A Drop Of Time

A DROP OF TIME

Chapter 1 — The Day Time Cracked

“When does a person truly die? When their heart stops beating, or when the last person who remembers them finally forgets?”

A. A Happy Family

April 19, 2042

Some memories belong not to the day they were made, but to the day, years later, when they quietly return.

I did not know that during the years I worked with him.

I believed science could provide all the answers. Experiments, numbers, results… One day, when I looked back, I would come to understand that the real answer had never been inside any laboratory.

February 17, 2025…

The calendar said it was winter, but the sun paid no attention.

The soft morning light had spread gently across the park, drawing outside the people who had spent weeks confined indoors. Children’s voices mingled with birdsong carried by the wind, while people walking slowly along the paths tried to shake off the weariness of the long winter. The scent of freshly cut grass mingled with the dampness of the earth, and a light breeze blowing toward the pond whispered that spring was approaching.

Aras parked the car near the entrance.

The engine had barely fallen silent when Elif unfastened her seat belt and opened the door. She had heard her father’s warning—“Don’t go too far”—but, as always, she merely raised a hand in acknowledgment and ran off.

Derya smiled.

For a seven-year-old, a park was not a place to walk through. It was an enormous world waiting to be explored.

The family set off along the path at an unhurried pace.

Elif sometimes ran ahead, sometimes turned back to show them an interesting stone or leaf, then darted away again. Adults measured time in hours. Children measured it by the things that caught their curiosity.

After a while, Derya called out to her daughter.

“Elif… Slow down a little.”

The little girl stopped after a few more steps.

“Why?”

Derya approached her and crouched down. She brushed Elif’s tousled hair behind her ear.

“Because sometimes you need to stop.”

“But I’m not tired.”

“It’s not because you’re tired.”

Derya smiled.

“Stopping doesn’t mean giving up. It means understanding where you’re going.”

Elif studied her mother’s face for a few seconds. She did not fully understand what her mother meant, but she sensed that Derya had said it because it was something important.

She shrugged.

“I’m going to keep running anyway.”

“I know.”

Elif started running again.

This time, she was a little slower.

Aras watched them silently.

One of the things he loved most about Derya was the way she could turn words into poetry, despite being so devoted to science.

It never failed to make him fall in love with her all over again.

A little later, Elif returned to them.

Her cheeks were flushed from running, and she was breathing faster than before.

She took her mother’s hand.

“Mom…”

“Yes?”

“What will I be when I grow up?”

Derya smiled.

“Whatever you want.”

Elif’s eyes lit up.

“Really?”

“Really.”

There was a brief silence.

Derya took her daughter’s hands between her own.

“There’s just one thing you must never forget.”

Elif looked at her attentively.

“Whatever you do…”

She paused for a moment.

“…touch people’s lives.”

Derya had repeated those words to herself countless times, but this was the first time she had spoken them aloud to someone else—her own daughter, of all people.

Elif did not fully understand the sentence.

But she would remember the expression on her mother’s face for a long time.

The very next second, she was running off again.

Because childhood was less about talking about the future and more about chasing the moment you were living in.

As the path curved toward the pond, Derya’s steps began to slow.

She felt a slight ache on the left side of her chest. It lasted only a few seconds.

Small enough to pass.

Not small enough to ignore.

Still, a faint uneasiness stirred inside her, something she could not yet put a name to.

Aras noticed immediately.

“Are you all right?”

Derya nodded.

They took a few more steps.

The pain came a second time.

Aras stopped walking.

“Shall we sit down for a while?”

Derya looked toward the pond.

Sunlight shimmered across the water. People continued walking, and children kept running.

A peaceful smile appeared on her face.

“Time doesn’t stop just because we do.”

Aras did not answer.

He simply rested a hand gently on his wife’s shoulder.

Together, they sat on an empty bench overlooking the pond.

Elif had already found herself a new game.

She was crouching by the water’s edge, carefully choosing stones of different shapes and sizes.

She threw the first stone into the water. It sank straight to the bottom, and the ripples spread slowly outward before disappearing.

She threw a second stone, then a third, watching each new set of ripples as carefully as if she were seeing them for the first time.

Aras took his phone from his pocket.

He loved the ordinariness of the moment.

Perhaps that was precisely why he did not want it to disappear.

“Come on…” he said with a smile.

“Let’s make this moment immortal.”

At first, Elif did not want to come.

The stones beside the pond were more important than having her picture taken.

