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22 Ekim 2006

Letters from Vietnam 39

22 October 2006 – 21:02 – HCMC

This is the end of weekend or beginning of next week. I have no idea what I have done for last two days. Yesterday morning, I wrote a page and left home to walk around the city. I went to some bookstores to find some second hand books. Of course the one with the most books is n Pahm Ngu Lao road. I bought Sartre’s “The Nausea” and a book on Jung’s psychology. In the afternoon, I went to Mexican Restaurant. It is a nice place with a beautiful music but the constant intrusion of local sellers makes it a little bit less charming. I sat there and read David Park’s novel. Then I came back to write more. I was tired of walking but still could not sleep until 3 am. I watched football matches of two British teams and I chatted with an old student for more than an hour. The more I chat with him, the more I felt guilty of wasting time.


Today was a little bit different… I woke up around 9 am, had some breakfast and sleep again until 2 pm. Because there was a dinner at the hotel with a few teachers from the school, I have cancelled my plans of playing Frisbee…. Instead of Frisbee, I went to gym to work out.


Ohhh, I feel so sleepy now… I want to write a few things but they are not so important… I will get back to writing soon… Tomorrow evening I hope…

Now, I am going to bed now to have a long sleep…

Here is the beginning of the story I started to write yesterday. I don't know when I will finish it. I don't even know whether I will finish it or not. It looks ok to me by this way although it can not be considered as a story...

The Mousetrap

I woke up with a confused mind this morning. That was just a dream but I could not decide whether it was a drama or a comedy! I was driving a red Ferrari in an unknown place. At the beginning I felt the happiness of driving a luxury car but soon after this fake gladness, I fell into the guilt of a thief or a betrayer! Something was wrong! The girl sitting beside me was neither my wife nor someone I knew. Then something terrible happened. The steering wheel of the car broke off and I was in the middle of the road without any control on the car. The steering wheel was in my hands without any connection to the car’s body. It was funny if I had been a cartoon character. I threw the steering wheel out of he car and tried to control the car without thinking about decreasing the speed. Somehow I managed driving but soon I realized that I could not be able to stop the car by pressing the pedals. The guilt inside me grew larger and larger as if it wants to swallow me while I was busy with the car’s problem. There was no way to stop it and the girl beside me seemed untroubled with the problem. “Who was she? I asked myself after waking up. A lady with large sparkling eyes unlike the small unsown slits of those who come from her ancestors’ country! I knew where she was from! I knew the odour of her breath! I knew the smoothness of her skin without touching her neither in dream nor in real… However, it was still scary to be with her.

I started to interpret this dream even before I woke up. I don’t know how and during what portion of my sleep but I remember the thoughts passed through my mind. Am I losing the control of my life with a single look of a woman? Her presence beside me and her calm reaction to the occasion made me think that she enjoyed the whole occasion somehow. While I was bewildered with the lack of control, she was happy with sitting beside me as if the only thing she wanted to achieve in her life was to sit there beside me and smile.

All my day passed with the thoughts about this dream. Wherever I looked in the room, I saw her face. I tried to forget but the more I tried the more it sticked to my mind like overly chewed gum in the hands of a little girl. I remembered the first day I saw her! The first encounter, the first smile and the first words to be exchanged! Her eyes were trying to escape from direct contact as if eyes are the first witnesses of passionate loves; her hands were holding each other as if they are protecting themselves from my hands. I thought melodramatic fantasies in which she was a victim and I was a hero. The wrong thing about these fantasies was the laughter escorting it at all the time as if she was watching and recording the scenes of my mind with an illegal camera. In fact, there was something illicit about her, something incoherent, and something threatening!

While crossing the street, I, unintentionally, behaved like her husband and she briefly dismissed my attempt of protecting her by keeping her at my left side while cars were coming from right side. Similar thing happened in the bus too. I was leaving her the windowside like good husbands do but she looked at my face and forced me to sit on the windowside. I felt embarrassed with her independence or at least beingindependent from myself.

When she said that she has been married for four years I felt happy but later the similar guilt settled on my soul again. I questioned my happiness! Did I feel it in a way I should have as a friend or a co-worker? I doubted it. It was more or less the possibility of sharing a sin! Unfortunately, the possibility of sharing something unethical made me feel better since I would be able to confront myself with claiming half of the responsibility if it really occurs. The shame of provocative thoughts held me in the air for a while as if I am the hat of a guest waiting for being hanged to the nail on the wall. The fire of passion surrendered my mind in a way I could not think logically any more. It was a fire and like all the fires I decided to wait for the end so that I can discover the cause of it. But what if it never extinguishes? What if it burns and destroys everything I have before it stops. I felt like a helpless mouse in front of a trap. I am in front of it and I knew what will happen if I take my next step. I knew it clearly by observation but I still attempt to put my foot in the trap and get caught by the enormous pain of self-infliction. The piece of cheese was not the thing which can be held responsible for all this. It was never-ending hunger inside me…

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