First, the ones you love leave you, then your sleep. Neither your love returns, nor your sleep...
-Cemal Süreya
☁️
Just like I always tell you... Take a deep breath and place your hand on your heart. I'm right there.
☁️⛅️☁️
While the escalators moved quietly along, I scanned the people chilling on their own at the shopping center. The huge lights, expertly lighting up the massive structure, were dangling from the very top ceiling to guide them. Most people came alone, and many others were couples with kids. Everywhere I looked, I searched for Miraç. Each scene revived a memory of him in my mind. And it felt like... each second I dived into those memories was healing me. It was reinforcing the feeling I couldn’t shake off from my heart. I felt him breathing somewhere. The clouds were carrying his breath to my skin...
"Ünseli," said a voice, and before I knew it, my eyes shifted to the escalator, not realizing when we had separated. Nisan, lightly bumping my arm with the bags in her hand, continued, "Here’s the bookstore. Maybe your stuff is there, huh? What do you say, shall we leave surprise notes inside them like before?"
I smiled. Memories of writing days flooded back. As usual, Miraç had walked those days with me. I didn't bring it up this time. I couldn't. It was the last time we did this event, seven months ago when all four of us were together - Nisan, Merih, me, and Miraç... Now there were three of us, and he wasn’t here. "Okay," I replied. I didn't want to upset these two precious people trying to make me happy, not with the constant voices in my head. Until I found Miraç, I would always be with him, despite not knowing where he was, always in his spirit, defying all distances.
As soon as we entered the bookstore, Merih handed us two pens along with two notebooks he had bought. "Lady writers, extend your hands to your readers."
Nisan, painting the love she had avoided mentioning because of me for two months in her eyes, looked at her husband. "Thank you, Mr. Merih. With your permission, my cousin and I want to dwell on our lines for a while."
Merih, gently closing his eyes and then smiling subtly, took off his designer glasses, holding them in his hand as he slowly drifted away from us, his attention roaming the shelves. Nisan, stopping at a novel that caught her eye, stared at it for a while. At that moment, I was so sure of what was going through her mind... We both had embarked on a tough battle to get those books out. She deserved this publication in the truest sense and had probably shed the most beautiful tears of joy onto my shoulder. Now, she was watching her entire story unfold like a film strip through her eyes. I looked back at Merih. From the corner dedicated to world classics, with the advantage of his height, he was staring straight at his wife. As always... Unbeknownst to Nisan, he would watch her for a long time. His broad shoulders would rise and fall gently, and he would tilt his head to the right. After a while, to make Nisan not understand his gaze, if he had a hat on, he’d take it off and play with his hair; if not, he’d purse his lips and look away.
I smiled. I had unraveled this scene once again just a moment ago. Nisan had looked at Merih, and Merih had pretended not to look back at her, pursing his lips and diverting his eyes.
After taking a deep breath, I started moving. My eyes searching the shelves spotted my books in blue and white, and I turned towards them. Before picking up a hardcover, I wrote the first words that came to my mind on a page of the notebook.
"I paint you in the sky."
Four years ago...
"So, you write... That's wonderful, Ünseli!" His lips, hidden in his turtleneck, moved. When he brought his hands out of his pockets and joined them, he warmed his fingers after breathing on his palms.
"Yes. I've been writing since I was a child," I replied. "As a kid, I didn't like any fairy tales. They were all the same. Different characters, the same plot, the same endings... Yet, just as all people in the world are different, even if it’s a fairy tale, they should be different." I shrugged as I continued without changing the direction of my fixed gaze. "They were emotionless and unjust. It was always a world where the beautiful and powerful won... If anyone didn't fit their standard of beauty, they were cursed.
If someone was not in good health, they were secondary..."
He suddenly stopped. Even though I moved forward, his steps stubbornly marked their spot while he still watched me. "Ünseli," he finally said. Without saying anything, I turned to him. From his tone, I knew it wasn't a call but rather an introduction to his speech. Holding his hat tightly in his hands, he closed the distance and stood right in front of me. "The disability you have in your foot wasn't a choice you made."
"Miraç."
"Wait a minute, please listen." He lowered his gaze as he took a deep breath. I saw his eyelashes seemed to moisten. "Take a look at yourself," he said suddenly. "The biggest factor in your attempt to end it all was thinking you couldn't meet the expectations of your loved ones. I know how much you want to achieve your dreams. Even if you try to hide it, I know how much the disease, which has become a signature on your body after all the illnesses you endured in your childhood, torments you. You never fully explained any of this to me. But look, I know you... Right?" He bit his lower lip as a faint dimple appeared on his cheek, sending a tiny salute to my trembling eyes. "You're being unfair to yourself. You have a pure but clever personality, Ünseli. And I won't allow such a person to wither away before everyone's eyes."
"Miraç," I spoke with a trembling voice. It felt strange that this man, who had only known me for a year, had become a map to my personality. Why were tears rolling down my cheek? I had sworn never to cry in front of anyone... Why was I crying?
"Am I wrong?" he asked, his voice shaking just as mine. I looked into his eyes. The man who had always smiled by my side for a year was now trembling with emotion-filled eyes.
"Why do you understand me?" I sighed softly. The tears shining in his squinted eyes, after lifting his head that he had raised to the air, magically disappeared.
He laughed. "It's not just you who writes... I'm an artist of feelings, too. I write, just like you. I had delved so deep into my world of imagination that I forgot how dangerous and ruthless the real world could be. I lost my loved ones one by one, Ünseli. They slipped away like stars in the sky. That day I made a promise to myself and engraved the emotions of the people I looked at into my brain. I wrote about you, too. And because I could write about you, I knew you."
As I slowly released the handbag I had been clutching tightly, I felt the pain in my palm. I was so immersed in the magic of his words that I hadn't even noticed. How could a person inspire love for life and hatred for it with just one sentence? How could he show both poles together? How could he make you live two seasons at once?
I took another deep breath. "Miraç... Can I hug you?" I asked quietly. My burning eyes added the fire rising from the heart of the man before me to their own flame. I had guessed his pain from the smile spreading across his face. He was so beautifully smiling... But now, the sparkles in his eyes were coming straight from his heart. And I had seen his pain right in those sparkles.
Without saying a word, he gently nodded. As he spread his arms wide, his broad shoulders seemed to broaden even more. As I took a few steps, I felt tiny between his vast chest. I put my shy nature into hibernation at that moment. And I wrapped my frail arms around his large frame. When his arms closed around me like wings, he applied no force. He was being considerate again, careful not to scare me with his strength. A physically fit person couldn't be weak anyway... It was as if he was a large tree, and I was a tiny sparrow. He was making an effort not to startle me, even protecting me from the wind.
"Count the stars, Miraç," I spoke in a tone I was sure he could hear. "You're so strong... When you finish counting the stars, your strength will end. When you finish counting the stars, your hopes will end... But there are too many stars. And your heart is too big."
That's when I felt a slight strength in his arms. His tensing neck whispered a smile to my ears. "Listen to the clouds, Ünseli. When they fall silent, you will too. When they fall silent, you will lose... But they will never be silent."