After her parents called her several times, she reluctantly came over.

The three of them moved closer together, with the pond behind them.

Aras held out the phone.

In the front-facing camera, Derya’s warm smile, Aras’s peaceful gaze, and Elif’s faintly sulky expression all fitted into the same frame.

The shutter clicked.

As soon as the picture was taken, Elif ran back to the pond.

She picked up one stone, then another, then another…

As Derya watched her daughter, she tilted her head slightly.

Just then, the sound of the pond seemed to recede. The children’s laughter sounded as though it were coming from far away, and for a few seconds, the world blurred. She pressed her palms against the edge of the bench.

This time, Aras said nothing. He simply placed his hand gently over hers.

Derya took a deep breath.

“It came… and it’s gone.”

But somewhere in a corner of her mind, a small part of her did not entirely believe those words.

The pond was quiet again.

Elif was still throwing stones.

The sunlight continued to shimmer on the water, and the park carried on with its ordinary rhythm.

As the day turned to evening, the park gradually emptied.

When the sun began to withdraw between the trees, the park slowly grew quieter.

The crowds that had filled the grass in the afternoon had thinned, and the children’s voices gave way to the birds’ evening bustle. The light on the surface of the pond faded with each passing minute, and the breeze began to grow cooler.

Elif’s steps were no longer as quick as they had been that morning.

She was tired from running.

Derya bent down and lifted her into her arms. Elif rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. One hand still clutched the little stone in her pocket.

Aras watched them from a few steps behind.

He did not try to hide the smile that had appeared on his face without his realizing it.

Some moments were meant simply to be lived.

The three of them walked slowly toward the park exit.

They stopped at a small grocery store on the way home.

Elif insisted on pushing the shopping cart. It was almost as big as she was. She steered it through the aisles, wobbling from side to side, while Derya watched her from behind with a smile.

Aras headed toward the bread aisle.

As Derya selected vegetables, Elif quietly slipped a bottle of chocolate milk into the cart.

When they reached the checkout, Aras noticed it.

Elif looked at her father as though she had been caught red-handed.

Without saying a word, Aras put the milk back into the cart.

“Let’s make a deal just for today.”

Elif’s face lit up.

By the time they left the store, the air had grown noticeably colder.

Elif tried to carry one of the shopping bags with both hands, stubbornly refusing to let go despite its weight.

Aras offered to help.

“I can carry it.”

“So can I.”

They both smiled at the little girl’s determination.

Soon after they arrived home, the smell of food began to rise from the kitchen.

Aras set the table while Derya worked quietly at the stove.

Elif had carried her toys into the living room and lined them up, lost in a world of her own making.

There were no grand conversations over dinner.

Elif talked about the ducks she had seen in the park.

She wondered why the stones she threw had not skipped across the water.

Aras laughed and promised to teach her how to skip stones one day.

Derya listened to them, occasionally joining the conversation with a smile.

The house was filled with that familiar warmth that settles deep inside you.

After dinner, Elif went to take a bath.

The warm water had made her eyelids heavy.

Derya tucked her daughter into bed, straightened her blanket, and placed a small kiss on her forehead.

“Good night.”

Elif smiled sleepily.

“Can we go to the park again tomorrow?”

Derya stroked her hair.

“Maybe.”

That answer was enough for Elif.

She closed her eyes.

A few minutes later, the only sound coming from the room was her steady breathing.

Derya turned off the lamp and quietly pulled the door almost shut.

When she stepped into the hallway, Aras was still standing beside the door.

They smiled at each other without meaning to.

Houses where children slept had a silence of their own.

A silence that did not disturb…

A silence that brought peace…

Derya went into the kitchen.

She prepared two cups of tea.

Aras stood by the window, watching night slowly descend over the city.

The windows of the apartment buildings opposite lit up one by one, each home retreating into its own evening.

Derya handed him one of the cups.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

Silence was nothing unfamiliar to them.

People who had shared years in the same home sometimes had their finest conversations without saying a word.

Derya took a small sip of tea.

“Going to the park was good for us.”

Aras nodded.

“It was.”

At that moment, the sound of a phone broke the quiet of the house.

They both looked at the phone on the table at the same time.

A single word appeared on the screen.

Laboratory.

Aras picked up the phone.

After a brief conversation, he said only one sentence.

“All right… I’m coming.”

He ended the call.

Derya asked nothing. She simply looked into his eyes.

Aras took his jacket from the hanger.

