He was either a truly outstanding fool, or far too optimistic for his age—though he could never quite admit that to himself. Even if we were to claim that the two are one and the same, no significant objection would arise from the majority of people. Trusting in good weather is like trusting every handsome man who crosses your path. Women know this best. Especially in a city like Ç, where the sun shows its face only in exchange for a bribe, anyone would be taken aback by such recklessness.
He was foolish, optimistic, got along with everyone and everything; he had no enemies, but he also had no friends. Above all, he was young, callow, inexperienced. If he hadn't been, why would he have dashed out into the street the moment the sun so much as winked at him? Didn't he know that black clouds were lining up at the city's gate? He knew, but did he simply not care? Perhaps it was the days of being cooped up at home, head buried in books, that had stretched the spring inside him to its breaking point. After all, the more you compress a spring, the higher it leaps—and always at the most unexpected moment, hurting the most indifferent souls.
He had brought neither an umbrella to shield his head nor a raincoat to keep his body warm and dry. A thin, sea-blue shirt, unpressed trousers—both wrinkled. The ease of being a student flowed from every pore. No matter how indifferent he seemed, everyone in this city would help a student in trouble. Maybe hoping they'd be repaid someday, maybe falling victim to a momentary thoughtlessness.
Once he had thrown himself out onto the streets, the parks, the crowded pavements, there was no going back to the dark solitude he'd left behind. At least until evening, he wanted to breathe in the cheerful air he could never quite bring into his home. He had flowed through the streets like oil—talked to strangers, tossed coins to beggars, patted children on the head, flashed smiles at girls his age that promised nothing, and spent the evening with a heartache born of losing the sun's trace on his skin. He had wandered far from home, to the other side of the city, but that was no problem—there were buses until late at night, after all. As the day was turning to dusk, he stepped into a shop to buy some water—and there he ran into a distant relative he had met years ago at a family gathering (a funeral, he thought, though he wasn't sure!) and never seen since. If not for that chance meeting, he would have gone home that evening just like any other, slipped under his thin quilt, and fallen asleep reading a book.
They first spoke of relatives who had died years ago—this man had married the stepdaughter of his mother's uncle. He was older, so the young man called him "uncle." Pressed with warm water, he took it reluctantly. As his fingertips softened in the warmth of the glass, he wondered whether this reluctant acceptance meant he would stay long. When he could have just said, "No, thank you. I really have to go now"... The steam of the water brushed his nose, and he silently cursed himself—his greatest hatred was reserved for the hesitations that endlessly dragged him into dead ends. He should act naturally, yes! He shouldn't overthink things; he should ignore the details that no one else even noticed. Peace lay in neglect—he knew that, but he couldn't put this sharp principle into practice.
They sat across from each other on the stools by the shop's front window and began to talk like two close friends. First, they discussed the weather—how in cities other than Ç, the sun was brighter, the rain more measured, the wind more satisfying, the sky bluer. Everyone knew this, and no one would claim otherwise. The young man called the sullen face of Ç's sky "the city's hazy blue." He had grown used to the pale colors he saw every day, so he rarely thought of the brighter, cleaner, wilder blues said to exist in other lands.
To anyone who came to Ç later, it wasn't a city to live in—just a place to wander for half a day and leave behind. After all, he had come here for university, from a southern city where sea, sand, and sun were never absent for 365 days of the year. "Missing things is good," he had said when he first arrived in Ç. "If I stay away, I'll appreciate it more." Yet by the time he realized that what he truly missed was not the sunny city he had left behind, but the version of himself who had been happy living under that bright dome, it was already too late. Missing someone is really missing yourself. When a person longs for a beloved, aren't they really longing not for the beloved's presence, but for the moment of happiness and satisfaction they felt beside them? He had called this the most selfish side of longing—the most wretched and truest face we refuse to acknowledge.
After listing all the negative aspects of the city they lived in—the usual complaints everyone knew—the conversation turned to his mother and father, who had died seven years ago. Then he had to listen to the uncle's grievances about his children's school situation. The older daughter was in her final year but still couldn't quite grasp that she needed to prepare for exams. The younger son saw his sister wasting time on the internet, in front of the TV, on the phone—so of course he wouldn't study; he had started wasting his time just like her. The mother was uneducated anyway—she figured the girl would finish high school, then they'd find a suitable candidate and marry her off within a few years. The house needed grandchildren; the rest was detail.
The conversation stretched on and on. At one point they counted the university graduates in the family. Dozens of relatives whose names he'd never even heard emerged, scattered across the country. His father's uncle's grandchildren were studying in A, and his mother's other uncle's grandchild was in the capital, P, this year. He was hungry too, but he couldn't bring himself to say so—whether out of shyness or because he believed he ought to be shy, he kept his silence.
