Guest: Doğukan Doğan
Title of The Work: Breakups Pregnant with Beginnings
Original Title: Başlangıçlara Gebe Ayrılıklar
Genre: Story
“Every separation leads to a new beginning and every beginning leads to a new separation.
No matter how much we don’t want it, unavoidable reasons will lead to an unwanted sadness,
And sad speeches to teary eyes.
You’ll say it was the wrong time, the wrong person.
Yet it won’t be the answer your poor haughty heart wants…
You are still big in my small eyes and I am still a small silhouette in your big heart.
I hope one day to shrink in your words and grow in your eyes…”
He was writing these lines on a corner of the paper, the tip of which was yellowed due to spilled tea. A simple kite was drawn under the lines smelling of tea, its tail separated from its body. Across from it, a scribbled acoustic guitar was played, its strings aching to be reunited with the neck. He was not used to drawing and scribbling next to his writing, trying to make his poems friends with pictures. A momentary smile settled on his face and he actually liked it. He even seriously thought about it for a while. He wondered if he should devote himself only to painting.
Then a longer smile settled on his face, but unlike the other one, this one was sarcastic. This mocking smile could have turned into a mad laugh until he was shouldered against the door. He wanted to look through the peephole, but frankly he wasn’t curious about who was on the doorstep. It had been about 8 years since he had left Curiosity and separated from her. He was going to be a philosopher, when everyone else wanted to be a doctor, a teacher or a policeman. In fact, if you had asked him what the word philosopher meant, he wouldn’t have even known what it was back then. You wouldn’t be surprised if he said “elephant keeper”. Mr. Hasan, the Turkish teacher at school, told him this word that would be engraved in his mind. In one lesson, he asked so many questions that his teacher couldn’t take it anymore and gave him the nickname “philosopher” and said, “You will definitely be a philosopher when you grow up, that’s a lot of questions for this body, maşallah maşallah! From that day on, he asked more and more questions and wondered more and more to become something he didn’t even know the meaning of his name until the day when the calendar leaf that was about to be torn showed that day. She remembered everything like the hot smoke of the black coffee she drank yesterday. Out of curiosity, she wanted to know how her mother wore makeup… Out of curiosity, she wanted to follow her mother and know where she was going… Out of curiosity, she wanted to look inside the house in the old apartment that her mother had entered, and out of curiosity, she wanted to see the face of the man holding her mother’s hand with the feeling that he could be her father… She wanted it all from Curiosity, and by following her, she got what she wanted. Thanks to Curiosity, he also learned that he could not fly without his mother’s wings and tail to guide him through the air. Wondering what a blushing mother would do when she ran out onto the balcony and running after her was one of the most pathetic experiences for a philosopher. From that day on, Curiosity would remain his closest friend, now a bitter friend of the past, and he would never mention Curiosity’s name again, even out of curiosity. Even if he went into long depressions of not remembering afterwards.
After all, hadn’t Merak turned his love for his father into the opposite lane and crushed him under the feeling of hatred? When he picked up the separation letter he left to his mother with curiosity and excitement, thinking it was a blank piece of paper to write on. The paper he thought was blank was written, but what was written on it was as meaningless and meaningless as blank paper. “I am going to another land, to leave you. And you forget me for the rest of your life, in the hope that you will never remember me again.” The lines were written in that letter, even though it was not like the letters he knew. “A letter is a moral code. At least you could have written Dear Wife at the beginning, dad!” he thought to himself and again found himself in a shower of sarcastic yet angry smiles. This shower of smiles was destroyed by a single sentence his mother said to him after a poem he had once written, “Son, you look so much like your father, but I wish your face did instead of your heart or your words.” Although he asked the classic question “Why?”, he could not get the necessary answer from his mother at the time, and he found this answer himself with this letter. Of course, the great contribution of his only friend Merak in this meeting is indisputable. It was then that he realized that friends are bitter, without even asking the question why. After that day, he never made anyone his friend except one person, Nebi.
