THE BURNT
I opened my eyes fully after a strange dream I dreamt. The only thing I could remember about the dream was silhouette of a girl. A girl, whose silhouette was only enough for me to understand she had curly and long hair. Yes, she must have been the same girl in the café I met last night, the ghost waitress. The dim light of green café made her appear mysterious and I unconsciously shaped my perception of her according to the atmosphere. Was she as mysterious even under sunlight I thought, and honestly, I did not know.
This was bizarre, I thought, I had never woken up from a dream before, feeling as if I got enough sleep. Maybe this was only an effect of the wine I enjoyed last night but the dream indicated that there was another reason. I picked my watch from the nightstand, seeing it was five A.M. It was probably just before morning azan and there were voices coming from the kitchen, indicating mom could not sleep the entire night. Suddenly another voice, a sound of mewling, came from a few metres away. I straightened up and put a soft kiss on her furry head, right between two ears. Getting up and putting on the lights, I saw my jacket and pants that were covered with wine after my hand had hit the glass, falling in a deep trance after ghost waitress’s weird, yet logical words. I could not remember how I made it home. Craving for the first cigarette of the day, I made my way into the kitchen.
I held the cold doorhandle, opening the door. A fog of God knows how many lit cigarettes hit me in the face, making my craving even more.
“Whoa! Did you wake up already?”
“Had a strange dream, my eyes opened wide suddenly” “Allahallah, I hope nothing’s wrong”
I looked her in the eye and said “Everything is fine mom, no worries,” with a smile on my face.
I was trying to plan my day as the sounds of adhan started to echo. There was a feeling of curiosity about the girl in the cafe last night. I was wondering if she would be there today and if she would, would she appear as a ghost while yellow light beams of noon hitting her skin? Again, curiosities with no answers.
I gazed upon the bottles of wine standing on the kitchen bench. Who knows, maybe we could enjoy a few glasses of wine today. Suddenly I felt a strange urge, a strange urge to do something that I did not know what. I found myself in the entrance polishing my dirty boots at the crack of dawn like a military officer dad, who would deal with his stuff and shut the door silently way before his son and wife open their bleary eyes, even before the circular red flame shows itself above the horizon. The boots would be done in a few minutes, now ready to handle the whole weight of the body in style. That was what I learned from my dad. I could see the entrée from my room, from the bed I laid down on. He used to polish his boots which were observed between four little eyelashes that were both open enough to see and close enough to be perceived as closed.
I finished polishing my boots with the studiousness of my dad. The sour scent of shoe polish indicated I had applied enough. As soon as they were done, looking as new as they could, I set the ironing board in my room and started to collect wrinkled shirts. The steam filled the room, making everything appear as silhouettes. I was in an unexplainable mood of joy, thinking about the spiritual atmosphere of the cafe and the mysterious figure of the waitress I met last night. The thoughts in my mind were so intense that I felt the hot iron touching my left hand hardly after the damage was done. I pulled my hand before it stuck to the iron. Almost half of my hand was now blistered but I barely felt the pain and simply didn’t mind it.
The ironing was done and it was now 7 A.M.; time for breakfast. However, my stomach felt as if mankind did not need to feed and therefore the organ was useless. I put on the headphones and started to listen to my favourite metal songs as I wandered in my home. Then I craved another cigarette and lit it up in front of the kitchen window, gazing upon the landscape and listening to Whiskey in The Jar by Metallica joyously. A strange, fearful sound pierced the loud sound of the song and I turned back hastily. Mom seemed afraid and serious which made me pull off my headphones in haste.
“What happened? I could not hear you”
“What the hell happened to your hand, does it hurt much?” She shouted. “I touched the iron, no worries it feels fine”
“Let’s find some burn cream and bandage it,” She stood up in hurry.
“Mom, I’ve injured myself so many times so far, you know that. I swear it doesn’t hurt, remember once I cut this hand wide open.”
Of course, she ignored my words but I was not pretending. She opened the boxes in which we kept medical stuff, turning everywhere into a mess. As she was applying the cream and then the bandage, I felt as if someone was putting woollen gloves on my hands, completely painless.
“Is it better now? Though it hurts a bit at first”
“I swear nothing has changed, but thanks a lot mom”
“Let’s have our breakfast, we have börek, I can also fry some eggs and sausages.” “I am fed, don’t want to eat anything, maybe later”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Something has surely happened to you.” “Mom I’m really fine, just a bit energetic maybe.”
“Okay, so be it. I’m going to sleep, don’t keep yourself hungry and be careful with your hand”
I kissed her on top of her head and went back to my room, continuing to listen to my metal playlist. It was now 9 A.M., a strange time to drink wine but I was determined to visit her and there was no other pretext for it I could think of.