“I have to go.”

Derya nodded slightly.

“Don’t be too late.”

Aras smiled.

“I’ll do my best.”

He opened the door.

The cool night air slipped into the house for a moment.

The door closed softly.

B. NCP — Neural Continuity Program

Aras descended the stairs at an unhurried pace and passed through the door leading to the garage beneath the house. As the garage door slowly opened, the chill of the February night seeped inside. Just before getting into his car, he raised his head and looked at his home for a moment. Warm light filtering through the living-room curtains was still visible in the darkness of the garden.

The engine started.

The headlights cast a thin strip of light across the wet asphalt.

A few minutes later, the city settled into the distinctive, quiet rhythm of the night.

In the laboratory Aras entered that night, there was another witness—one of whom he was not yet aware.

I was on duty in the laboratory that night.

It was my third week of graduate studies. Because I was a successful student, I had earned the opportunity to intern at the Neuroscience Research Center. I had known Professor Aras’s name even before I arrived at the laboratory.

In the world of science, some people are known for the papers they publish.

Others are known for the people they mentor.

Professor Aras was one of the rare people who had managed to do both.

The laboratory looked entirely different at night.

The lights of the machines operating behind the glass walls spilled into the corridor, while the hum of computer fans filled the room like an endless background melody. Thousands of data points streamed across the large screens every second, each new line showing that the experiment was continuing in silence.

The cold white light reflected off the leather chairs, gently stretching the shadows along the walls.

That night, the silence was broken by a brief alarm.

One of the imaging systems connected to the main server had stopped transmitting data.

Within minutes, the technicians had gathered in front of the screens.

“The connection is down.”

“No… The data is coming in, but the system isn’t reading it.”

“Packet loss is increasing.”

No one was panicking.

But everyone knew it mattered.

Just then, the laboratory’s automatic door opened.

Aras walked in.

No one turned to look.

Everyone had recognized his arrival from the sound of his footsteps.

He took off his coat and put on his white lab coat.

Without even glancing at the reports left on the desk, he went straight to the main console.

For a while, he said nothing.

As the graphs flowed before his eyes, the rhythmic sounds of the equipment were the only things audible in the room.

Finally, he spoke in a calm voice.

“Don’t stop the recording.”

The young technician hesitated.

“But, Professor…”

Aras did not take his eyes off the screen.

“The problem isn’t with the system.”

He took the mouse, moved between several windows, and enlarged the third data channel.

“The reference synchronization has shifted.”

The technician checked the settings in surprise.

A few seconds later, he looked up.

“You’re right.”

As soon as the new calibration was complete, the graph that had appeared frozen began moving again.

A deep breath passed through the laboratory.

It was as though everyone had released the weight on their shoulders at the same time.

Aras, however, did not celebrate.

For him, every problem solved was the beginning of the next question.

He opened one of the files beside the console.

There was a single title on the cover.

NCP — Neural Continuity Program

The name was often heard around the university.

Very few people, however, knew the details of the program.

The first time I heard about it, the program seemed to revolve around a question that sounded both very simple and impossibly vast.

Its aim was to understand how the human brain processed information, how memories were formed, and how billions of neurons influenced one another within a continuous, intricate system.

When a thought emerged, which regions of the brain became active, and in what sequence?

How could a memory be preserved for years?

How did a person maintain the continuity that allowed them to remain the same person?

The NCP was pursuing these questions.

That night, I had not fully understood what it meant.

The only thing I understood was that the silent stream of data on those screens was, in fact, searching for whatever made a person that particular person.

Research centers in different countries around the world were working on the same program, pooling the data they collected in a shared repository.

Professor Aras and Professor Derya were responsible for coordinating the Turkish division.

That was why a phone ringing in the laboratory in the middle of the night seemed perfectly normal to everyone.

Sometimes, weeks of waiting were required before a single experiment could be repeated.

Losing a few minutes of data could set months of work back.

Aras opened his notebook, looked at the graph one last time, and wrote a few brief lines. Then he raised his head.

“We’re restarting the third series.”

Everyone in the laboratory quietly returned to their stations.

No one needed to wait for instructions.

Everyone knew what to do.

For the first time, I was watching what real science looked like.

Science was not made up of grand speeches, as it was in the movies.

Most of the time, it was silence.

It was patience.

It was asking the same question again and again until you found the right answer.

When I left the laboratory that night, I thought I had witnessed nothing more than a minor glitch in an important research program.