them after all. The first two assassins were too scared to act, but the third one named Čabrinović hurled his bomb to the archduke’s car but failed miserably as it bounced off the folded back cover of the car, rolling under the next car before it went off. After his failed attempt, Čabrinović swallowed his cyanide pill and jumped into the Miljacka River, trying to ensure his demise. The cyanide pill just made him vomit and he was fished out of the shallow river by the police. He really hadn’t thought of the hot, dry summer to affect the water levels of the river to that extent. The water level had reached only up to cover his ankles. But, why hadn’t the pill worked. And it wasn’t only him who was unfortunate with the poison. On the return trip of the archduke, Gavrilo Princip, who had missed a chance before, succeeded in shooting both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, killing them both. He consumed the cyanide pill which made him throw up all over the place. Can you guess why the pills hadn’t worked as they should have? The answer is simple: They were expired! The agent had brought the pills from his timeline in the future and going back in time ruined them. There’s a lesson to be learned here: Taking medication or food with you and travelling through time will ruin them. So, don’t prepare yourself a cheese sandwich and leap through time.

I can almost hear you asking how I come to know all this stuff. Well, I was recruited myself to be a time-travelling agent last year or next year, depending on your place in the timeline or your perception of it. Before going on with my story,