In fact, it was as if Nebi was Nebi’s friend, not his. Because he was always bitter towards Nebi, always picking on him. Nebi, on the other hand, would not be offended and would never say anything bitter to him in return. Nebi was good and nice, but there was one thing he didn’t like about him. Nebi used to wonder about him. So he came again, taking Curiosity with him, and when she didn’t open the door, he tried to shoulder it and break it down. The door opened with a small click, but that small sound was enough to create an earthquake effect on Nebi. As soon as he saw him, Nebi screamed, “Open the door, or I will break it down. I’m telling you, are you home?” and even attempted to shoulder the door, but he suddenly fell silent, and from that moment on, two tears flowing from his eyes spoke for him. Nebi had not heard from his friend for about 2 weeks and the only time he was separated from him was during the night. At one point, he even couldn’t stand him and asked him to sleep with him tonight. Nebi wouldn’t have even realized what he had said if a laugh hadn’t made the street groan. Then the penny dropped and she blushed. “I meant, come and watch a movie tonight and then stay at my place. You understood, but you took it to mean something else to make fun of me, didn’t you?” Nebi was a naive child and she loved him with that naivety. After his mother’s death, he and his father lived in a big house. He was Nebi’s only friend. There was also Merak, a teenager. But right now Nebi was angry, more angry than he had ever been, more angry than he had ever seen him. In fact, he had never seen or remembered being angry.
“Eylül called me, she said you weren’t answering your phone calls and you weren’t giving any news about your health. She was worried about you.”
“Don’t, don’t, don’t ever use that word again, don’t!
Nebi falls silent again. Again the silence of centuries begins. After about five centuries, Nebi, taking the example of an erupting volcano, erupts. “Why don’t you speak. She is miserable over there, I am a mess here. Everyone is worried.”
He realizes he used the wrong word by mistake, but this time he doesn’t stop talking…
“What’s the matter with you, what do you want then?”
“I just want you to leave…”
two words come out of his mouth. These words are enough to bring brothers and sisters to Nebi’s two tears and he rushes to the door. About ten minutes ago, he opened the door with the same fierceness that he had tried to break with his shoulder and prepared to leave.
“Do you remember the first kite we made, I didn’t know that a kite had a tail, I thought it was an ornament. That’s why I made it so flamboyant so that I could have the most beautiful and fancy kite in the neighborhood. Then, out of curiosity, I asked myself, ‘People’s kites are not fancy at all, their kites fly so beautifully. Mine doesn’t even take off. I wonder why?” Then it was as if a divine voice came from the sky. “That tail will be attached to the back of the body, not on top of it.” The first word I lifted my face and shared with you was “Why?” and I introduced you to the endless why-derived questions in a hurry. And you put up with me well, you were the first and only person after my mother who put up with my questions and answered them on top of that. Do you know, I’m realizing this now. Wow… I wish I had met you earlier, then we could have made a tail for my mother. The tail would give her direction, maybe make her go up instead of down, huh… Well, isn’t it interesting that I met September in September? Don’t start with that fate crap again. Didn’t you show it to me? You said, “Look, this is just your pen”. Yes, I knew it at first sight. If I was going to write a poem called love, I had to write it with this pen. Oh really, how much I chased after you. Only you knew all my secrets. While everyone else was in a coma of euphoria, I was in a coma of poetry. I was writing non-stop, but my poems were without pictures at the time. ‘Leave it, son, it’s a waste of your time. Look at your school. You will have more time in the future, you will think about these things then. You are still young. It’s a pity for your eyes and your heart.” My mother had said and her words had increased a lot with similar reactions at that time. But I never left my loved one, on the contrary, I clung to him with all my hands. In fact, every love was a tool for me to reach my beloved. Maybe it was a mistake to think like that and my mother was right more than ever. I don’t know… The only thing I know is that every separation is pregnant with a new beginning. I am waiting for my child to be born. Maybe I’ll name it painting, maybe music. Don’t be afraid, I won’t do anything to myself. The last time I was this sad was when I parted from Merak, who introduced me to my beloved, and now I am sad because I am separated from that beloved forever, eliminating the possibility of reunion. You go now Nebi, I will come to sleep with you in a few days, if not today.
Nebi thought about what he had listened to on the way and wondered why he had broken up with Eylül, whom he called his beloved, when he loved her so much. But he was wrong. Eylül was just a tool. He was carrying the greatest pain because he was separated from his eternal love, Poetry, whom his father had given as a gift from birth and whom his mother had once told him to break it, throw it away, leave it, son.
