COLORS OF THE EARTH
While she was waiting at the reception of a small private hospital she remembered the first day she went to a government hospital with her father to get eye-glasses. They were blunt days with no colors in! She only remembers the cold hospital corridors in which there were old people coughing desperately and little children crying as if they arrived to the end of the earth. In fact, the smell of the medicines in the hospital was enough to make her frightened and the bleak faces of the sick people were more than dreadful. The slow motion of patients and swift motion of doctors were creating a world of contradictions. There were pictures of nurses on the walls with her one finger on her lips, saying “shhhhhttttt, be quiet”. There were no nurses as beautiful as the one in the picture. She could also remember the red covered health-control book which was given to his father by social security fund of government just because they were poor. She thought it was ten years ago! She was 7 years old, just started elementary school.
They were living in the ghettos of a big city, in a small house with 2 rooms. They constructed the house with their own hands on a land which does not belong to them. After years passed, they still don’t have the land and they live with the fear of one day police or some officials from city municipality will show up, a paper in their hands, reading that they have right to ruin their house, their life, their hopes…Her father kept saying government has to pay compensation to them if they destroy the house. Mother never believed him but never told him her own ideas either. She was an ignorant woman, never thought she could have opinions even though most of the times she herself was more rational than father.
Father was working in a car factory in the city. He was listening to the stories of rich people. He was believing the stories of city people. He was looking at the world with different eyes. Mother has never listened such stories. She was like an ancient stone, forgotten under an old bridge. She believed what she learnt in her village life. City was not a teacher for her. She hated it and she never liked the colors of city.
She remembered the first day of the school. She was happy like all her friends. After a few weeks, this happiness was replaced by her worries about the things on the board. She was not able to see the details. Everything was almost same! They were reading “b”but she was reading “d”, or sometimes “c’. Teacher was getting angry when she gave wrong answer. She was helpless! World was too big, she was too small!
Then her teacher called her mother to school. Her mother came to school building in a cold morning. It was a foggy and a little bit rainy day. Her mother never went to school herself but she had absolute respect for teachers. Like many other women of their village. They were immigrant! From one inner country to another inner country! From a life of joy to a life of miserable days in a city of millions! Days were gray she remembered her childhood. City was gray! Almost everything was gray! Then she got the first eye-glasses in her life. She was seven years old. It had a thick black frame with two large glasses. She first felt that the glasses covered all of her face, then looked around, “things seem better” she said to doctor who himself was wearing a similar kind black-framed eye-glasses. She felt important, as important as a doctor! She was wearing large eye-glasses like doctors. Doctor asked her some big and small letters on the board which was a few meters away from her. She knew almost all since they are all written black on a large white paper. Doctor said “ok”. Then, he shouted, “next one”.
First years with eye-glasses were cheerful. She enjoyed wearing them as if she looks more important than anyone around her. Beside this, she could feel that the colors are brighter than what she had assumed before. The city was still gray and life was still hard. Her mother wanted her to study till end and to be a teacher but she had no idea of meaning of being a teacher. She screamed, yelled, run and played! When she was 10 years old, the glasses must have been changed. Her father got permisson from his job for one morning and took her to the same hospital. Doctor was not the same but the new glasses were exactly same as the older ones with a difference of size. She wanted to say that she wants to have blue frames but she was afraid that her father could be upset since blue frames might cost extra money. She did not say anything and got back home with same large-black frame. Nobody realized that she changed her glasses. Nobody realized that she was growing…
Years passed quickly and she finished high school. After getting her high school diploma, she went to show it to her father. Her eye glasses were the symbol of her success! She never fell in love! She was never loved by a boy in her school! The black frame was protecting her as if thick walls of a castle protect the civilians from enemy attacks. No rose could have passed her black walls! No beautiful eyes took a taste in looking deep into her eyes which are hiding large thick lenses… Social Security Fund was really successful in securing the beauty of her eyes from the young boys’ demandful stares…
She begged her father to work in a pharmacy shop near her school during summer break. The only thing she wanted to buy new glasses –not from social security fund- with her own money. Her father hesitated first and later did not think much as if worrying more made him upset somehow. He said yes then she was here! After working three months with a pharmacist in a shop she saved enough money to buy her eye-glasses herself.
She was sitting on a nice cloth covered chair in an air-conditioned room, waiting for the patient to leave the room. The walls painted blue and the table of the secretary was covered by a light green fabric. The room smelled fresh flowers although she could not figure out where it comes from. She looked around to find some flowers but she could not see a single one except the plastic flowers on the little table beside her chair. She leaned forward to smell it but later she gave up as if she did not want to be ridiculed by the secretary. Because of her old fashioned, large eye-glasses, the secretary might think that she is blind or almost blind. She tried to read the magazines which are put beside the flower. She read a few stories in the magazines but felt bored soon. She did not know that it was not the stories bore her! She continued waiting until the door opened and the doctor came out with a smiling face. He was wearing glasses as well but there was no frame. “He was looking at the world without a frame in front of his eyes” she told to herself with a startling expression on her face.
