Bu Blogda Ara

31 Mart 2008

Two Days in Mui Ne

SEA AND MEMOIRS

This is our third time in Mui Ne and definitely not the last. It is my favorite escape point in Vietnam. Not too far from HCMC, not too crowded, not too dirty and of course not too expensive! The fragrant breeze from the sea is good enough for me to forget the hectic days of the city and shake off the monotone rhythm of my daily life. Actually, I again planned to do things I do daily but so far not much I have achieved. I was planning to write at least 2,000 words during my stay for my ongoing novel. Last two days I could not even open the file. However I do not feel guilty as I usually do when I ignore my daily work. I am here for vacation and it is fun to spend my time swimming, sleeping, reading and eating. I also have wireless internet at my room so I can check e-mails, write e-mails and read the news.

Our journey started yesterday morning. One night before I was with R, drinking beer and talking about funny adventures of our common friend A. I laughed a lot because most of the stories are worth to be written, almost incredible. I am sure I will use them in different occasions to ease the tension in the scene. In the morning, still hanged with the alcohol in my blood, I could not wake up at 6 am to do my daily writing. When we woke up, we needed to hurry up to catch the bus. Then 5 hours later, we were here, in Mui Ne, watching the sea and facing the centuries-old winds…

Unfortunately the address written in the receipt was not right so we got off the bus a few kilometers after the hotel. Then we took two 'xe om's to get back to hotel. Other than this, nothing worth to mention happened in the bus. It was a comfortable trip for me. For J, she hates to be supposed as a Vietnamese person. People usually speak with her in Vietnamese until they find out that she does not understand them. Then they apologize and smile. But still this thing sometimes repeats so many times that she gets crazy. This somehow forces her to make comparisons between Thailand and Vietnam. In any case, Thailand wins and she is happier… Sometimes these comparisons transcend the limits of the rationality. However the important thing is not to be objective, it is to be subjective and have a sufficient reason to be happy. She does this in her own way and the result is usually successful.

I did not swim yesterday. It was enough to sit on the bench and watch the immense blue before my eyes. Then just before the sunset, we walked on the beach. The wind was fresh and carrying the fragrance of the evening. The kids were still playing in the water, reluctant to leave it despite their mothers’ repetitive calls. It is also nice to feel the moving sands under my feet. It is like being dizzy, feeling that the earth is moving together with our bodies and everything else. While walking, we saw a giant jellyfish on the beach. It was as big as my head and apparently it was dead. I tried to touch it but J did not let me to touch as if it was a snake or an unknown creature. I looked at this transparent animal and thought about its life story which will never be written. In fact, most of the people in this world share the same destiny with this jellyfish in terms of their silent life stories. How would it be nice if every one of us is given a chance to write our life stories before we give our last breath? Lonely, desperate jellyfish was lying on the sand, looking so feeble, so bleak! Where was it born? When did it start to move independently? How did it come to this beach? Did it feel loneliness or homesickness? Do jellyfishes have feelings like us? It would be anthropocentric to think the opposite… It is interesting that in Turkish, we call them “denizanasi” which means “mother of sea”. I have no idea what they did to deserve such a name in Turkish. However, they have some strange looking, a bit scary I might say. Dying like this is not anyone wishes for. I kept walking and made myself busy my own drawings which I call “Beach Art”.

I drew a few geometric pictures on the sand, a few tessellations, a few curves and a few graphs… I gave them names like “the eye”, “fade away”, “isomorphic” “norm” etc… Most of them were mathematical pictures since I feel more confident when I work with mathematical concepts. Then the waves came stronger, wiped some of them off. I fixed the erased parts but it was impossible to fight against the waves. At the end, I told myself that the real art is the only one which expresses the truth by its nature. My little beach art exhibition was showing the impermanence of being with very simple effects. Nothing is permanent as Buddha says. The waves resembled the time which wipes out everything. The lines were our personal experiences, our happy and sad moments, loves and cries. No matter how much effort we exert to keep them alive, time is the best interpreter of the world. Those lines which are drawn deep in the sand will stay longer but not forever… Nothing is forever… Neither this beach nor the people playing on it. Even the sun sinking in the water as if a red orange is floating at the horizon line is not forever despite its promise for a rise in the next morning…

In the evening we went to a nearby restaurant to have dinner. It was not fantastic but for the standards we presume to accept, the food was palatable and the service was ok. After the dinner, we went to watch the darkness of the sea. The voice, the breeze, the darkness, the mysticism were all together. There was something secret about the sea and this only was enough to allure me. It was so big, so mighty! I, as a little man on the beach was nothing comparing the size of the sea. It has a big memory of human history, beneath the surface, in that darkness where only fish and other sea animals can enjoy. I was ready to stay there all night, just smelling the odor of the sea. J was lying beside me on one of the deckchairs, watching the stars. When I told her that there are so many stars in the sky, she replied without thinking much: There are more in Thailand… I laughed! Then we both went to our room to sleep…

Today morning we woke up around 8. The sunlight was so strong on the east side that I thought it is going to burn the curtain. It was like a wild animal, not enjoying to be caged. Our room, like all the other rooms in the resort is looking at east, embracing the sunrise and mourning for the sunset. The mornings are inevitably glorious, evenings are poignant. After having our free breakfast, I went to swim. I use the word ‘swim’ but actually I should not call it swimming. I walk towards the deep part of the sea till water hits my neck or chin. I am afraid to go further. I am afraid of losing the ground under my feet. At that point I looked at the sea which actually looks very flat because my eyes are so close to the surface. Like a large piece of fabric spread over the earth lies before my eyes and I am the camera floating on the surface, dipping my lenses in the water now and then. I turn my face to the beach and start swimming. Basically what I do is imitating other swimmers. I use my hands and legs to push myself while trying to keep my head above the water. It is more difficult than saying for me since I have never learnt swimming from a trainer or from a family member. That is actually why I feel a bit jealous when I see kids playing in the water with their parents. This also explains why despite my age, I am still not able to swim properly.

Once I swim to the shallow part, I walk back again to the deep point. Then swim back again. It is a shuttling action of a man who does not take risk in his life. It is also what I have been taught by my family. Do not take risk, live peacefully. I do not blame them for not teaching me how to be braver! It is the way they lived as immigrants from Northern region of Turkey to Istanbul where they were nobody. I did some crazy things in my previous years but still most of them are innocent-looking, simple things comparing the stories of real risk-takers I see or hear time to time. How many times I got drunk? I mean really drunk! Not more than 5! How many times I did a thing which no one else wanted to do? Admittingly I am a man of reading, writing and mathematics. All these three are safe shores. I cannot drown in books, I cannot die in numbers, I cannot harm myself in writing. Life is flat for me. I see either numbers or words when I look at things. In both ways, it is harmless, riskless. Therefore, it is also rewardless! A swim tube J is using in the water is a torus (cushion in Latin, it is a geometric shape of doughnut, a three-dimensional figure we can get by vector multiplication of two circles) for me. When I saw it first, I thought I can take it to school and show my students how we can draw K5 on a torus while it is impossible on Euclidian plane or how we can color it with 7 colors while 4 was maximum number on a plane. That is it! When some students ask me ”How come you write! Math and literature are opposite things”. I guess it is how people approach to these two disciplines in developing nations. It is the same thing in Turkey. People have to choose either science or humanities at high school. The separation is like a razor’s cut. If you choose A, then forget B or vice versa… But for me both Mathematics and writing mean the same thing. I need to escape from the reality, from the painful truth of dukkha (suffering). Both numbers and words are perfect shelters for a lonely refugee like me. Numbers easily create another consistent world in which I feel safe and comfortable. To work with words is a bit more difficult but soon I sit for writing a piece –either fiction or non-fiction- I am not in this world any more. It is a therapy worth to millions…

We went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. It was hot but food was fantastic. We ate outside, beside the main road which goes through the beach, watching big foreigner guys driving small motorbikes. After the lunch, we came back to our room. I slept for a few hours. After waking up I checked e-mails. There were so many e-mails from students for the challenging question I have posted on BB a few days ago. I asked them this question so that they will try and see how little they learn in the class and how much more is left behind. But apparently some of them got the right answer. I guess I have underestimated their math skills. It is good though! I like challenging them and there is nothing worse to scream to an empty wall and looking forward to hear your own echo, but nothing else. I did not check all the solutions because the internet connection is slow and downloading files takes time. I will check them when I get back to school. I hope at least one of them is right so that I can give Pamuk’s “Ten Toi La Do” to a smart student.