When an elderly customer entered the shop, the uncle got up from his seat and went behind the counter. The young man took the opportunity to gather himself slightly—he picked his bag up from the floor and set it on his lap, straightened his back, and went on alert like a soldier ready to stand at any moment. As soon as the uncle came back, he would say, "I should be going now, it's getting late." Or should he say, "Thanks for everything, I really must go"? Maybe the best thing was to say plainly, "I'm heading out, Uncle—see you later." He thought of other alternatives, added words, removed words, switched subjects and predicates, added adverbs, simplified. He just couldn't decide what to say and what not to say. It was the first time he had realized that what you don't say can be just as valuable as what you do.
At one point, he and the uncle made eye contact. He didn't know about his own eyes, but the uncle's were clear as glass—as if there was no secret behind them, like an open chest. He was a silent guard trying to contain the chaos inside him, facing an older relative who could say whatever came to mind without weighing it once. Could they ever meet in the middle? Perhaps the uncle's way was the right one. The more he thought, the more his sentences fell apart; the more he weighed and measured, the more the pleasure of conversation tumbled upside down. The best thing was to speak as it came, bluntly and openly. You had to tear out whatever had built up inside, without accounting for past or future.
"Don't go now—look, it's started raining," the uncle said from behind the counter, gesturing toward the window with his eyes. The young man looked outside. Raindrops struck the glass and slid down like thin centipedes. Why hadn't he noticed it before? He could have sensed the rain approaching just as well as taxi drivers or street vendors. The frequency of the drops was clearly increasing by the second. "Damn," he thought, "now I have to drop everything and keep up this pointless chat!" He got up from his seat and walked toward the door. For a while he watched the raindrops scattering like grains of wheat thrown across a field, under the light of the streetlamp at the head of the avenue. "If I walk even a minute in this rain, I'll be soaked to my underwear," he thought.
How beautifully the wet asphalt gleamed in the rain! The water splashed up by cars passing slowly struck the pavement stones like waves battering the shore. The headlights seemed to make the rain worse—under the light, the drops grew larger, becoming heralds of an unstoppable flood. Yet in the darkness, neither rain nor wind was visible! It was light that showed the young man what to fear, that revealed the object of terror. So should he thank the light? Or should he direct all his disappointment toward the light? He closed the door and went back into the shop.
"I might as well stay a little longer," he said in a hesitant voice, but as soon as he said it, his mind caught on the word "might." He had been rude, unjust, presumptuous for no reason—and now he couldn't take it back. Hoping no one had noticed his faux pas, he sat back down on the same stool. The uncle smiled. "Stay, of course—we still have plenty to talk about. Besides, your aunt will call us to dinner soon, and we'll go upstairs together. You'll meet the kids. The older girl should get to know you, take you as an example—she can say she has a big brother in university. Maybe seeing you will shame her into studying."
When they went upstairs, he found less than he had hoped for, or maybe more—a deep pity settled into him, of the heaviest kind. Should people who had lived in this city for years, given their labor to it, been nourished by it and nourished it in return—should they have to live in such a shabby place? The girl had retreated to her corner, endlessly playing with her phone. The boy was waiting for his sister to finish with the phone. Clearly, his turn at the game was next, and he had no intention of giving up. The uncle's wife was nowhere in sight, but clattering sounds came from outside the room. "Dinner will be ready soon," the uncle said in a fatherly tone, showing the young man where to sit. Then he turned to his daughter and called out, "Daughter, what are you standing there for? Say welcome to our guest!"
The girl came forward with her face down, in small steps. "Welcome!" she said in a barely audible voice. As soon as she said it, she turned right back around and sat down in the same spot. She hadn't even looked at the young man's face—but he, taking advantage of her shyness, had studied her face like a textbook in that brief moment. She had a long, beautiful face, a pointed chin, a broad forehead, long hair, and a modest nose... Everything was in its place, like those short equations that emerge at the end of a complex process—both admirable and doubt-inspiring. The freshness radiating from her fiery red cheeks reminded the young man of fireworks that light up dark nights with colorful bursts. Her eyes were on the ground, but it was clear from the curiosity spilling at the edges that she was sizing him up. Either she couldn't hide the need for attention gathering in her gaze, or she wanted to reveal everything to a man she was seeing for the first time. Had he read somewhere, or overheard friends talking in the university cafeteria, that women have no limits when it comes to revealing their secrets to unfamiliar men? Was this weakness, or revenge against those they knew—the eyes that measured, judged, and found fault every time?
