Guest: Hande Kavgacı
Title of The Work: Ritual
Original Title: Ritüel
Genre: Story
First thing every morning you look at the window to see if they have arrived. When you see them waiting for you, you take a deep “Oh” and immediately start taking roll call. Variegated pigeons at the front, hazel-eyed doves on the ledge on the side of the balcony and a black crow on the lamppost just behind them. Everyone is exactly where they should be for the 8.00 am meeting.
You start with the first greetings. Then you carefully scatter four handfuls of barley on the window sill. One, two, three and four. A little beyond the barley, you place two cubes of feta cheese cut into cubes. Behind this scene that you set up every morning with the meticulousness of a painter, you shine a little brighter, a little younger, despite the city that is getting paler and paler behind you, and you are right, every life story deserves to be taken care of.
The pigeons land on your window first. I heard you talking about them to a friend of yours, “They are domesticated, so they are not afraid of people.” You said about them. You attributed the reason why pigeons are kept in big courtyards to this situation. Because this rule was also valid in front of your window. Unlike pigeons, doves were timid because they approached you only after they were very sure. They looked around with every bite and flew away as soon as they felt a little uneasy. Purrrr… I know you’re afraid they’ll starve and you always ask me to hold them before they take wing. The crow is the most dashing one for you. It usually spreads its black wings wide and soars to the sill, grabs the cheese and lands on the branch of a nearby tree. Moreover, you like the fact that it watches you from afar every day.
Apart from everything else, sparrows warm you up because whenever you try to feed them, a childish smile settles on your face. At that time, your dimple becomes deeper. You know when they softly approach the window and look inside… You feel happy in your heart, “They are watching me to see if I am in a good mood at home”. That’s when you feel that you belong. It is as if there is a wordless communication between you and the sparrows. You stand and watch for half an hour. You are inside the window, they are on the street. The noise in the city suddenly stops. Even on overcast days, the clouds seem to disperse. The trees suddenly turn green. The earth swells. While people are running left and right, you experience that divine motion with them. Then you start humming your morning prayer. You wish that all sorrows will seep underground through a crack and stay there forever, and that you will lead a happy life on earth.
You tell your fortune to yourself with the cars passing on the road in the distance and you start to think aloud while playing this game because you always want to have a breath of fresh air with you. If a red car passes by, you say, “Someone will visit me today.” Then you start to watch the path of that red car until it passes. If the car passes by, this time you keep an ear to the ground in case someone knocks on your door at any moment. Actually, your mind is always on your daughter. You don’t know if that red car is passing by so that you can see your daughter, or if your daughter is on your mind because cars are passing by.
On the other hand, you put your dinner on the stove early. This way, you take your mind off cooking for the rest of the day. As you chop the onions and tomatoes, you think of your childhood. It’s always been like this since you were a young girl, you know it well. As you always do, you take me right above your heart and say, “My heart aches.” Some days it’s your mum, some days it’s your dad, some days it’s ….
Most of all, you love the phrase “No matter what happens, one should hold on to life”. “We have come, we are going…” you add at the end. You don’t like to take the world too seriously. According to you, the more mankind falls on it, the more spoilt the world becomes. Just to spite life for this reason, you apply your cream and choose stylish clothes for yourself every morning regardless of your age.
You turn down the stove. You walk to your room to take your medication through a narrow corridor. That photo you pinned on the edge of the mirror catches your eye. You know, the photo we took one day when you were in a great mood and your wife was smoking a cigarette. You put a little kiss on your index finger and hold it over the picture. You tell her, “I love you very much today too” and start your day.
I can’t thank you enough. This story that you started with the flap of a bird’s wing has been going on for eighty years with the infinite love in your heart.