Afternoon passed in the water. Swimming parallel to the shore is another safe way. Then the silence of the evening drooped, leaving only the sound of waves hitting the beach. I was tired so instead of looking for another restaurant for dinner, we stayed in the resort and had dinner here. After the dinner, I took my tea cup and went to watch the sea again. The same darkness with small white waves approaching to the beach to hit hard was there like a repeating scene of a movie. I watched the waves, thinking about my own life, my own routines… The white foamy line in the absolute black appears from nowhere and gets larger within a second. In the distant horizon, the lights of fish boats were visible. On the left side, the city was breathing with their simple lives.

Once I finished the tea, we started to walk on the main road to see the life in Mui Ne during the night. Left side of the road –we are going upward- is full of resorts and a few small houses. Right side has little stores, internet cafes, restaurants. I even found a bookshop beside the road and bought a copy of Graham Greene’s “The Honorary Consul”, a tragicomic story about an abduction of wrong man by revolutionaries. After getting tired of walking and looking around the same pictures of the night, we returned to our resort. At the lobby, the old guy was watching football. I looked at the screen and saw that it was Chelsea against Middlesbrough. I do not have interest in either of them but Chelsea is the team which will be playing against Fenerbahce this week for the UEFA Championship Cup and Middlesbrough the team where ex-Fenerbahce player Tuncay is playing now. I sat and watched. Chelsea won the match 1-0 although three balls of Middlesbrough hit the pole very unfortunately. Tuncay left the pitch at 70 min. but I kept watching. It is odd enough that I am watching a football match just because there is a Turkish player in one of the teams. But soon I saw a Turkish flag behind the corner flag. A Turkish flag in a premiership match! I was not alone at the end, felt a bit justified with the conformism. The last whistle is blown and I went to my room to write these lines…

The end of the day and the end of my little vacation! Tomorrow we will be taking the bus at 2 pm. We will arrive home around 7-8 pm… Then Tuesday morning I have a class at 7:30 am. The worst thing about the vacations is to have the obligation of getting back to work. Wouldn’t it be nicer if we have a vacation which makes us to forget all the responsibilities beyond it. You do not think about the future, you do not regret the past. Left and right on the time line fell into deep oblivion such that there is only present, only sand and sea, only books and coffee… Like all dreams, I know it is irrational and inconsistent, but at least it is pleasure to have a bit incoherence in one’s life, ignoring the paradoxes… We all deserve it, right! We all deserve to be drunk once in a while because the true happiness can be obtained only by ignoring the rules of reality, neglecting the rigid forms of humanly-created social norms… Vacation is a sort of drunkenness in which past and present does not exist. Especially vacation in a tropical country helps more because time here does not seem to exist. Everyday is another day from heaven, every night brings the sweet smells of distant lands. Then what is the point of remembering old days and feeling like a cornered mouse! Or is it just a fake face we make up to cheat ourselves? The cat is there, ready to punch (a bit Kafka). If there is no way to escape, the little mouse should shut its eyes and start dreaming about sea, sand and sun…

22 Mart 2008

The Marathon

THE MARATHON

“Is there any chance?” Somsak thought while laying on the floor and looking at the whirling fan on the ceiling, “Is there any chance that my last call for life will find an answer somewhere in the world?” He smiled with the lower edge of his mouth when he used the word “world”. But there was a justification for it. That was how the inmates defined what was outside of the prison! Prison and world were two disjoint universes where the residents must have special permission to pass from one to the other. The world was “nibbana”, the ultimate salvation, the end of fire, the tranquility of both dreams and reality. Prison was hell, absolute suffering, filth and boredom…

This last one was the worst. Being forced to stay in a place where you are not needed! “People need to be needed.” his teacher used to say. The less you are needed, the more you feel worthless, the more you lose your point in your life… But he was never needed here. Then what bugs you day and night is a big vacuum of nothingness. Regretting the past and dreaming about a non-existent future. In fact he knew his future! It was death, waiting for him with no escape from it. But still he wanted to cling to life like an ant holding onto a piece of leaf to survive in the water. He was holding onto life with just a thread of cotton, and he felt obliged to hold it until it breaks off, letting him fall on his face to cover the shame of his grotesque memories.

He was the only son of an influential man in the village. Being an only son of a rich and powerful man did not give him many choices in the rural life of peasants. He remembered that people used to call him by his father’s name more often than they used his own name. It was obvious that he would be a spoiled boy, a person with no responsibilities but a lot of atrocities… Then the unavoidable happened! He started alcohol even before finishing high school. Then drugs, being a gang member, beating other school boys, molesting girls, troubling teachers. The entire village hated him but nobody dared to complain. Father was protecting him. Once he raped a girl in the village but it was all kept hidden just because his father paid a few thousands baht to the parents of the girl in compensation. Parents did not dare to ask his father that Somsak must marry with their daughter as it happens in the village. His sins were ignored as till they accumulated into a big pile of hatred among the villagers.

Then one day, he passed the line which he should not even have touched. With the help of two friends, he kidnapped a school girl from a street and raped her in a remote sugar cane field where three meter high sugar canes were not only the silent audiences of the crime but also the protectors of criminals. This time the girl gave a great fight to save herself so they needed to beat her brutally before Somsak could finally penetrate her body like a thief sneaking inside a house after spraying sleeping gas. She was like a dead dog under Somsak’s body, not moving, not making any noise. Once Somsak realized that what he had done could not be undone by his father he killed the girl with a large rock he found in the field. By the time he finished the murder and started to worry about the corpse his friends had already left him alone. He fled from his village and lived a fugitive’s life for two years. In these two years, he committed more crimes. He stole money from the shops, killed a bank guard, sold drugs in nightclubs and raped a few more girls just because they rejected his love. It took quite a long time for the police to find him and convict him of the murder. When he was caught, it was all about a drug deal. But the more the police investigated, the more they found about him. He confessed that he committed many other crimes, by himself, including the rape and murder of the little girl two years ago.

The capture and the following confessions shook the entire country and divided people into two groups: those who wanted him to be executed in the same way and those who wanted him to be executed in a worse way. Nobody knew what was worse than being raped and then having your head smashed to a mess of hair and blood but people wanted revenge and revenge has never been rational. If an innocent’s blood has been spilled, then that blood should teach something to society so that similar brutalities won’t happen again. The entire country was in shock and the justice system was not immune to this wave of screams. The judge considered his previous crimes, his drug dealing cases, other rape attempts and at the end his two murders. Finally, the decision was clear. He did not move when he heard the judge’s verdict, did not open his mouth and did not complain. Shocking everyone from his family, he stood as a man who regrets what he has done and he knows that judge’s decision was right. First time in his life, he felt helpless and feeble like a cockroach waiting for the hard end of the broom hitting his head. At the moment he learnt that his future would not exist, he started to think about death and what is beyond it.

He wanted to wear a clown mask on the day of his execution like the revolutionary hero whose stories made his childhood worth remembering. A mask which can hide his possible tears, a mask with a large smiling face, white and red paint around the mouth, a mask looking at the gray surface of the ceiling of the execution room as if that was the happiest moment of his life, such a mask would be nice for saving his karma forever. When the bullets carved in his flesh and stopped his heart in a few seconds, he would be laughing at the people on the earth, like one last Buddhist gesture, a celebration of the end of suffering, a wedding day perhaps, from a man who never cared about Dharma all over his life. He was sure that no one will go out for demonstrations with clown masks after his death like the legendary hero he admired so much. His death will be quiet, like an ant died under a child’s point finger. He will be forgotten soon by anyone he has encountered in his life. But now, there was a hope, a piece of wooden platform at the top of the giant waves, a piece of cotton thread which dangles from nowhere in the middle of the air. He wanted to hold it even though he knew the land to step on did not exist for him any more.