With these thoughts, the young man turned his face to the window. The rain continued with full force. In fact, the drops striking the ground now pained him more than when he had first seen them. The presence of a beautiful girl within reach would surely change the young man's perception of the world. The rain was no longer the same rain, nor the city the same city. As if a wild horse had swallowed all its vitality and resilience. At the center of his heart was a black stallion—thrashing, stomping, kicking! The rain was no longer falling outside but inside—a dam he had never even noticed was filling slowly. Water was flowing, carving its own bed.
Dinner was noisy. The children kept complaining about each other. The sister complained about the little brother, the little brother about his sister, and their father was dissatisfied with both. The mother showed her displeasure through her silence. As if she were the mother of the wrong children, the wife of the wrong man, the female bird of the wrong nest... She seemed to want to become the steam of the soup, to escape, to be free. The young man hadn't missed the smoke-laden thoughts in his aunt's mind. He knew this best from himself—a devotee of escape. Going far away, never returning—wasn't that what everyone wanted but no one could do? If only he could believe he could become someone different wherever he went, he would surely slam the door and leave whenever the whim struck. Yet wouldn't he become the victim of the same passions, the same choices, the same searches at his destination? It wasn't going that was hard—it was changing. People too lazy to change took the easy way and focused on leaving, linking their inability to change to their inability to leave, thus avoiding responsibility. After all, man tries most to escape from being human, even if he puts a thousand screens between himself and that realization. And because he can't escape, he spends his life cursing those screens—the excuses he himself created, and the life those excuses nullified. If this weren't true, why would the dreams of everyone who wants to escape be filled not with other places, but with deserted islands, dim forests, mountain-top houses?
After dinner, the young man watched the rain for a while longer. At this rate, it showed no sign of stopping. It hadn't even slowed down, let alone stopped. He fell silent like a commander accepting defeat, as if he had lost his right to demand and object. The rain had taken him captive at the most unexpected moment, in the most unexpected house. He helped the uncle's younger son with his homework for about an hour. He found the mistakes in the test that the older daughter had started a week ago and abandoned out of boredom, and wrote the correct answers in the blanks. No matter how much her father insisted, the girl wouldn't go to work with the young man. From where she sat, she continued to watch the stranger in the house with furtive glances.
When bedtime came, there was no trouble. The house had two rooms. In one slept the uncle and his wife, in the other the children. The young man was left with the long sofa bed in the living room, no questions asked. The night would pass like an endless, boring film—that was clear from the start. The rain, whose patter never ceased, was like an executioner reminding its prisoner of its presence every second. "I threw you here, I cornered you here. You can't go anywhere," it said. The young man had no answer to the rain's threats. He waited a long time for sleep to descend upon him like a thick blanket.
At one point, he imagined a long, endless train moving through tracks covered in snow as far as the eye could see. He thought about how the train was a prisoner of the tracks, but he didn't dwell on that detail. What mattered was moving forward—even if he couldn't leave the tracks, he had to go; as long as he moved, he would exist. He drove the train along curves; it passed through snow-covered trees, waved at deer searching for food on the slopes, blew its whistle for village children playing ball in the distance. He continued on his way until daylight seeped through his closed eyelids and woke his weary mind.
There was light, but no sun. The living room was covered in dim illumination. The young man lay on his back for a while, thinking about where he was and how he had come here. Clouds had taken over his mind. He had just noticed the shiny stars pasted on the ceiling. "So in houses where children grow up, there are always stars," he said to himself. There was no sound of rain from outside. Since no sound came from the other rooms, everyone must still be asleep. Slowly he sat up, careful not to make noise, and stood. He wanted to run out of the house, to leave without looking back and never return. He had no intention of thanking anyone nor the luxury of wasting time with the optimism of "I'll drop by again sometime." He would take advantage of the rain's momentary pause and not forgive its weakness. He would run to the bus stop, then take the first bus to the city center. Then he'd need another bus to get home, but that part was easy—nearly half the buses departing from the city center passed near his house.
With soft steps, he approached the door, slid the bolt, and descended the stairs like a cat. The shop was just as they'd left it the day before. Touching nothing, careful not to bump into anything, he headed for the door and turned the key in the lock. As long as the key was in the lock, the door couldn't be opened from outside. Once he pulled the door shut behind him, he would be free of all his responsibilities. How humiliating it was to be a reluctant guest. To feel gratitude toward someone, to be crushed under the weight of a favor, to bend double with thanks and wary eyes... He had never liked such things. He had learned to be self-sufficient, to live without needing anyone, to stand on one foot if necessary, ever since the day he lost his parents. At this age, it was impossible for him to change. He pressed the door handle with his hand and leaned his shoulder against the door. The cool air hitting his face through the open door immediately halted the internal reckoning in his mind. He quietly closed the door. He was outside now.
