[ WP ] After thousands of failed attempts to change history and save the world , the time-traveler gives up .

12th June, 1912. The day I was born. During the first thirty years of my life, I lived through 4 World Wars.'But wait,' I hear you exclaim,'there's only been two?'. You're right, there has, but not in my lifetime. 
 
 12th June 1942, the day I discovered my secret. The Fourth Great War was in full swing, and on my 30th birthday, I was trapped underneath the rubble of the building I was in when just another blitz hit. It knocked me out for a while, and I awoke to find myself trapped underneath steel beams and concrete rubble. Honestly, after only 3 years peace in the last thirty, I was surprised this place was even still standing until now. Even more that I was still alive. So there I was, 30 years old, and going to die in the dusty murkiness with people screaming all around me. I thought about how this had all happened, how it started. Wilhelm II and George V of Germany and England. It was those bastards. 
 
 And I was there. 
 
'Where?' I hear you ask again, with a piqued curiosity. 
 
 Well, Dear Reader, the time has come for the telling of my tale. You see, whilst I was trapped under that debris, I managed to find something inside myself, something that may or may not have always been there. I managed to figure out that I could picture things, events, very clearly regardless of my presence. They were like memories, only, not my own. As if I'd attended events that I was n't at. So, from the cold wastelands of what used to be the Netherlands, I found myself inside a banquet chamber in Buckhingham Palace. Only, this was n't a memory. I looked down, and I was there. That's right. I'd travelled back through time, and ended up in the midst of the conversation that started the War. 
 
 Throughout that room, there was commotion, servants running around, Lords and Ladies drinking and laughing and standing idly around chatting to each other, men pulling serving girls away towards to the sleeping quarters, and more than a few people passed out across benches and tables. All in all, a banquet in full swing. I have to say, the movies did not get it far wrong when depicting these types of things! 
 
 Focusing, I tried to figure out where I was. My eyes came to rest on the two hulking figures, dressed out and decked out in their very best jewels and finery; the two reigning Monarchs. This was a stare-down of epic proportions, neither willing to give ground. The atmosphere on even looking at them was tense. Both men went step for step with each other. Almost in tandem, they ate, drank, stared, laughed, shouted and sang. Both men trying to prove to the watching crowd that they were better than the other, almost jesters pandering to an audience. I suppose, in hindsight and now being fluent in both English and German, that the translators were doing nothing to lower the tension, they were awful and their intonations only served to rile the men up even more. And so, here you have the tale of how the First World War started; in that room, when both Kings had taken quite enough offence, a brawl broke out. Several senior diplomats, even more leading political figures got involved and lost their lives for it. Both Kings also lost their lives with an almost ironic tandem stabbing of each other; they'd matched each other step for step all night, and one last time, they managed to tear the others' life away from them synchronously. Quite the impressive feat, considering. 
 
 Now you may be thinking at this point,'World War I was n't started until 1914!' You would be correct, as current history has it. After watching those events, I imagined myself back at the start doing something to stop this tragedy of Greek levels occurring. As you can tell from the distinct lack of history about this subject, I did succeed, only after several attempts. Trying to break a fight up between two Monarchs with ego's the size of a continent is no easy feat. I thought I'd saved the world, and for a couple of years, I did. 
 
 So you'll remember this tale, but how about all the others? How many times have I saved the world from tearing itself apart? Too many. I've tried and failed so many more times than I've succeeded. Some situations were absolutely irreparable, no matter how many times I tried - and believe me, I tried to stop what you know as World War II from starting more than three hundred times. And try warning an entire Asian coastline full of tourists and locals that if they do n't move, they're likely to lose their lives from a Tsunami! Try talking Eisenhower, JFK, Johnson or Nixon out of Vietnam, I dare you! I had to swing Congress for that one, and that took 4 and a half Presidents. And believe me, if not for my involvement, there are so many tragedies that could have been so much worse, so much more global in nature. There are no Acts of God. There's acts of time travelling meddlers, like me, that seem like nothing but Divine Intervention could have caused. If there is a big guy up in the sky, he's going to be either _very_ pissed or _very_ thankful for my existence. 
 
 Now why am I telling you all my story now? None of you will believe me, of course, but it's because I'm old. I'm tired. I'm past my prime, and I do n't know how to carry on doing this. I wish I did. I wish I could push this power on to someone else, tell them how I did things, train them. But I ca n't, and even if I could, I'm not sure I want to. There's no thanks in this life. If something never happened, be assured you will not be thanked for making it not happen. But the mistakes keep rolling. Maybe you people in your God damned ignorance need a few years of disaster. Maybe you need to destroy your lives in every which way to realise that you will not be protected from yourselves unless you begin to protect yourselves. Maybe it's time I gave up and let you do what you will do with your world. You want an insane President as the Leader of your free world? You want to break countries out of established partnerships just because? You want to divide countries and continents, bomb each other, create orphans, widows, parents without children? Is that what this world wants? Because it's been 105 years since I was born and in all of those years, some of which I have lived countless numbers of times, this is how the world ends up with itself. 
 
 Good luck with your next few years. I only hope someone comes along like me and does the same things with the same motivation as me. Because if they do not, then your world as you know it is about to turn upside down, all starting with the next elections. This is my last contribution to your world. Save yourselves. I'm done with saving you.