This thread would be new to him, something he never had in his life before, like a girlfriend maybe! A lover he had dreamed of in his lonely life. Even when he hugged many girls in his arms, he never felt any urge to love them. He hugged them because they could not escape from him. It was the fear of attachment keeping him away from love and it was the invincible lure of woman’s body keeping him on the shore. He was always there; on the beach where with one step further you would get wet and clean yourself off your sins. But he never had the courage, or the will to let his body get washed with the cold water of the ocean. He was mostly scared of not being able to get out of the water! What if the water was deeper than he thought? What if he would never be able to get back and dry himself? And the worst, what if he finds happiness in the warmness of the water like a child who loves to keep his legs under the blanket in a cold winter morning?

He looked at the dirty wall in front of him. The scars from cigarette ashes, a lifeless bug killed by a dirt-stained thumb, the moving shadow of the noisy fan which works almost twenty-four hours a day were the things that could still be seen in the dim light coming from the corridor. The cell was full of people, sleeping, snoring, fighting, playing, laughing, cursing and even shitting. There was no toilet inside but only a bucket. During the night, they were supposed to shit in inside that bucket. The smell of human defecate was unbearable at the beginning. Now he barely notices it. In the day time, they were allowed to go to the bathroom outside the cell. There were no beds inside. Everyone had a mat and slept on it. No pillows, no blankets, no sink to wash your hands in… He turned his body with a swift move and started to stare on the iron bars. The guard was a few meters away from the bars and he was not allowed to speak with inmates after midnight. He wanted to stand and look at the corridor where all his hope was born in the first place.

It all started with a half page of the newspaper he found in the corridor. He thought one of the guards wrapped his beer with this paper so that nobody could see what he was drinking. The guards were the same as the prisoners. They were also bored to death and mostly they spent their precious time with the inmates, chatting and laughing with them. Inmates and guards shared a common hope of getting out of the prison and never returning. Sometimes it was harder for a guard to get back to work after a cheerful night spent with his wife and children but that is their job and that is the way they could feed the mouths of the kids.

When he got the page of newspaper, he first tried to smooth the creased surface so that he would be able to read it easily or at least see the pictures clearly. What he wanted was is to read a few things about the world, to know what was going on and to make sure that he would not die in a world where people are happier than he was. This feeling had grown slowly in him after he started to act like a criminal. If he was unhappy and he did not deserve a decent life, then nobody should! That was the key to his crimes, his rapes and murders, his bloody hands on the little girl.

The half page was not giving him any hope of amnesty from the king or the queen, which many prisoners look for. It was just classified ads of lonely girls asking for someone to love them or care for them. Then he thought of this: What if he wrote a letter to one of the girls, told her some lies about his past and asked her to come to visit him in the prison. A lovely girl’s hands would be definitely much better than the rough and dirty hands of the ladyboys in the prison. How many years had passed since he had touched a woman’s skin? He tried to remember his last lovemaking but the only thing that came to his mind was the purple florescent light in a hotel room. There was only the light, and under the light, he was lying on the bed naked! It seemed as if nobody else was in the room, as if he had made love by himself. The girl he had taken from a nearby bar lay on the floor, unseen; face down and with her green bra on her back.

He tried to force himself to sleep but the more he tried the more it became difficult. Especially in the last few days, he was haunted by the dream which always ends at the same point: He runs in the empty streets of Bangkok. He passes through daily markets where old women sell frogs and eels, the vendors which sell fried bananas, young mothers who sell soya milk and chromosome-shaped fried snacks. The more he runs the more he sees the awakening city. The motorbike taxis with orange uniforms waiting at the corners, the palm readers sit in front of hospitals and wait for hopeless patients, young girls walking quickly and recklessly to catch the next bus… He sees all of them but also he notices that no one sees him. He enters one lane after another, moves without stopping, without thinking. It is a run for own life he thinks! You will run or you will die. Sometimes he looks at his behind to check if anyone is following. No one! He is the only one running in the entire city but still he is like a ghost, invisible to other. He keeps running, turning to smaller lanes, leaving the crowded roads. The lanes become empty, the people disappear. He feels lonely and extreme dehydration makes him exasperated. Then suddenly a small house appears in front of him. At the couch there is a bit of grass and flowers, on the door it reads “Salvation! This is where the suffering ends.” He knows where he ended up but wants to get back, wants to run back to same streets and get lost in the maze like a mouse left without the incentive of cheese. But two large arms hold him tight at the moment. He cannot move his body any more. When he starts to kick the air just to resist his inertia and cause some turbulence, two other hands hold his legs. Now his body is totally paralyzed. Worse than that, he himself believed it too so his mind is also dead-frozen. His body moves towards the door. The morning sun behind him is promising a new day, a new life but for him he knows he came to the point of no return. He passes the edge of the door, smells blood and gunpowder in the colorless rooms. Then he wakes up.

The dream ends here but he himself knows that reality will not end at the same point. It will go further and what cannot be seen in the dream will take his breath away from him. But now he has hope. She is coming to visit him tomorrow. She is coming to see him and hold his hands. That is what she wrote in her last letter. They exchanged pictures, they exchanged jokes, and they exchanged lies which make up life for each. The girl is from an Isan village, already served two years in prison because she mistreated the baby she was supposed to take care. But she never mentioned her prison term in her letters. She was one of the lonely girls in millions and why to bother to tell the truth, to a man who stole money from a pat-thai seller just because his mother needed medicine to survive. She believed the story because like her own story, there was no right or wrong! She remembered the parents of the baby she cared. How they tortured her with sharp bamboo sticks when she broke a glass, how they shouted at her when the food was a bit salty or tasteless. Then she was angry but did not know where to go. She was a bomb set to explode soon but not knowing that who will be the victim. That is why she chose the baby, the most innocent one. Whenever she was tortured by the parents, next day baby had bruises on her arms and legs. Soon they realized that she is inflicting all these pains on their precious little one. First they wanted to punish her by themselves by putting her in a dark room, raping her, beating her, leaving her starve to death. But later they realized that this will cause more stress at home, more trouble for themselves. They went to police and filed a complaint.

The rest is known by all media. She was the evil, she was the one who hates babies and likes to see them suffering, instead of making them happy. Judge listened to her story quietly and gave her only two years in prison. The parents also have been fined to pay some big amount of money but of course this has never been mentioned in newspapers. Once the media declared the evil then they cannot make their readers confused.

Somsak turned one more time but this time his hand went to his backpocket where he keeps his hope alive. He took the small picture and turned its surface to the dim light coming from the door. She was not a beautiful girl but there was something special on her face. A piece of curved hair falls down on her forehear like a spider dangling from the ceiling. Her eyes were small and the eye balls in them were even smaller. A bit like an elephant’s eyes he has thought when he saw them the first time. Small and sharp! There was no cheer in these eyes, bare satisfaction or ready to accept what is given. Her face was large and white, even whiter than many other girls he met before in his village. “She must be a muey” he thought and an envy smile appeared in his face. Trying to hide his excitement he looked through the door to see the clock at the end of the corridor. It was almost five. Soon the guards will appear and take them to the garden for morning exercises. Somsak never liked to exercise. His body was no more young, his mind was full of desire for freedom, his days were filled with fake hope for touching the hand of a real girl before his last day arrives.

At the end of the corridor he saw three guards walking towards the cells. On the right side there were rooms where the breakfast is served. Time was too early for the breakfast he thought while standing up in front of the bars to ask one of the guards. But the sound of footsteps and the jingling keys were the only answer he got. There was something extraordinary in the prison this morning. Then he remembered the execution of Noi, the drug dealer woman. When an execution is planned the breakfast is served one hour earlier and no prisoners are allowed to the garden till the execution ends. Thus everyone knows that prison will face a death that morning, one of them will go and not come back. Somsak tried to see what the guards up to but could not see much because of the darkness at the both ends.