The cold raindrops falling on his face and hands didn't frighten him. Though he tried to walk without splashing water on himself, he couldn't manage it. He thought if he ran to the bus stop, he'd get less wet. He quickened his pace. As he sped up, the rain seemed to intensify. His blue shirt was already soaking wet; the cold water was biting his body, the wet shirt sticking to his skin like a second layer. Running along building edges and under eaves didn't help either, because almost none of the buildings had proper downspouts from the roof to the road. So the drops at the roadside were larger and flowed faster than those falling from the sky. Besides, there was no one on the road—if there had been, he might have slipped under someone's umbrella and gone as far as he could. The rain seemed to have swept away not just the dust and dirt, but all of the city's people too.
When he turned onto the street leading to the bus stop, the rain had intensified so much that there was no visible difference between being newly wet and being soaked through. He was at least as wet as the stone he saw on the pavement, which had been under the rain since last night. He could feel his socks moving inside his shoes, cold water running down his groin, and the droplets collecting at the tips of his wet lashes creating a jar-bottom effect in front of his eyes. When he reached the stop, he was still hopeful. Soon a bus would come, pick him up, and take him to the city center. At least inside the bus he would escape the rain's sharp teeth.
The bus didn't come. The young man waited at the stop for over half an hour, but during that time, not a single car passed by on the road, let alone a bus. He wasn't afraid of the rain he was taking, the wind that occasionally blew and struck his chest, or the roaring sky—but standing stupidly by the roadside without going anywhere, getting wetter by the minute, had disturbed his young soul, which knew nothing of serenity. Either he would swallow his pride and return to the uncle's shop, or he would stubbornly walk all the way to his own house. Walking dozens of kilometers in this rain was certainly not wise, but going back was no good either. As he wavered between two minds, he noticed the uncle appearing beside him with a huge umbrella. Where had he come from, how had he found him, why had he bothered? He couldn't ask any of these questions.
"Come, let's go back to our place. In this rain, neither buses nor the metro run. You can dry off at home, have some hot soup, and then we'll figure something out," he said with a fatherly face. There was no anger on his face, nor the disappointment of betrayal. Perhaps he was used to the callous and impatient attitudes of young people. Was his high tolerance because he too had once been young? Or was this what it meant to be a father? The young man didn't bother seeking answers—he wasn't in a position to make choices anyway.
They huddled under the umbrella and returned together. They didn't speak at all along the way. The sound of the rain, tearing at the asphalt, covered everything, almost forbidding the thought and speech of anything other than itself. When they arrived home, the young man took a hot shower, put on the uncle's dry clothes, drank two bowls of hot soup—but still couldn't escape the cold that had seeped into his bones. First his fever rose, then came a cough he couldn't shake from his chest. His throat began to burn, his eyes ached, and all the muscles in his arms and legs started to throb. Afterwards, he remembered only lying down on the sofa to rest a little.
He lay on the living room sofa for days. When his fever dropped, his cough worsened; when his cough subsided, his throat hurt. It took nine days for him to recover. For nine days, he carried regret and shyness within him. He had unnecessarily burdened strangers, entered their lives for no reason. Having entered and not been able to leave, he silently pulled the flag of rebellion over his own face. During the sick nights, he had countless nightmares he couldn't remember. Sometimes he sailed on sailboats across stormy seas, sometimes he walked naked through the city streets. Neither the fear of stormy seas nor the shame of women's reproachful glances bothered him as much as lying sick in a stranger's house. He wanted what he was going through to end not while sleeping, but while awake.
Occasionally he saw the uncle's daughter come to his bedside and wipe the sweat from his forehead, but neither during the illness nor after his recovery could he find out whether this was real. Even if it was real, the thought didn't bother him much. So much so that his own lack of discomfort surprised him. Perhaps the girl's closeness was the only pain worth enduring, no matter the cost. If he was truly a prisoner locked in this house, then the interest he felt for the girl inside was the only medicine that could keep him alive. When trees dry up, they don't bear fruit—but humans are the opposite; they wither if they don't bear fruit. In fact, even the mere idea of fruit was enough to keep a person alive. As long as the fruit in one's imagination was worth living for. This is what the young man knew and believed.