After five minutes of controlling her eyes, doctor offered her the number of the lenses which she has to use. She also learnt that her two eyes do not have same problems. For the last ten years, the glasses treated her eyes equally and according to doctor this made her eyes worse. However, there was still a remarkable difference between them. Doctor chose two different lenses from the glass cage and told her to hold them in front of her eyes. “This one is for left eye and this one for your right eye” he said. She did as she has been told.
The first thing she has seen was doctor’s deep green eyes. She was shocked! She thought a green like this was non-existent to her before. With two lenses in her both hands, holding in front of her eyes, she moved slowly to window. There was a part of the sea, very far but still bright. It looked like a living animal, somehow moving toward herself, getting bigger and more vivid. “Sea is living!” she thought. She looked at the trees, birds, sky and the people walking on the road. Everything seems new to her as if she was blind before and looking at the things one by one to learn their true colors. She did not know what to say to doctor so she waited the doctor to start the conversation. She smiled with a feeling of she looks more beautiful than ever with these two pieces of lenses in her hands. Doctor turned to her and asked the lenses! “Do you see the things clearly?” She did not know how to answer since the word “clearly” became ambigious. If these colors are real, then what were the colors she used to see for last 10 years? She barely said “yes”. Doctor said, “ok then” and added with a hesitation for breaking her ambition “Leave them here and choose a frame for your glasses”.
“Is it possible to get the glasses today?” she asked slowly without any confidence in her voice. Doctor was aware of her joy, took the lenses from her hands and said “yes, if you can wait for two hours, I can ask the technician to do it now”. She smiled and said “I will”
After choosing a small, transparent frame for her glasses, she sat on the same chair, closed her eyes for two hours, and dreamed the old days with the new colors she has just seen… The azure of the sea was not leaving her mind. The trees outside was waiting for her. The room smelled much stronger now. The voices around her were clearer. She felt like she exists more than ever without knowing what this feeling really means to her. She never opened her eyes until her new glasses arrived.
Ali Riza ARICAN / 18TH April 2006
While she was waiting at the reception of a small private hospital she remembered the first day she went to a government hospital with her father to get eye-glasses. They were blunt days with no colors in! She only remembers the cold hospital corridors in which there were old people coughing desperately and little children crying as if they arrived to the end of the earth. In fact, the smell of the medicines in the hospital was enough to make her frightened and the bleak faces of the sick people were more than dreadful. The slow motion of patients and swift motion of doctors were creating a world of contradictions. There were pictures of nurses on the walls with her one finger on her lips, saying “shhhhhttttt, be quiet”. There were no nurses as beautiful as the one in the picture. She could also remember the red covered health-control book which was given to his father by social security fund of government just because they were poor. She thought it was ten years ago! She was 7 years old, just started elementary school.
They were living in the ghettos of a big city, in a small house with 2 rooms. They constructed the house with their own hands on a land which does not belong to them. After years passed, they still don’t have the land and they live with the fear of one day police or some officials from city municipality will show up, a paper in their hands, reading that they have right to ruin their house, their life, their hopes…Her father kept saying government has to pay compensation to them if they destroy the house. Mother never believed him but never told him her own ideas either. She was an ignorant woman, never thought she could have opinions even though most of the times she herself was more rational than father.
Father was working in a car factory in the city. He was listening to the stories of rich people. He was believing the stories of city people. He was looking at the world with different eyes. Mother has never listened such stories. She was like an ancient stone, forgotten under an old bridge. She believed what she learnt in her village life. City was not a teacher for her. She hated it and she never liked the colors of city.
She remembered the first day of the school. She was happy like all her friends. After a few weeks, this happiness was replaced by her worries about the things on the board. She was not able to see the details. Everything was almost same! They were reading “b”but she was reading “d”, or sometimes “c’. Teacher was getting angry when she gave wrong answer. She was helpless! World was too big, she was too small!
Then her teacher called her mother to school. Her mother came to school building in a cold morning. It was a foggy and a little bit rainy day. Her mother never went to school herself but she had absolute respect for teachers. Like many other women of their village. They were immigrant! From one inner country to another inner country! From a life of joy to a life of miserable days in a city of millions! Days were gray she remembered her childhood. City was gray! Almost everything was gray! Then she got the first eye-glasses in her life. She was seven years old. It had a thick black frame with two large glasses. She first felt that the glasses covered all of her face, then looked around, “things seem better” she said to doctor who himself was wearing a similar kind black-framed eye-glasses. She felt important, as important as a doctor! She was wearing large eye-glasses like doctors. Doctor asked her some big and small letters on the board which was a few meters away from her. She knew almost all since they are all written black on a large white paper. Doctor said “ok”. Then, he shouted, “next one”.