He thought about Noi again. Her prolonged death by the bullets hit her left torso but not be able to find her heart was the most scary legend in the entire history of prison. Some prisoners even joked that she had no heart –if she had, she would have distributed yaba to prisoners- or the others said she is an angel. They had a ground for this latter one. Noi is the only prisoner who kissed her executioner on his cheek before she goes to death. She was even laughing before, not crying like many big boys. Legend this, she told her executioner how handsome he was and how she would love to marry him if she wasn’t to be killed in a few minutes. Her legend continued in the dark and smelly cells of the prison: After the first shooting, doctor claimed that she was dead. They took her blood-covered body to morgue to shoot the other two drug traffickers. But before they brought the new guy into the room, one of the guards saw that she tries to stand up in her blood bed which itself looks like a swamp. Her throat was gurgling with the warm taste in her mouth and she was fighting not to drown in her own blood. The guard tried to push her body down and tried to accelerate the blood flow but it did not work. She was still strong and wanted to fight. Then other guards came in. One suggested killing her there, in the morgue, with a hand gun but the chief prison officer said no, using hand gun is against the law. They carried her back to the execution room, loosely tied her to the steel cross, spread the white screen second time. This time no lotus in her palms, no red flag falling to represent the end. Then they shot six more bullets, this time right side of her torso where she carried her heart as if it was her own fault. She died without any more struggle, like a sack of rice falling from high, she fell on the floor.

Somsak was still looking at the corridor to figure out the things will happen soon and warn his friends in the cell. But how possibly could he know that this was the morning the decision for his death came from the chief army general as a summary execution. Normally a prisoner had to wait at least six months after their first appeal but the recent military coup took many rights of the prisoners away from them. The army was thinking that prisons were over-populated and must be cleaned as soon as possible. And executions were a good way to show the people that army is working for the country. It was not easy for an ordinary person to figure out that powerful ones need to do some innocent-looking killings to cover up their illegitimate killings of political minds. No appeal went to higher court, no Human Rights Protectors have been allowed inside the prison. Whenever the army general thinks that one more must be killed, the guards are waken up that morning two hours earlier than their usual time. A signed paper of execution verdict is given to the guards so that they can know who to execute and what time. Army generals might be thinking that this was a better way of dying. If the inmate knows when he will be executed, he will go crazy in the days of waiting. Army’s method was quick and silent! One morning you wake up and learn that today is the day. You have a few hours to react and for most of the prisoners these a few hours pass with hesitation of whether or not they will be able to believe this is going to happen to them. Since they did not think about it before, death comes to them like an accident, crashing a tree, hitting your head to the windscreen and dying instantly.

A few hours later Somsak was outside, in the garden, barefooted and alone. His hands were tied tightly. He was looking at the sky for a possible rain. The clouds were large, blocking the sunlight on his day of wedding but it seemed there will be no tears for this morning. On his right side there was the seven-storey security tower, on his left the yellow-painted walls of the prison. The guards were talking to each other with little voice, trying to hide something from each other, fear perhaps or the hesitation! Everyone knew that execution is not done by one person. The one who pulls the triggers should not feel the entire burden of guilt on his own shoulders so that at least six other guards are involved in the procedure. Two hold the prisoner and tie him, one holds the red flag –the only color in the execution room before the shooting-, one sets the gun to the target, and one just stands at the corner and watches because his responsibility is to write a report after each execution, one physician waits at the other corner to announce death. A collective work of killing is surely makes the executioner feel less guilty and less responsible.

But still, even they take little part in the entire job; they cannot get rid of the heavy ill-feeling of taking someone’s live so they were talking about things which will not remind them their job. Somsak knew what they were talking about. To scatter the black fog of death from their head, they talk about their families, their financial problems or how last night they had great time with some friends in a nearby restaurant which serves rice whisky and fried scorpions. One of them was talking about her daughter’s school expenses; the other one was looking at him, perhaps calculating the money he will receive from the government for the execution. Another one was quietly talking about Noi, the chaos the guard had to deal with during her execution. This will be the first execution after Noi. It must go smooth, it must be done quickly.

Somsak walked across the garden while looking at some of the sparrows on the ground. Their songs were cheerful, happy with the new day. Do they know that this is a prison and people are executed here? Sparrows don’t know about death he thought. Where do dead sparrows go? Why aren’t they around? Shackles on his legs were jingling in each step he takes. He was feeling exhausted somehow, maybe because of sleeplessness, maybe because of his expected guest who will go back home empty-handed in the afternoon. He felt like he needed to go to toilet but he knew that this was a fake feeling, emerging from the anxiety of death, the fear of rolling into a well where there is only darkness and trepidation. He at the end will reach to the finish point of his marathon which seemed to him as a never-ending dream.

Suddenly he found himself in front of the execution room. It looks the same as the one in his dreams, a bit grass at the front, closed white-painted windows, brown steel door, a concrete floor with absolute coolness, a few flowers just beside the Buddha image which seems not belong to the execution room but just brought here for him. There were wheels under the cart which carries the yellow Buddha image and the little vases still included stains of ashes from previous ceremonies. The old monk with his yellow robe was standing just next to the Buddha, holding the chain which is apperantly used for pulling the cart and chanting some words Somsak could not understand. The whole picture was a sort of divine joke for which he did not know how to react. His face was pale, his body was powerless. The guards unlocked his handcuffs, locked his shackles loosely enough to let him walk slowly and asked him to knee down before the Buddha image, lit a few incenses and beg for forgiveness.

He did what he was told. He kneed down and begged for forgiveness for the things he has done. He asked mercy from the people he hurt, the lives he has taken, the girls he raped, the shop owners whose money he has stolen and the lonely girl who will come this afternoon just to learn the lies he wrote. He wanted to cry to show the world that he was really sorry for what he has done but no tears came down from his eyes. He stood up, leaning on his hands pushing the cool earth. The guards helped him to stand and walked him inside where he will have his last breakfast. He entered the house. On the top of the door it was reading “This is the place where suffering ends.” He forced himself to smile but could not make it, remembering his dream and walked into the room where a table with variety of food waiting for him. There was kao-dom-guy with fresh vegetables on a side dish. There were also a dish of pineapple and mango, a bowl of icy desert with red and yellow pieces floating in it. He tried to remember when the last time he ate mango but could not make it. The food in the prison was monotone and persistently tasteless. Now he is being offered food which he has not touched for years but not surprisingly he had no appetite at all. This must be part of the joke he thought, making a miserable man happy just before killing him. He said “He does not want to eat because he does not want the food is wasted”. Then he asked the guards to give the food to one of his friends in the cell. The guards looked at him suspiciously, without knowing that if it is possible to transfer the last meal to someone else.

Rejecting his last food, Somsak asked for a pen to write his last letter. He had extra time now, gained from the meal. They gave him a pen, an empty clean –almost virgin- paper and an envelope to close his letter by himself. When a prisoner writes a letter while he is in his cell the guards always take the letter to the prison director for possible censors. However, it was not the same for the last letter of a prisoner. No one dared to read the last letter of a man who will be executed soon. No one wanted to because no matter how bad the prisoner was; he too deserved to say his last words to the people who cared about. To make sure that system works perfectly, they also put melted wax on the table for him to seal the envelope.

Somsak sat on the chair and wrote slowly; trying to remember the words he did not use for long time or sometimes even asking the guards how to spell the certain words. He was doing same thing in the cell while writing to the girl. Apichart was his friend who encouraged him to write more passionate letters, to use stronger rhyming words and to create fictional stories about himself. He filled the entire page, signed after the last line and took the photo from his back pocket. Putting the photo inside the folded paper, he inserted them into the envelope, then sealed the envelope. Behind the envelope, he wrote “To Apichart, my true friend”.

When he gave the sign to the guards that he is done, two big men came on both sides of him. He asked one of the guards that if they can give the letter to his friend before today’s lunch. The guard assured him with a brief gesture and disorientation. He knew that Somsak had a girl friend outside the prison walls but the letter wasn’t for her or not even for Somsak’s sick father who was also living his last months in the village. The last letter which is supposed to be sent to outside as the last scream of a vanishing existence was not meant to be a scream in Somsak’s case. It was probably a goodbye letter to a friend he met in the prison.