When, after nine days, he believed he was fully recovered, he got up from his bed and thought to look outside the window. "Surely it has stopped by now," he said to himself. "It can't rain nonstop forever! Even the Amazon forests don't get such continuous rain for this long." When he approached the window and pulled back the curtain with his weak hand, he couldn't believe the scene before him at first. Was he dreaming? Was this one of the nightmares he'd had while sick? No; he had gotten out of bed, was standing by the window, the usual shouting sounds came from the children's room, and the living room smelled of medicine and moisture. Outside there was a morning leftover from night, neither comforting in its presence nor despairing in its absence. So many details couldn't come together in a dream. At least none of the dreams the young man had ever seen were so rich in detail—his dreams were more like momentary emotional discharges sensed in a blur. Either there was a sea inside them, or a shameful nakedness. In that case, who could explain what he was seeing?
"It's been raining nonstop since you got sick, my boy. Everywhere is flooded. We send the children by boat to the head of the street."
The young man had only just noticed his aunt appearing beside him. Like a ghost, she had come without touching the ground, covering the distance between the kitchen and the window. Her face bore an autumn that had shed all its green leaves; a deep melancholy reminiscent of a long, trying day had taken over every line of her features.
"Thank goodness you're awake, my boy. You've finally beaten the cold. The rain hasn't stopped at all—it rained so hard that sometimes we couldn't tell if it was falling from above or rising from below. One day it rained in lines, one day in torrents. One day it rained as if it weren't raining, another day as if saying, 'The earth belongs to me, just like the sky.' For the last four days, floods have appeared. The drains overflowed, the streets filled with water. Luckily, our house is on the second floor; we stayed dry, but the shop can't be entered anymore. Your uncle goes down occasionally for food and such. But he hasn't got the strength in his arms—he brings supplies, but when it comes to taking the children by boat to the head of the street, he gets scared. At the head of the street, the water reaches waist level, and a tractor picks up the children. We've been asking the neighbors for help for days. This morning, please take them yourself, so we don't have to keep troubling the neighbors."
The young man knew he couldn't say no to such a request. But he wouldn't say yes either. He wasn't bold enough to say yes—he had never felt like a leader; he preferred to follow from behind, from the edge, along paths already traveled. He would simply do what was needed. If he didn't help the family that had been caring for him all this time, he would be committing a great wrong. It wasn't the wrong itself that mattered—it was them saying "he was very rude," or even if they didn't say it, thinking it in their hearts. Besides, at a time like this, playing the victim was meaningless. This was a time not for talk, but for action. Even if it didn't suit him, he had to get used to it.
He went downstairs and looked into the shop. The water level was nearly as high as he was tall. From the top of the stairs, neither the counter nor the door handle was visible. On the steps, piled-up items rescued from the flood left only a single-person path. The shop seemed to have shrunk, become miniature. "The water's drawn back," he thought, chuckling lightly at his own joke. Only the debris floating on the dirty water retained traces of its former state.
When he went back upstairs, he found the little boy waiting with his schoolbag, ready. The older girl was just coming out of the room with a red comb in her hand. "Come on, young ones, let's go," he called to them both. That way, he had a reason not to treat the girl like a child. They were young people, not children; and he was a young man himself. If the boy tried to act like a sullen adolescent, he would say, "You're a grown man now—act like your sister."
The young man pulled the oars slowly. The little boy held the umbrella. The girl, to avoid getting wet, had no choice but to press close to them. The rain was light, but one shouldn't be fooled by its lightness. The young man was doing one of the most natural things in the world—rowing down the very street he had walked ten days earlier. It was like taking a leisurely trip on a calm lake after the rain. He realized that the feeling of ordinariness was triggered by the sight of people up and down the street rowing boats, but still, it wasn't easy to accept. The street's residents sat on inflatable pools, old sofas, and burst tires they'd thrown in front of their houses, chatting with neighbors. Had they gotten used to the water's presence, or were they trying to make the best of it, saying there was no point mourning defeat? Under the muddy water turning a naphtha green here and there, the street they knew was still there—the earth wasn't going anywhere, the rest didn't matter. One day would come when the waters would recede, and the street would be theirs again. The antennas of submerged cars gave him some guidance on where to steer and where not to. With this much water, he thought, the metro must certainly be closed.
When they reached the head of the street and put the children onto the tractor waiting there, he turned back. At a time like this, he couldn't abandon this family. "The best thing is to fix what's broken in the house, clean the shop, thank the family that's been looking after me all this time, and then leave," he said to himself. He felt proud of himself for a moment—proud to be someone who had made a decision worthy of pride.
