SES / VOICE

"Are you here?"

I ask this question to anyone who has been quiet lately. They can not understand where the sound
is coming from. I ask the same question without raising my voice. No one understands where the
sound is coming from and that’s when I have to make an explanation.
“I lost my body and I do not remember what it looked like” would think that people would be
afraid of a sound that is not clear from where it comes from, however it is not like that at all.
When they realize that I am a voice seeking their body, they ask me questions. “How old
he?", "What color was her hair?", “What clothes was he wearing when he disappeared?", “Where
did you last see him?"
That's when I swallow. I mean, if I had a body, I would swallow it. I do not remember where I
last saw him. I do not know what it looks like either. He had stopped looking in the mirror and
had destroyed all his photographs before leaving the house. I realize now that you made up your
mind to go a long time ago. He doesn't want us to find him. Not only that, he wants us to forget
her.
Think about where he might have gone, the things he loves to do, the places he wants to see, who
he talks to the most on the phone, the name of his best friend. Nothing comes to my mind. I
realize that I barely know him.
His family is worried about him. She clings to her shoes, her clothes, while her husband talks
about her. His eyes are waiting for his wife to come through the door at any moment. He does
not want to believe when they are abandoned because he did not take any belongings with him
and did not even write a farewell letter to them. 
While rummaging through the wardrobe, the children notice that their mother's favorite flowery
dress has disappeared. Shoes and clothes are then put aside. The closet door slams shut.
They can not understand why you didn't take me with you when you left, why you left me with
them. They are whispering among themselves.
“What works a voice?”
“A voice works, it tells you what you want to hear. It swears, it  counsels, it tells tales and he
lies.” I say right away.
They laugh to me thinking I'm joking, confusing words. I love making them laugh. I deliberately
mix up words. I'm learning to sing and whistle fast.
I always try to be cheerful and laugh a lot. I am afraid of being abandoned for the second time, of
being left alone. I do not know exactly what a sound does. Especially if it has been abandoned by
his body.
They resent that all of their photos were taken away before they went to him the most. They all
ask why he’s leaving.
In order not to forget what their mother looked like, they decide to paint her. Before starting to
draw, everyone looks at each other with a pencil in their hands and everyone draws a different
woman. She is a different woman, from the color of her eyes, to the shape of her nose, to the
length of her hair. When we can't decide which one is her, we hang three different pictures of
women on the wall. All three of them look at us and smile and say everything is fine.
In my mind, however, a completely different woman came to life; a woman whose heart beats
very slowly, starts to cool down, when her heart stops, her body continues to move helplessly,
her hands and feet are entangled, she hits people, walls, children, and her husband.
But I keep all this to myself. I understand why he left me behind while whistling, mixing words,
and pretending that everything is okay. If I was his voice, I should have screamed instead. I
honestly had to block every word he couldn't say. I should have forbidden the words to him. Like
sacrifice, like concession, like weakness...
"Is that you?" I keep asking. First, they don't understand where the sound is coming from. I
repeat my question, trying not to raise my voice.
“Are you?!"
I dream that she is dancing somewhere.That she always left her collected hair open, that she
wore that thin, flowery dress that she loved so much. That he stepped barefoot on the ground,
and that he was fine. Her heart is beating again, very fastly…

STORY ON STORY

Yasemin Sokak, No: 22x

This is the address in the photo. Where I hope the story begins. Oman has no age. On the back of
the photograph is written “Yasemin Sokak, No: 22 Anadolu Feneri/Istanbul, 1968”. A
handwriting like pearl. I turn the photo back to its face, staring at it for a long time. A man, a
woman, two children.  The older one stands close to his father. The little one is in his mother's
arms. One of the children is six-seven, the other four-five years old. I was born on November 23,
1962 in Edirne. I am suitable for both father's side and mother's lap. All kids are the same age
anyway. All mothers are beautiful, all fathers work hard.
In my opinion I made the right decision. The house is a little high, falling to the back, where the
sea is barely visible. The second from the last building when you enter the street. Opposite him is
a bunch of willow. Two birds are hovering on the pavement. I wait until my breathing returns to
normal. Birds fly. The wind that softens in the willow leaf touches my back. I shudder like
children who are late for home.  I'm knocking on the door. I wait a bit and knock again. It doesn't
open. I knock on the door again.
A young woman wearing a knee-length skirt with her hair up in a dress opened the door and said,
"Yes?" she says.
I open the book under my arm and hand it to the woman as if presenting a gift. “My family lived
in this house for many years, and I found this photo in my mother's chest.”
The woman suddenly shies away and releases the ends of her Yemeni from her neck to her neck.
The doorway is getting narrower. "Who are you, I do not understand?"
“Mom, the cartoon is over.” a child clings to the woman's legs.
“When my mother passed away, I looked in her chest. In this photo, the address of the house
where we spent our childhood is written, look here. I wanted to come and see it.” I say.
“Mom, the cartoon is over..” the child says again.
“This is the house where I spent my childhood,” I repeat.
After the woman is quiet for a while, she says "talk with my husband when he comes" and closes
the door. I tuck the book under my arm again and leave. I go downhill to the beach, watch the
ships passing through the Bosphorus and drink tea at the fisherman's cafe a little further away.
Towards the evening I go to the same address again. I'm knocking on the door. A thirty-five
forty-year-old man opens the door.
“Maybe the lady mentioned it. When my mother died, I found this photo in her trunk. This is the
house where I spent my childhood. I wanted to come and see it.” I say.
The doctor asks why I went to someone else's house with other people's photos. I'm finishing my
story, I say.  No matter how much I lack, I want to be completed by adding to others. Maybe I'm
just killing time. Dozens of dates, dozens of addresses, dozens of images;  many stories mixed
with the wind! However, how precious they are at the time of their existence! I want to know
from which time period and to whom I was valuable. I want to put someone in all the blanks I do
not know. He listens to me for a long time, doctor. Just like I listened to my daughter.
Time is passing.
Our conversations with the doctor continue for a long time. After a while, he is convinced that I
will no longer take a photograph and knock on someone's door.
We pack the books with dates or notes in my library in boxes. We put all the photos I collected
from the second-hand booksellers in a box and tape them.
More precisely, my daughter does all this.  I'm watching it. You didn't crumple my daughter's
calendar I'm watching it like a movie scene in slow motion.
At the end of a year, we are going to Edremit as a family in honor of the end of the treatment. I
will enjoy the time I will spend with my grandchild. I am at peace now. The doctor spoke of the
beauty of spending the rest of my life with my grandchild.  And many times over. I will catch
life. I knock on my daughter's room door. “I will go to the tea garden on the beach with my
grandson.”
My grandson, who says "I'm coming grandpa",
runs and takes my hand and we leave the hotel together.
I take a chocolate out of my pocket and give it to my granddaughter. While he is eating his
chocolate, he is curious, “Grandpa says where are we going. I open the book under my seat and
take a long look at the photograph in between. There is a slender woman, a man with a bushy
moustache and two girls with them.
The date is 11 May 1980, the place is Piri Reis street, number 1.
And I say to my granddaughter, "I'm going to finish the story".
My grandson does not care about me at all.