Big guards helped him to stand and walk towards the door where there was a machine gun on one side and a tall cross with blood stains on it. When he entered to the room, the guards stopped him and took his finger prints, signed the document which makes sure that they are taking right man to the execution room. They have to repeat same thing after the execution too. Holding a dead man’s lifeless finger and taking the finger print is not a job anyone would like to do but somehow guards too were used to do their job as an obligation, as a mechanical work.

After the fingerprints, Somsak asked for his clown mask –instead of being blindfolded- which was written in his last wish long time ago. He did not believe that the guards will bother to find a clown mask for him but it was there, on the little desk behind the machine gun. A face smiling widely, looking at the world nonchalantly was waiting to be worn. One of the guards took the mask and put it on Somsak’s face. The holes for the eyes were closed so at the end it wasn’t so different from being blindfolded. Then the guard at the corner read the execution verdict. Covered by the clown mask, nobody knew how he reacted to the long and heavy sentences pouring on his head like a bowl of hot water. He stood silently; smiling to every direction his head moved.

Then the time came. Guards walked him to the iron cross where rust and blood fight with each other’ to dominate the surface of the iron bars. Being blindfolded by the mask, with the help of two guards, Somsak walked slowly and thoroughly to the other end of the room. His arms were tied to the cross, a single lotus was put between his palms as a sign of pertinence in Buddhism, his torso was tightly pulled with the tension in his arms so that he will not be able to move his body during the shooting. His back was looking at the gun, his face has turned to the colorless wall. The guards walked back to take their positions beside the machine gun. Another two guards stretched a white sheet in front of the cross. On left side of the sheet there was a point which unmistakingly indicating Somsak’s heart.

The gun –or as the guards called it “Mighty HK MP5”- was an old submachine gun. It looked like a sewing machine at first sight with its four legs opening larger to the floor to decrease the vibration. The old guard who was responsible from setting the gun, aiming to the right point and charging the cartridge with fifteen bullets took his position and without saying a word, he did his job and left the room. Then the prison’s main executioner came into the room. “Angel of Death” was his nickname but he never liked it. A man of a few words, never talk more than what he has to say, never mentions his job to the people who do not need to know.

He just finished his last cigarette and came into the room. Everything was ready for him and his expressionless face was showing that he too was ready. He saluted other guards and a few government officials who were watching behind the barred windows. The guard with the red flag was standing half a meter beside the gun and he was holding the red flag straight, parallel to the ground. There was silence in the room and it was deadly for Somsak. He was waiting for the end but he did not know what was really happening behind him. Just stood there, tied to the cross, without moving, without breathing, like a primary school kid, standing in front of his class, waiting his punishment to end.

A few seconds after the silence dominated the room like a dirty party house following a flamboyant wedding ceremony, the arm holding the red flag dropped. The executioner pulled the trigger once and shot seven bullets. The smell of gunpowder was sharp and hard to miss. He looked at the other guards to get approval for the prisoner’s condition. The doctor walked swiftly to Somsak’s body, checked his pulse. He confirmed that he was dead. Executioner saluted the guards and the spectators again, then left the room for another cigarette.

Somsak’s body was carried outside the execution room with a cart which was similar to the one which brought Buddha image in the morning. The monk who was ready during the execution helped the guards to carry the dead body of Somsak. When one of the guards attempted to remove the mask from Somsak’s face, monk said “No, it was part of his wish that he will be cremated with the mask on his face.” The clouds were still there but there was no sign of the rain in the air. It was a sunless, desperate day for everyone. His body was taken to a nearby temple for cremation. No one from his family came to the last ceremony. He was burned with his clown mask on his face, with a large smile to the world as if this was the happiest moment in his life or as if there is nothing to worry about behind his last moment.

In the afternoon of the same day, a young girl appeared at the gate of the prison. She asked for Somsak. The guard at the entrance, not knowing about Somsak’s destiny, told her to wait at the cafeteria where the prisoners can meet with visitors. A few minutes later a tall, handsome prisoner appeared at the entrance. She looked at the picture then looked at the man, smiled and said “Are you Somsak? Woww! You look much better than how you look in this picture”. Apichat took the photo from his own pocket, looked at it again as if examining someone else’s wallet and said “You too! People look different in pictures because cameras are not capable of taking the picture of our souls”. The girl smiled again to his words which were similar to the witty sentences in his letters and put the spicy somtam bowl on the table together with kao-niyo and guy-yung. The afternoon light was strong, the cafeteria was quiet and her heart was beating hard like a little bird chirping in her bosom. They ate together; talked about the letters they wrote to each other. Both laughed and enjoyed the meal she brought. Then they watched the rain from the window while her hand was holding Apichat’s hands. A few minutes after the rain started, one of the prison guards standing at the corner looked at his watch and shouted “Nai Somsak, visitor’s hour ended”.

Ali Riza Arican

22 MARCH 2008 - HCMC

15 Mart 2008

The Mosquito

THE MOSQUITO

My wife left home last week and as soon as she disappeared, the dust and dirt took the control of the house. It was like a sinking boat where the water comes from all directions with enormous viscosity and power. No one can stop a sinking ship! No matter how many hands and how many feet you have! It will sink sooner or later! When she was here, we only let the pieces of love enter the house… There were touches and kisses in every room we entered. Sometimes we had big arguments, sometimes life challenged us. Still we managed to beat the overwhelming size of the waves and kept our life united with love and respect for the last thirty years. But last week she left! She said “she cannot take it anymore”. I could not ask “cannot take what?”. I knew that, I knew what was missing but I did not want to repeat the known. She left and my life changed in one week. Now I go to work late and come home after midnight. Today, ignoring office manager’s omni-present eyes I arrived at the office just before lunch time. Then after the work, I went drinking with friends, complained to them about my wife, the unbearable burden of childless marriage.

I came home just after the midnight and the first thing hit my face was the smell of the dusty floor. I tried to find the match in the kitchen for more than five minutes but couldn’t find it. I found it in living room, under the sofa! One more cigarette before going to sleep would be perfect I thought. But this hopeless search made me utterly exasperated. I sat on the sofa and thought about the whys in my life. Everything in the house started to move around! I was sure that this matchbox has a special place in the kitchen, under the oven. My wife puts it there because the only place in the kitchen can keep the match dry from the vapor of cooking is the little hole under the oven. Sometimes I feel jealous of this little matchbox. Even it has a space in the world, a place where it can be secure from the deadly attacks of vaporized water. Why did this matchbox come here, to the living room? My wife never let me to smoke in the living room so after she left I enjoyed a bit life of mice in the absence of cat. But what is this table doing here in front of the door? Who put these domino pieces on the floor? I cannot even walk! Is it all about her absence?

Why did she go? This was an ordinary fight every couple does! To go means to escape from the problem. Does she think, “I am an unbearable man?” Anyway, she went and I am sure that she will not come back for one month. I am sure that she is waiting for me now… I will go and apologize from her and her mother…I will kiss her mother’s hand; I will beg to her “Please come back! I need you “Noooo! I will not, even if I know I will die tomorrow in the pile of garbage I created. Why should I go? I can hire a maid for cleaning the house and if I can be a little bit more careful about my life, there will be no problem I am sure… I will not feel her absence! What did I do to apologize? If I made her angry to me, she made me mad with her too! She acts like a new bride. We are married for last thirty years… I will not go and I will not beg! Now, I am going to sleep. I slept for one week without her and I can sleep without her until I die.

Why this bed is so untidy? Because I left it so! I don’t try to keep it tidy because I could not find any reason to make it every morning. When I go to sleep, it will be the same! To spend the time with this bed is absolutely wasting time. This is same as ironing pajama before going to sleep! If I let her, she will try to iron my underwear too… I am now in my bed. I am trying to sleep on my right shoulder because I don’t want to dream a nightmare. If I dream her, that means I missed her. No, No, No!!! I don’t want to dream her! I don’t care her any more. She can do whatever she wants! If she went, she must know how to come back too! At least for the last one week I am staying away from her troubling voice, her disapproving murmurs, her groans which are signs of dissatisfaction and complaints.