When he returned home, the sheer number of tasks made him reconsider his decision, but it was too late to back out. First he cleaned the stairs, then carried up the remaining dry goods from the shop's windows and cabinets. He piled the items that weren't completely soaked against the wall of the upstairs balcony to dry. In the afternoon, despite the rain picking up again, he went back and forth in the boat, buying the food the household needed. Toward evening, he went again to the head of the street and brought home the little boy and the older girl returning from school. The day had passed quickly—he hadn't even noticed. Maybe he could go home tomorrow. At dinner, he said to the uncle sitting next to him, "If nothing goes wrong tomorrow, I suppose I'll go back home. Thank you so much for taking care of me all this time." But for some reason, he got no response from either the uncle or his aunt. If only they had said something like "Of course, my boy, off you go"—at least he would have felt better. But this reticent silence ruined his spirits. Was there something everyone knew that he didn't? After dinner, he first helped the little boy with his homework, then the older girl with her term project. They worked late into the night—sometimes he was the teacher correcting her mistakes, sometimes the brother teasing her about her errors. The old shyness had given way to a friendly relationship. Even the young man was surprised at how open he could be, how easily he could talk to the girl.
The next day began with rain again. Whoever opened the window was met by a scowling sky. The children couldn't go to school because of the waves caused by rain and wind. "You can't go out in this weather," the uncle said when he saw the young man getting ready. More than a shopkeeper running a store in the city's outskirts, he had the air of a fisherman who had spent his life at sea. "Don't go out in this weather—the waves will swallow you..." Another whole day would be spent at home. The young man spent the day repairing the broken items he'd brought up from the shop. He spent a long time dismantling the planks swollen from soaking up water. The young girl, curled up in her corner, watched him. She observed his sensitive face shifting through colors like a detective following a thief, recording every move—smiling when he got angry and threw materials on the floor, resenting it when he whistled as he worked.
When the young man took a break to rest, he turned on the TV to check on the city's situation, but no channel had any coverage of the flood. All the images showed other parts of the country, citizens continuing their usual happy lives under a brilliant sky. ÇTV was off the air. Either the TV building had been flooded, or the government had temporarily suspended the channel's operations so that the shameful images of the citizens' plight wouldn't cause unwanted consequences. "Considering that no other channel has even the slightest news about the flood, ÇTV being closed makes more sense," the young man thought once he realized the situation. After all, if it wasn't going to broadcast the biggest disaster in Ç's history, what was the point of ÇTV? Wasn't a ÇTV that didn't represent Ç a contradiction in itself? In that case, if it stayed on air and broadcast other news, wouldn't it become ridiculous in the eyes of the people living in Ç?
Abandoning TV for the radio, they encountered a similar situation. Only announcements that the city's largest university was closed due to bad weather, and that metro and bus lines weren't operating. Then they moved on to other news. The great actor K.T. had entered his third marriage, and President R had made his second visit. The famous basketball player Y.M. had met with his fans one last time before retiring, civilly distributing thousands of personally signed photos to young people standing in line...
The next day, the rain was drizzling, but it still wasn't safe to go out. At the cost of getting completely soaked, the young man took the children by boat to the head of the street and then returned home immediately. He no longer felt any longing for his own house, his own room. The relationship between him and his home was like a worn-out love—too respectful of memories to break, too lacking in interest to see each other often. Surely one day he would go home, but it didn't matter when that day was. He would go—that was the only thing he knew. The rest didn't matter.
In the following days, the young man became more involved with the girl's project. The project finished, and the exam preparation period began. Meanwhile, they grew warmer toward each other; the girl sent him signals, one contradicting the other, through subtle touches. One day her hand accidentally brushed his; another day her hair grazed his face. The young man might have been foolish when it came to trusting people, but when it came to girls, his mind worked differently—just like any other man. He could decipher the messages the girl was sending. Because he couldn't do anything about it, he was constantly on guard while inside the house. Sometimes he thought, "What if the uncle sees, what if the aunt notices; they're taking pity on me and hosting me, and I'm provoking their daughter who's at marriageable age. Does this suit me at all?" But other times he thought, "Isn't their presence the only reason I'm here? Just as I eat their food and drink their water, I should be able to use the house's resources for my other natural needs—like loving and being loved." With this nebulous state of mind, one day he would say to the girl, "Come here!" and for the next two days he'd say, "Don't come near me, it would be bad."
On one hand, the love he was growing in his heart; on the other, the house's endless chores... The young man had forgotten the fact that he had a home on the other side of the city. Sometimes two or three days would pass without his home, his room, or the desk he'd left behind even crossing his mind. On days like that, when his room suddenly came to mind and a longing filled his heart for no reason, he would try to calculate how many days it had been since he'd last thought of it. He felt a mature pride for the days he hadn't even brought his old life to mind—a justified confidence appeared in the center of his chest from being able to leave things behind.
