I AM SORRY EVERYBODY BECAUSE I DIDN’T DIE

          Tamira who infuses a new life into Seven had gone but her image had stayed on the baby’s face. This house had gotten pale suddenly too like things that her left behind in the town. Everybody woke up to play the same game again in every morning. Everybody; namely; Seven, Sabi, besides Mana. Seven’s world matters was taking so much time and effort more than the others. To eat, to drink, to sleep, to throw away the wastes from the body, to clean, to look at each other’s eyes, to be touched... This last one was the most important... While the daytime fades, Mana will come. Before that, Sabi will prepare some balmy foods and inflame more the heating stove...

          But this time, Mana came home before the sun not to fly behind the mountains. After a light rattle, the big door is opened wide. Seven made a face with the fresh air which slams to her face. Even the colourful shoulder belts of Mana didn’t come under her notice and put her at ease. Mana passed by Sabi who looks at him curiously, went to near the cupboard which is front of the window directly. He took a bag from inside of it, held tight from its ruff and drew a chair near the heating stove, sat on it. Just one moment, he stood in bewilderment to a point on the ground. Then, with a sudden action, he put the hot heating stove’s cover with his naked hand and left it to the ground cursorily. When Sabi saw that, put Seven to the ground as if she was a kitchenware and went near the heating stove.

          (The flames are gushing out from the top of the black mine. It is piping hot more than the hole that I tried to offer my head into the world.)

          Mana was sitting determined and stiff with his body that is more bigger than ever. He was throwing every single picture which took it out of the bag into the fire after a shufti shufty. While the flames rise heartily, Sabi who stands just beside of Mana, was putting her hand into the heating stove and taking out the pictures which some parts of blasted. After rubbing them on her clothes in a flurry, she was pressing them in between her hands to save them to be burnt completely. This time, she was looking at every single picture just one moment and leaving them somewhere that she found safety.

          Both of them’s face had turned pink to stand near the fire. Mana’s eyes were shining than ever. He was looking sad and cursed. He took one of the deckle edge pictures more out of the bag with a determined anger, after a shufti shufty, threw into the fire. Sabi put her hand into the heating stove hastily –the flame was sparkling-, took out the picture, put out its fire, then left aside.

          Sabi was crying.

          Mana was in a decided anger...

          Sabi was crying.

          Mana was silent...

          Seven was under the chair. Maybe beside it. But she was on the ground. She knew that certainly. Everything was so big, so far. Her arms were tied to her body tightly, her legs also one another. Her entire body was wrapped up tightly with a white embroidered swaddling clothes. She knew that was her voice. But she was hearing something beyond it.

          Everything was so big, so far.

          Some hot drops were running from the two sides of her face. Her voice was rising creaky. Then she was becoming rigid. She needed to get rid of the tight swaddling clothes with her sound’s intensity and wanted to curl as a bead. But she couldn’t do it. That tight swaddling clothes were holding her body very hard and upright. She was suffering vertically...

          She was stock-still, hopeless and defenceless.

          (You were always mum... You were mum so much... You never knew, how I was uneasy in my mind about it. What are you talking to each other now? Why do you play with fire?.. I know that howlings which run into this whining... I know this hush which comes after the strained words. I don’t know yet what are the meaning of your words but I dread. Why you don’t aware of it? You forgat me...)

          (You both forgat me.)

          Mana is throwing the pictures into the fire, Sabi is putting her hand in and taking out them... One of them is crying, the other one also silent. The fire is rising without regard to them. The hands are becoming sooty. The mist which spreads into the air rather slowly will choke Seven too. Heat, mist and noises... Fire, mist and moanings...

          (Help... Somebody help us... Find us... They forgat me. I can’t breath. It’s all up. However, I want to grow up. To walk, to run, to take a pencil... I can’t recognize the voices behind the deep ringing in my ears anymore. Who are those woman and man? That cylindrical metal which breaths fire must be the God of Badness... I am just a seven day’s baby yet, help... My entire body is hurting. My entire body is crying...)

          (You imprinted on my memory this stage and forgat me.)

          The house with Seven stayed in a deep quietness for a while. Mana and Sabi buttoned up to each other, slept back to back in their bed. One day, Mana traveled away. Sabi bestowed his small luggage. One or two books, some smalls and casual clothes. There was a robe between them. After him, she wept quietly. When she looked at Seven, stopped her weeping and mused.

          The visits of the neighbours broke the silence of the house. Sabi said them Mana went to far away for a while. She would go to near her family to wait him. Some of women looked at to each other as if they realised something bad. Surely it was not a temporary separateness as for them. Sabi didn’t care of that lookings. She offered them some tea and pasty. When they left, she cried again and again. There was nothing inside of her but pain. She couldn’t sleep in the windy nights. She had some dangerous silences in this house which her felt as a stranger in it anymore. She stood at the window and waited the sunrise. Tamira’s vacant house was standing as a black mouth across the road.

          Her brother who comes with a road fatique, caused Sabi to forget the crying. While Sabi is sleeping, began to pack up her wares. He set apart some of them to give some people. There was an alarm clock between them.

          Nobody would wake up with an alarm clock here anymore...

Tick tock... tick tock... tick tock...

  Every breath you take will be an expire.

  Copyrighted by Zeynep Ankara