What is that? Something around my head is turning and buzzing. It may be a mosquito! This vampire was here yesterday too. You! Blood-sucking monster! Fuck off! Get out the room! If you disturb me, I will kill you! I swear that I will not kill any insect after I visited India but if you trouble me, I can easily renounce, easily forget the words of the Hindu baba who told me that no technology can create one cell of a single mosquito no matter how much scientists try. He convinced me but now you are forcing your chances. Get out now! This is last warning for you! I have to sleep now. If I go to work late one more time, I am sure that the silly boss will talk to me about my private life and will try to give me advices on family affairs. He thought I am having troubles because I have an affair with another woman. Not every man is like you Mr. Casanova! It is none of your business! If I am late, fire me! It will hurt less than talking to me like I am your son!

Are you still here? If you do something, do it quietly! Vizzzzzzz, vizzzzzzz! This sound kills me. It reminds me my wife. She too talks without any break! When I realize that her voice was cut off, I automatically start to worry about her. There might be something wrong. She talks when she cooks, when she washes the dishes, when she irons, when she watches TV and you won’t believe but even when we make love… Many times it happened so it is hard to forget her complaints or daily gossips while we were doing that business! You know what I mean right?

Please stop! I don’t want to kill you. What do you expect from me? I am not a fat man whom you are looking for! I have no enough blood and no enough fat for you. When I got married, she was very beautiful woman like a jar of water fresh from the river and I looked like a real man, of balance and confidence. Now, look at me! I look like a thin stick… If I can be a little bit taller, they can use my body as a flagpole in front of an official building… And, look at her, she looks like a sack of flour…When you see her, you can tell her that “Don’t walk, it is faster if you roll“.

If you want, you can go to see her. You can tell her, you saw me. If you talk about my miserable life and my desperate nights emerging from loneliness, she will be happier. I know her…You don’t know…She will be happier if I confess my suffering. When you go out from this window, first turn to right and go straight. When you see the sign of Barbaros Street, dive in a taxi which has an open window. After seeing the big Ataturk statue, get out of the taxi and turn right. You will see a small lane. There is a wooden house on this lane, number 3 / 14. This is her mother’s house. Probably she is sleeping now. Go and wake her up! Don’t tell her, I sent you to her. She can torture you. Be careful! You will be a spy from the enemy! She can force you to talk… She can be a cruel witch when she is in pain! You don’t know her, I know…

Do you know how to read? How can you know which street and which lane you will enter? Are you illiterate? It doesn’t matter … She can read and write too but what else! I have never seen her when she reads something in her hands. She tells to everybody that she was the president of Literature Club at the university! She lies, I know but nobody else knows. She doesn’t have time to read because of talking. Dir dir dir dir dir dir… Never stops… If you don’t read, don’t interrupt the man who wants to read. I was taking the books to my room as if I was bringing beer… I was smuggling them under my coat or in my back pocket, wrapped in old newspapers. She was criticizing the books I was reading too… Why I bought a book about the sexual life of ants or about political history of Hittites. What can I do? I like reading… When she spends a lot of money with other women for cooking pies and shopping I never mention it… But my books are luxury. Can you imagine this, my dear mosquito? She is the enemy of the books! The fugitive from the Dark Medieval Ages!

Look at me, my dear mosquito! You look like a nice girl. I cannot see you but at least, your buzzing doesn’t bother me any more. I am not escaping from you! Whatever you do, do try to keep your husband at home! I have never read any book about family life of mosquitoes by the way. I promise you, I will find a book and read very soon… Let me repeat! Keep your husband at home… I started to spend my time outside because of this woman. Of course, she never gives me a rest at home. What can I do? I went out to see my friends and I started to gamble with little amounts. She made me a major attendee for this kind of parties. And then, I started to come back home very late. It was a vicious cycle! The more I come home late, the more I wanted to come late.

You must know what is being drunk, right? Have you ever being drunk my dear? If you suck a drunken man’s blood, you might get drunk too. Unlike most people, I don’t believe that drinking makes people forget the problems. I drink because I lose my rationality, not my memory! It is nice to behave silly for short time because people around you will tolerate you for the things you do. If you are sober, you will not be able to do them; you will not be able to say those words. Better to be drunk and behave like a headless chicken then! And of course, I too miss to be irrational, behave irresponsible without considering the consequences and when I wake up, feel free from the sins I have committed while I was another person. I even kissed a girl in a bar once. I don’t know her. She was dancing at the middle of the bar without her shoes. I took her blue shoes and held them in my hands, waited her to come back and ask me for the shoes. I was not myself and she was not herself too! Then she came and ask the shoes back. I kissed her lips without givin her any chance to resist… In fact she did not resist at the beginning. She seemed like she was enjpying the kiss. But soon she realized that something was wrong. A 20 something girl kisses a 50 plus man. I gave her shoes and left the bar. Next morning I remembered two things: the hidden taste of sweet peppermint lips and number 37. This was the size of her blue shoes. Then I read Chekhov’s beautiful story “The Kiss” in that morning. I cried again when I finished the story. A man is kissed by a girl in the dark and he spends the rest of his life in yearning for the owner of those lips. Can you understand this feeling dear mosquito? Can you understand love? The need for love? The aspiration for someone’s care as a remedy to the contagious disease of loneliness? Or is love only something we humans exaggerate this much? Or is it something we need as part of our evolutionary progress? It is not humanly but natural!

Stop, stop! Don’t bite me now! I am talking about love; my heart is weeping with old memoirs but you are having your early breakfast! Yesterday, you did enough! Please, leave me unsown this morning. Are you asking what happened after that? Let me tell you more! Same as all women, she started to blame me for every problem… And then, our voice level increases to the level of honking trucks, troubling the neighbors upstairs… Last Tuesday, she left the home and never called me. But I know … She worries about me all the time! What else she can think of? We have no child such that she can worry about it. How many times I repeated, let us go to see the doctor! It may be a small physiological problem. Only doctors can help us. Let us go … No, No, No, No! “After this age, how you dare to ask me to lift my skirt for another man” she said. . No, my life! Why does the doctor want to see your…? This is last thing to do. And if he does, for him it is just like another part in your body. Doctors at the end are supposed to see body as a whole, as one piece, as combination of blood and flesh. No, no! She went in her own way. First, she went to a witchdoctor in our building. After she understood it is useless to throw the melted lead into cold water and interpret the craters on the surface of the amorphic mass, she started to go to an imam. She recited many religious words, drank holy water, prayed five times a day, visited the mosques where prophet’s friend is supposed to be buried and stopped making love with me but kept intercourse for the sake of the prospective baby. But no! Nothing changed! I said, please my rose! Let us go to see a doctor… You can pray and beg to God again but we have to go first in the way of reason… No, my dear mosquito… I could not convince her… She swears not to go my way!

Let me finish my dear mosquito! I can tell you more! Stories never end! If they end, life will end too. What is the meaning of a life if there are no memoirs in it? Forget the job. I will not go to that damn work. I worked for the same company for the last 35 years and nothing happened. Now my boss is 10 years younger than me. Hopefully I will get retired soon. That is why I don’t care much. A few months more, I am out! Then real problems will start! Days and nights will be the same. In the same house, among these tightly-shaped rooms, I will play hide and seek with her. Is there any other chance dear mosquito? Life was so cruel on me and I cannot take it any more. A few days ago I cried in front of my friends. They did not understand why I cried. I told them a story about my grandfather. I told them that when one becomes old, loneliness sits on his shoulders like a dark cluster of fog. The more you escape, the faster it spreads and blocks the exits. I cried and felt better. They thought I cry because I am lonely but not alone… I thought I cried not because I am lonely, but because I am not alone enough.

Look dear mosquito! Time is 3 am! If I sleep after this time, I can wake up earliest at 11 am. Maybe, I should call her and tell her, “Ring my phone at 7 am” No, no! If I do that, it will mean I am admitting the defeat. She will think I cannot bear being alone. Yes, if it is being stubborn, I will do that. I can live without her, without thinking of her… She will come back without my request! If she knows how to leave she has to know how to return too! I will wait here! If there is no wife, I can find many friends to talk… This evening, I found you. If you don’t bite me, we can be good friends, right? Heyyyy! Are you still here? Where are you, my small friend? Where did you go? Did you leave me? You too, left me without giving me any good reason? Same as my wife?