First years with eye-glasses were cheerful. She enjoyed wearing them as if she looks more important than anyone around her. Beside this, she could feel that the colors are brighter than what she had assumed before. The city was still gray and life was still hard. Her mother wanted her to study till end and to be a teacher but she had no idea of meaning of being a teacher. She screamed, yelled, run and played! When she was 10 years old, the glasses must have been changed. Her father got permisson from his job for one morning and took her to the same hospital. Doctor was not the same but the new glasses were exactly same as the older ones with a difference of size. She wanted to say that she wants to have blue frames but she was afraid that her father could be upset since blue frames might cost extra money. She did not say anything and got back home with same large-black frame. Nobody realized that she changed her glasses. Nobody realized that she was growing…
Years passed quickly and she finished high school. After getting her high school diploma, she went to show it to her father. Her eye glasses were the symbol of her success! She never fell in love! She was never loved by a boy in her school! The black frame was protecting her as if thick walls of a castle protect the civilians from enemy attacks. No rose could have passed her black walls! No beautiful eyes took a taste in looking deep into her eyes which are hiding large thick lenses… Social Security Fund was really successful in securing the beauty of her eyes from the young boys’ demandful stares…
She begged her father to work in a pharmacy shop near her school during summer break. The only thing she wanted to buy new glasses –not from social security fund- with her own money. Her father hesitated first and later did not think much as if worrying more made him upset somehow. He said yes then she was here! After working three months with a pharmacist in a shop she saved enough money to buy her eye-glasses herself.
She was sitting on a nice cloth covered chair in an air-conditioned room, waiting for the patient to leave the room. The walls painted blue and the table of the secretary was covered by a light green fabric. The room smelled fresh flowers although she could not figure out where it comes from. She looked around to find some flowers but she could not see a single one except the plastic flowers on the little table beside her chair. She leaned forward to smell it but later she gave up as if she did not want to be ridiculed by the secretary. Because of her old fashioned, large eye-glasses, the secretary might think that she is blind or almost blind. She tried to read the magazines which are put beside the flower. She read a few stories in the magazines but felt bored soon. She did not know that it was not the stories bore her! She continued waiting until the door opened and the doctor came out with a smiling face. He was wearing glasses as well but there was no frame. “He was looking at the world without a frame in front of his eyes” she told to herself with a startling expression on her face.
After five minutes of controlling her eyes, doctor offered her the number of the lenses which she has to use. She also learnt that her two eyes do not have same problems. For the last ten years, the glasses treated her eyes equally and according to doctor this made her eyes worse. However, there was still a remarkable difference between them. Doctor chose two different lenses from the glass cage and told her to hold them in front of her eyes. “This one is for left eye and this one for your right eye” he said. She did as she has been told.
The first thing she has seen was doctor’s deep green eyes. She was shocked! She thought a green like this was non-existent to her before. With two lenses in her both hands, holding in front of her eyes, she moved slowly to window. There was a part of the sea, very far but still bright. It looked like a living animal, somehow moving toward herself, getting bigger and more vivid. “Sea is living!” she thought. She looked at the trees, birds, sky and the people walking on the road. Everything seems new to her as if she was blind before and looking at the things one by one to learn their true colors. She did not know what to say to doctor so she waited the doctor to start the conversation. She smiled with a feeling of she looks more beautiful than ever with these two pieces of lenses in her hands. Doctor turned to her and asked the lenses! “Do you see the things clearly?” She did not know how to answer since the word “clearly” became ambigious. If these colors are real, then what were the colors she used to see for last 10 years? She barely said “yes”. Doctor said, “ok then” and added with a hesitation for breaking her ambition “Leave them here and choose a frame for your glasses”.
“Is it possible to get the glasses today?” she asked slowly without any confidence in her voice. Doctor was aware of her joy, took the lenses from her hands and said “yes, if you can wait for two hours, I can ask the technician to do it now”. She smiled and said “I will”
After choosing a small, transparent frame for her glasses, she sat on the same chair, closed her eyes for two hours, and dreamed the old days with the new colors she has just seen… The azure of the sea was not leaving her mind. The trees outside was waiting for her. The room smelled much stronger now. The voices around her were clearer. She felt like she exists more than ever without knowing what this feeling really means to her. She never opened her eyes until her new glasses arrived.
Ali Riza ARICAN / 18TH April 2006
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