He couldn't remember which movie it was, but the leading actress, with all her maternal warmth, said to her young son, "Beware of those who have no wounds." A person needed a wound to be human, to understand others, and to invite outside light into their body. Every person needed a wound that wouldn't heal, or if it healed, left a deep scar in the most invisible part of the skin, aching from time to time. Perhaps the life he had left behind was that very wound that would leave a mark on his soul—he should long for it, but also forget it just as much, cover it with cold ashes, and hide it from others.
Some days, after lunch with the uncle and aunt, he would sit by the window, watch the fine rain falling, imagine the sun above the pitch-black clouds, and try to bring to mind all the details of the life he'd left behind. His house, his room, the door, the doorknob, the bed, the bedspread, the desk, the desk lamp, the open textbook, the problem solutions written in the book, the lines of poetry scattered among them... But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't reach the desired result. All that appeared in his mind were blurry, silhouette-like images, like a person moving behind frosted glass. He could go neither forward nor backward from this point. Their relationship was like a finished love affair. Even if he gathered all his courage and tried to return, to be reunited with his house, his room, his desk after all this time—he knew very well that nothing would be the same as before. He would quickly get bored, feel stifled, sigh and puff, say "What did I even love about you, what did I miss?" and run away from his home.
Besides, he now had a home here too—one he cared for and that cared for him. There was also the girl, with whom he played hide-and-seek inside the house. The unnamed ball of affection between them was like an avalanche ready to fall. Once it fell, it would sweep away everything in its path—they both knew this. They just didn't dare to cause the first crack in the snow mass piled on the slopes.
One evening, in the twilight of a day when he missed his old life but didn't think of leaving, he kissed the girl on the lips for the first time. Schools had closed, vacation had just begun. The rain was falling crookedly outside. The young man sat by the window, quietly reading an old book he'd found in a forgotten corner of the house. He had noticed the girl approaching, but didn't want to show it. He liked giving people the message that he wasn't paying attention. Even though the girl had no interest in books, she asked questions about the author, made unnecessary comments, and pressed herself close to the young man. So close that her long black hair fell over the pages, slipping like a spy between the letters and words, filling the spaces on the page with messages written in a language only the young man could read. The scent of the girl's youthful skin made him forget the worry that there might be others in the house. Besides, the girl knew very well that her mother had gone to the neighbor's, and her father and brother were cleaning the shop downstairs. She had calculated everything before coming—she had no intention of leaving things to chance. Only after ensuring all conditions were met did she lay her head on the young man's shoulder, signaling that she was waiting to be kissed. And the young man could no longer hold back the waters of the dam he'd kept in his heart for months—he slowly opened the floodgates, releasing everything he had into the riverbed that had been dry for so long.
In the following days, their time was spent calculating the moments they could be alone in the house. Even in the time it took to smoke a cigarette, when the parents weren't home or had gone down to the shop, they found each other's arms, bodies bruised by the rain. This was a kind of revenge—against the needle-like rain, the black clouds that made the sky unbearable, the raging waters that condemned the streets to mud and flood; above all, against the fate that trapped the young man and the young girl in the house... Despite all the adversity, they seized every opportunity, finding each other's lips like a blind person searching for raised markings on the ground. This was nothing more than a small candle to offer to such a dark life. In a place where the sun was hidden behind layered clouds, where rain like thorns tore out the city's lungs, what else could a person cling to but love?
Whether what was happening between them was love or simply two wretched people falling from a cliff holding hands before hitting the ground—neither of them knew. The only thing they knew was their need for each other's flesh. It was flesh—it drew the other in, then sucked, swallowed, destroyed everything impure in the world. It colored their souls, weary from carrying rain and clouds, with the reddest of reds and the whitest of whites. However, an accident in the third month of the young man's stay was enough to fade all the colors in the picture.
The uncle and aunt had taken advantage of the relatively good weather that morning—now classified as "little rain" spring, "too much rain" autumn, or "crazy rain" winter—and gone to the tailor at the head of the street. The aunt was having a dress made, one with flowers and ladybugs on it. She had wanted the uncle to see it, approve it, at the very least like it. Shortly after they left, the rain began to fall—not like pouring from a bucket, but as if every cauldron in the sky had been overturned. The downpour was so intense that the drops seemed to merge in the air and fall to the ground in masses. The street was suddenly captive to the flood; the shop, newly repaired and cleaned, began taking on water like a sinking ship. The young man and the little boy went downstairs and tried with all their might to block the holes and prevent water from entering, but they couldn't. Within five minutes, the water level reached their knees. The young man, in a state of accepted defeat, went back upstairs while the little boy, with childish stubbornness, continued plugging the holes. He had only reached the middle of the stairs when there was an explosion at the point where the boy had covered the holes with his hands and arms. An explosion, followed by a thin scream, echoed through the shop's walls, making the young man fix his terrified eyes on the little boy. The child had fallen into the water right there, face down on the surface. The young man ran immediately to save him—but the electricity in the water prevented him from reaching the child. Then he understood the gravity of the situation.