In the morning , I used a little bit cream for the points on my face, my hands and my feet, bitten by the mosquito and went to my wife’s mother’s house…On the road while driving the car and cleaning my eyes from the half a century old regrets, I said to myself, “We have been married for thirty years and she has never bitten me.”

I did not see that mosquito again…

Ali Riza Arican / Jan 30, 2002

Klaeng / Thailand

Edited on 15 March 2008 ***

*** Editing a story after 6 years is a bit challenging because you learn that how bad were your writing 6 years ago. It is also good because you see there is some improvement. I enjoyed editing it but there were parts I could not touch because of the plot. I did not want to change the plot. I added a few new lines, a few new experiences and ideas… Hope it looks better now… I am sure with a critical friend’s comments, it can be better… It is interesting that this story has been rejected for my first collection of short stories because of its simplicity (I guess comparing others) but I still like the satiric voice in it.

Ali

12 Mart 2008

Meditasyon - Guti'de Ilk Gun

Gelelim meditaston meselesine! İnsan ne düşünür meditasyon yaparken? Ne düşünmesi gerekir? Bu soru bütün dinlerdeki, huşu içinde yapılması gereken ibadetler için de geçerli aslında. Çaprazımdaki gutide kısa saçlı, yaşlı bir kadın sanırım meditasyon yapıyor. Bir sol eli kalkıyor göğüs hizasına, bir sağ eli. Sonra ellerini göbek hizasında kenetleyip baştan başlıyor. Fiziksel bir egzersiz mi yapıyor yoksa trans hâline geçti de bedenini kontrol etmeyi mi unuttu? Ama her ne yapıyorsa yapsın, ben yine de dünyasal bir şeyler düşündüğünü düşünüyorum. Belki çocuklarını düşünüyor, belki yeni doğacak torununu ya da sabah yemeğini vermeyi unuttuğu köpeğini...

Benim annem namaz kılarken aklına dünyanın binbir şeyinin geldiğini söylerdi. Ben de pek farklı değildim eski hayatımda. Az değildir namaz sırasında matematik sorusu çözdüğüm ya da sevdiğim bir filmden bir sahneyi gözümün önüne getirdiğim. Ama başka çaresi var mı insanın gerçekten de? Bilmediği bir dilde, tıpkı bir papağan gibi aynı kelimeleri söyleye söyleye, kelimelerin de cümlelerin de anlamını eritiyor insan. Ho Çi Minh Kentindeki motor sürücülerinin hep birlikte kornaya basmasıyla kimsenin korna sesini duymaması gibi bir şey bu. Ocakta pişen yemek de girer namaza, ödenmeyen elektrik faturası da! Burada da durum aynı. İnsanlar gündelik hayatta İsanca, resmi kurumlarda Tayca konuşuyor. (Bazen düşünüyorum neden İsan insanı da özgür bir İsan ülkesinin hayalini kurmaz diye. İsanland ya da İsanistan fena olmaz aslında.) Ama meditasyon sırasında zikrettikleri dualar (ya da çantingler) Buda’nın da konuşmuş olduğu dil olan Palice. Dolayısıyla dilleri anlamlarını bimediği kelimelerle meşgulken, zihinleri bildikleri ve aşina oldukları dil olan İsancayla dünyayı (ya da en azından köyü) turluyor. Hem mümkün mü öyle üç-beş kelimeyle kendini dünyadan soyutlamak ve saf zihinsel bir aleme girmek? Hiçbir şeyi düşünmek olanaklı olamayacağına göre düşünülen şeyin bir şey olması gerekmektedir. Ve bu şey de ister istemez dünyaya ait, ne kadar sefil ve kirli olursa olsun, dünya ile sınırlı oluyor. Namaz sırasında cehennemi ya da cenneti düşüneyim diyen müslüman, en çok ya gördüğü büyük bir yangının alevlerini ya da gördüğü güzel bir bahçenin dallardan sarkan meyvelerini hayal edebilir. Görüp, yaşadığı, bizzat deneyimlediği farklı görüntüleri bir araya getirip kendisine uygun güzel bir resim çizer. Sonra bu resmin dünya dışı olduğunu ifade eder. Oysa hayalgücümüzün ürünleri de dahil, ürettiğimiz her şey deneyimlerimizin birer uzantısı değil midir?

Şimdi ben burada oturmuş, hayatımda hiç yeltenmediğim bir iş hakkında ahkâm kesiyorum ama bütün bu kuşkucu yaklaşımımın kaynağı cehalet de olabilir. Böyle basit gözlemlerle ve ilgisiz analojilerle 3000 yıldan uzun bir geçmişi olan, köklü bir dinsel ayin hakkında atıp tutmak kolay olmasa gerek. Kuşkularımda ve eleştirel tavrımda ne kadar haklı olduğumu yarın ve sonraki günlerde göreceğim. Küçükken hiçbirşeyi düşünmeyi becerebilirsem uçacağıma inandırılmıştım. Çok denedim ‘hiç’i düşünmeyi ama beceremedim. En yakına vardığım zaman düşünmem gereken tek şeyin hiç olduğunu düşündüğüm zamandı ki bu noktayı da başlangıçtan çok uzakta görmek saflık olur. Bunun ötesine gidemedim. Tam hiçi düşündüğümü zannediyorum ki aslında düşündüğüm hiçin aslında hiç değil de bir şey olduğunu farkediyorum. O yaşımdayken bile insanın zihnini küvetin tıpasını çekip suyunu boşaltması gibi boşaltamayacağını öğrenmiştim.

Şaka maka! Üç sayfa doldu! Yerden 40 cm kadar yüksekte bu ufacık sandalyede oturup, yine oturmak için yapılmış olan beton oturağa eğilerek yazmak biraz yorucu. Şikayetçi olduğumu söyleyemem çünkü zihnim açık ve yazabiliyorum. Aklıma bu sabah uyanır uyanmaz J’ye söylediğim söz geldi. “Yazabilmem için tek gerekli ve yeterli şart senin benim yakınımda olup, benim senin uzağında olmam.” Bu lafımdan ne anladı bilemiyorum ama benim için güzel ve doğru bir saptama bu. Şu bir gerçek: J uzaktayken de çok yakınımdayken de yazamıyorum. Benim yakınımda olmalı ama benim onun uzağında olmama izin vermeli. Bencilce hatta gaddarca bir tutum olduğunu kabul edebilirim. Ama gerçek bundan ibaret. Yazmak için insanlardan uzaklaşmam gerekiyor. Bu şekilde zihnimi toparlayıp, yazacağım şeye konsantre olabiliyorum. Bunun yanında ben yazarken J’nin yakınımda olması gerek. Aynı odada değil ama yandaki odada, salonda, alışverişte, arkadaşının yanında olmalı. Geleceğini, beni yazma işkencesinden kurtaracağını bilmeliyim. Evet, bencilce! Ama yazmanın başka bir yolu da yok sanırım. En azından ben keşfetmiş değilim henüz. Hangi kadın ister kocasının kendisinin uzağında olmasını? Bazen aynı yatakta yattığımız hâlde, farklı kıtalarda yaşıyormuşuz gibi hissediyorum. O benim yüzüme bakıp, her zamanki kadınsı bakışıyla geri gelmemi arzuladığını belirtiyor. ‘Kefaret’deki kızın sevgilisine, sinirli bir anında hipnoz edercesine ‘come back, come back’ demesi gibi. Ben uzaklarda, geri gelmenin bana getireceklerini hesaplamakla meşgulüm. J kocasının ruhunu yanına çekmekle... Bir yazarla evlenerek hata yaptığını düşünmeye başlamadan kayda değer bir şeyler yayınlamalıyım. Yoksa bu beklentilerin biteceği yok.