I found myself about a few hundred metres away from the cafe. The plane tree in the middle of the cafe was visible from where I was. I started to feel my heartbeat as I walked since there was only minutes until our second meeting. Every heartbeat was at the same time with my steps, and I was walking fast. I thought there would be no one craving wine at such an odd time and I imagined that the cafe would be empty except for waiters and waitresses. Maybe she would drink a glass of that magic potion with me, after all she was as crazy as I was, when it comes to manners.
I entered the cafe and sat down on the same chair I did last night. Looking around, my eyes caught the visual of the girl between leaves. She did not seem mysterious; in fact, she was visible enough for one to even forget the word mysterious while describing her.
Though she was still beautiful as her ghostly figure was last night. The mystery would often enable one to be attracted to someone based on its provision of imaginations. The mystery would provide room for imagination of the dream person, the sunlight would not, revealing the actual. However, the actual I was spying on was equally attractive. There was a blouse on her different from last night’s. Her dark skin was visible, her gestures were noticeable, and her eyes were as black and shiny as my boots. Visible between dark green hedera leaves, she was talking to a guy whom I thought to be a waiter as well. However, the guy reached for his pocket and pulled out something, handing it over to the girl I met last night. Suddenly, I felt the great emptiness of my stomach, along with the vibration of its growling.
The feeling of hunger became some kind of pain, as if it was the time to feel hungry. My head started to feel dizzy as if I was sleep deprived but the worst was my hand. The hand which felt completely healthy was now in extreme pulsating pain, making me want to stand up and jump on the ground.
As I turned my head again towards the girl, who seemed so happy and grateful, the emptiness, dizziness and excruciating pain peaked. As she laughed, my left hand felt as if I was dipping it into lava and the pain gradually spread. Now, my heart which was beating at the same time with my steps a few minutes ago, was beating at the same time with the pulsating pain, making it unendurable.
I held my hand and laid on it in a desperate attempt to kill the pain. As I was writhing in pain, we came eye to eye, causing her to approach me in a bit of a haste unlike the slowness of her steps last night.
“Hey! Welcome again, are you okay, what happened to your hand?” “I burned it,” I could barely speak.
“Come, let’s take a look at it,” She led me inside, in front of the first-aid chest.
She laid a towel on a table and started to put scissors, bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, a cream and a tablet of painkillers one by one, putting them on the towel. As she was cutting the old bandage, the sound of scissors cutting it made me feel uncomfortable. I looked her in the eye and once again and I understood, she was actually attractive without mystery.
The pain was still beyond endurance as if it was burning right now. I could tell the pain was nothing about the burn. She removed the dressing and wiped the applied cream carefully, spilling blood-red tincture of iodine on the wound. She spread it and sanitised her hands. She squeezed the tube on her index finger, whose nail was as red as my wound, and
plenty of yellowish cream came out from the tube. As she started to apply the cream on the blood-red wound, with her finger, I smelled the sweet scent of the cream along with the tingling caused by her touch. A tingling that my grandmother said to be an indication of healing of a wound years ago. She taught this to me when I was only eight, after a wasp’s final resort to be freed from my little, yet brutal hands. It was happening once again, but somehow the pain continued with the same severity.
“Do you feel any better?”
“I do,” I said, without revealing that the pain was still excruciating.
It was at that moment she grabbed the bandage with one hand and held my hand with the other, starting to dress the wound. It was at that moment I felt something strange, the same feeling of being home after a long and exhausting journey. The feeling of one’s spine relieved from twenty kilograms of weight or the feeling of comfort which enables one to be undress and wander naked in his or her personal space, neither burden, nor shame is allowed in this feeling. The pain started to decrease gradually, along with the dizziness and feeling of extreme hunger.
“Any better?”
“Yes, honestly,” I answered, since she seemed to understand that I lied when she first asked.
It was finally done when she handed me the painkillers, saying “you might still want
this.”
“Why, will something else happen to increase the pain again?”
“I don’t think so, come, let me introduce you to my brother,” She said, spotting the guy whom I saw handing her the gift.
The pain, dizziness and hunger disappeared all of a sudden. We shook hands, greeting each other. He bid farewell and waved as he was leaving. I was shocked.
“He’s a nice guy,” I said.
“Why are you here at this hour? Wine is drunk in the evenings.” “There is no single time to drink wine, and that’s why I’m here now.”
We looked each other in the eye, knowing one of us was acting the fool and the other was lying, a smile appeared on both of our faces.