By the time they cut the power and reached the child, it was too late. His heart had stopped, his body was ice-cold; the child in his spirit had merged with the water, had become the water itself. For days, tears flowed in the house; like spring waters too much for the gutters, drops overflowed through the nights, laments were sung, mourning clothes were worn. One way or another, the rain had finally entered the house, rotting not just its walls and doors but its very soul.
After the child died before his eyes—a child entrusted to his responsibility—the young man resolved to leave. Once the mourning period was over, once the waters calmed a little, once the rain lessened even a bit, he would escape from this ill-fated house. True, he had brought the ill luck himself, but for some reason no one suspected him. The hearse that came to take the little boy couldn't enter the street. The boatmen were asked, but they didn't want to risk carrying a coffin in days when waves were pounding and eroding the building fronts. Finally, they drilled through the concrete of the courtyard behind the house and buried the child's tiny body there. This was better than letting it rot inside the house. Besides, for a mother who had lost her son at such a young age, having the grave so close was a comfort. Every day, the mother went out with a large parasol and wept for hours at the graveside—each day searing the young man's heart from a different point, as he woke with the intention of "going home this morning."
After the child's death, the girl had not come close to the young man even once. They only caressed each other's hair with their eyes, unable to embrace and weep together because of the greatest loss. It wasn't their mourning that caused this distance. At a time when everyone was seeking consolation in other family members' arms, the young girl was mostly at her mother's side. The father, like the young man, had taken to sitting by the window, waiting for the rain to stop. Whenever the image of his little son, the days they'd run through meadows and grass in sunny weather, came to mind, he felt the rain seeping through the window, piercing his chest, flowing inward—but he still didn't show his sorrow. His wife was already devastated by grief; if he also lost himself, the household balance would be upset beyond repair. The young man had joined this family tragedy from the outside—an ineffective element whose presence or absence went unnoticed. He didn't mind this, but a voice inside him whispered that his now thoroughly internalized guest status wouldn't last much longer.
One evening during dinner, taking advantage of the girl being in her room, the aunt finally spoke. Even the walls seemed to have forgotten her voice, let alone the household. Her voice was so foreign, as if torn from another life entirely. "I think you should get married," she said. "You love each other, you know. The girl's not going to university, and you're not leaving this house either. Let's marry you off—would that be so bad? You'd become this house's son, take care of the shop, handle the errands. You'd be our son. What do you say, huh? We could even have a small ceremony."
The young man didn't know what to say in response to the aunt's proposal. The food stuck in his throat; everything he'd eaten lined up one after another. So they had known all along—so just as he and the girl had hidden their love, the elders of the house could also hide things from them. He remained silent for a while, deciding on an instinct to act as if he knew that they knew. He looked at the uncle—or pretended to. There was no sign of the rain stopping outside, and even if it did, he had no intention of going anywhere. A house he had stumbled upon by chance had become the house that would determine his future—this surprised him most of all. The apartment he'd left behind three months ago, the open book on his desk in that apartment, had all become faded memories. The rain had swept away even the details that had fled to the deepest corners of his mind. Now it was time to look forward, to live knowing there was no turning back.
Two weeks later, when they held a wedding ceremony inside the house, the young man was happy. Despite the rain pattering outside, despite the constant presence of the little brother's ghostly memories, despite the grief that would never fully leave the house, despite the young girl crying for her lost brother—he was happy. The neighbors may have found it difficult to adapt from a house of mourning to a house of celebration, but the strangeness of the young couple using the room the girl had shared with her brother until a few months ago as their bridal chamber couldn't be ignored.
That night, the hours passed long for both of them. The night expanded, engulfing all past and future, covering the young couple like a silk blanket. No one could harm them now, no one could touch their fragile bodies, no one could cast an evil eye on the fire burning on their skin, no one could rule over their small enchanted garden. Not even the rain—which had been falling relentlessly for months, at times taking lives and breaking hearts, at times fraying nerves and destroying homes...
---
September 2014
Published in Turkish in 2016 in the short story collection The Blue of the Hazy City. English translation is made by Deep Seek on Aug 6th 2026.
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