11 Mart 2008

Guti'de Ilk Gun

10 Şubat 2008 – Guti –

Saatin kaç olduğunu bilseydim yukarıya onu da yazacaktım ama şu anda gutide olduğum için saatimden, telefonumdan, bilgisayarımdan ve hatta dışarıda olduğum tüm zamanlarda takmayı adet edindiğim yüzüğümden uzaktayım. Saat 12’de yemek faslı bittikten sonra usulca çekildim kendi mekanıma. Biraz şekerleme yapayım dedim ama beceremedim. Şartlanmışım galiba, etraf ölü sessizliğine bürününce uyuyamıyorum rahatca. Motor sesleri, köpek ürümeleri gibi sesler ninni niteliğindeler artık benim için. Ya da ben ödlekliğime bahane uyduruyorum. Duvardaki küçük böcekler ile yatağın altındaki kocaman örümcek yerlerinden gıdım oynamadılarsa da zihnimi sürekli meşgul etmede bir hayli başarılı oldular. Huylanıyorum odanın sağında solunda bana dokunmalarını istemediğim varlıkların olmasından. Küçük ve zararsız olmalarını bilmem de fayda etmiyor. Böceklerin dışında yastıkla da sorun yaşıyorum. J’nin evden getirdiği yastık yüksek ve sert. Kafamı yastığın üzerine koyunca, giyotine kurban edilecek zavallı bir mahkûm gibi hissediyorum kendimi.

Uzun zaman sonra ilk defa kağıt-kalemle yazıyorum. Zor olacağını düşünüyordum ama çok da zorlanmıyorum aslında. Belki de ciddi konulara değinmediğim içindir yazarken duyduğum bu rahatlık. Kurmaca bir öykü ya da felsefi bir savunma yazsaydım bir hayli bocalardım sanırım. Yazacağım her cümleyi kafamda mükemmelleştirip yazmam gerekirdi. Ne de olsa copy-paste ya da cut-paste yapamıyorum burada. Cümlelerin yerlerini değiştirmem olanaksız. Ayrıca cümle aralarına yeni cümleler eklayabilme, yanlış yazdığım bir kelimeyi silme, düşük yazılan bir ifadeyi düzeltme olanağım da yok. Bütün bu yoksunluklara rağmen yazma işi şimdilik iyi gidiyor. Zevk almaya bile başladım kalemin kağıt üzerinde hareket ederken çıkardığı sesi dinlemekten. Bu noktaya kadar sadece bir kere hata yaptım. O da Ulaş’ın bana sıklıkla hatırlattığı ‘ihtimal’ ile ‘imkan’ kelimelerini birbirine karıştırmamın sonucu. Yeni Türkçe ile yazarsam, ‘olasılık’ ile ‘olanak’.

Biraz tuhaf hissediyorum gündelik hayatın artık olmazsa olmazları haline gelmiş araç gereçlerinden uzak kalınca. Hadi saati bir tarafa bırakalım. Ne de olsa tapınakta zamanı bölüp, dilimleyen tek şey uzaklardan gelen çan sesi. Çan sesiyle yemek yeniyor, çan sesiyle ayinler başlıyor, çan sesiyle yatağa gidilip, çan sesiyle uyanılıyor. Akşam ayininin vakti geldiğinde çanın sesi gelecek, dolayısıyla saate gereksinimim yok. Hem insanın böylesine yalnız olduğu bir yerde saat sadece zamanı yavaşlatmaya yarayacaktır. Saat gibi telefondan uzak kalmak da gocundurmuyor beni pek. Ne de olsa Tayland’dayım ve telefon numaramı bilen çok az kişi var. Onların da arama olasılıkları çok düşük. Ama bilgisayardan ve onun beni dünyaya bağlayan gücü olan internetten uzak kalmak biraz zor bir durum. Önümüzdeki dört gün boyunca internete erişimim olmayacak.

Hani matraklık olsun diye sorarız bazen: Ben ölünce elmek hesabıma ne olacak? İnsanın aklına gelmiyor değil. Örneğin benim hesabımın şifresini kimse bilmiyor. Şifre matematikle ilintili ve karmaşık görünümlü olduğu için J aklında tutamıyor. Bir yerlere yazmasına da ben izin vermiyorum. Bu durumda elmek hesabım benimle birlikte ölecek demektir. Düşünüyorum da, son beş yıldır aynı hesabı kullanıyorum. Yaptığım tüm yazışmalar, kurulan ve bozulan dostluklar, başlayan ama ilerlemeyen ilişkiler, herbiri umut dolu kelimelerle süslü iş başvuruları ve alınan ret yanıtları hep bu hesapta saklı. Şimdiye kadar kullanmakta olduğum hesabın sadece yüzde beşlik kısmını doldurabildiğime göre, bir aksilik çıkmazsa, aynı hesabı, gelen hiçbir kişisel iletiyi silmeksizin, ölene kadar kullanabileceğim demektir. Kısacası elmek hesabım benimle birlikte yaşayan, büyüyen, yaşlanan ve en sonunda da ölecek olan sevgili bir dost gibi. Ölmeden önce ünlü birisi olabilirsem, ailem, arkamdan gelip yaşamöykümü yazmak isteyecek olan hırslı yazarlara açık arttırmayla satacaktır şifremi. Satıştan gelecek parayı da bir vakfa falan bağışlayıp, ‘ölü adamın şifresiyle’ dünyaya ve dünyadakilere son katkımı yapmış olurum. Peki ya ünlü birisi olamazsam? İşte bu durumda hesabım da benimle birlikte ölecek, bedenimin geldiği yer olan doğaya geri dönmesi gibi, kişisel tarihimi barındıran milyarlarca bitlik bilgi de, internet denilen dev ağda serseri bir göktaşı haline gelecek. Büyük bir gezegenin çekim alanına gireceği günü bekleyecek sonsuza uzanan zaman tünelinde. Gelen iletileri kimse okuyup, yanıt yazmayacağına göre önce hesabım ‘de-activate’ edilecektir. Ardından da sessizlik ve hareketsizlik sürdüğü için kapatılacaktır. Bedenimin yeryüzünden ayrılmasından altı ay kadar sonrasında sanal olarak da silinmiş olacağım.

Belki de ben ölünceye kadar sanal alem ağlarını ölümün ötesine bile uzatır. Ölmüş birisini konuşturamazsınız ama beynine bağlayacağınız düşük akımlı elektrikle, beyin hücrelerini canlı tutmaya devam edebilirsiniz. Yani, bir şekilde posta kutusuna gelen bir iletiye yanıt yazmayı nöronlara öğretebilirsek, bedeni ölmüş ama beyni canlı tutulan bir dostumuzla irtibata geçebliriz. Dahl’ın bu konu üzerine yazılmış şu anda başlığını anımsayamadığım bir öyküsü vardı. Çılgın bir doktor ölüm döşeğindeki dostuna gider ve ona kendisi için hazırladığı tasarıyı anlatır. Ölüm döşeğindeki adam önce sadece beynini canlı tutarak devam edecek bir bilinçliliği kabul etmez ama çılgın doktor uzun süre uğraştıktan sonra dostunu ikna eder. Adam birkaç hafta sonra ölür. Doktor adamın beynine ve gözlerinden birine bağladığı elektrotlarla adamın bilincini canlı tutmaya devam eder. Hatta görebilen ve zayıf kas hareketleriyle tepki verebilen göz sayesinde ona gazete okutur, aynada kendisine baktırır. Ne gazetelerdeki dehşetengiz haberler ne de aynada gördüğü iğrenç beyni adamı yıldırır böylesi bir suni hayattan. Yalnız, birgün karısını karşısında sigara içerken ve evlilik hayatı boyunca yapmasına izin vermediği pek çok şeyiyaparken görünce kahrolur. Fakat daha önce deneyi sonlandırmak için bir sinyal seçmedikleri için karşısında zafer sarhoşluğuyla kendinden geçmişbir halde yeni serüvenlere yelken açmak için sabırsızlanan çılgın doktoradurumu nasıl anlatacağını bilememektedir. Sanırım öykü bu şekilde bitiyordu. Gerçek anlamda ölmek isteyen bir beyin ve onu her şeye rağmen canlı tutmaya çalışan bir doktor. Zavallı adam doktorun deneği olmaya devam ediyor.