extract from an upcoming story

“They are just visions”, she says calmly “ only because we have eyes that we see our appearances.” After each sentence she stops for a while and searches for a sign of perception; yet it's not that easy for others to understand her as much as she does herself.

“Suppose we have eyes but there are no mirrors, no water, nothing to reflect what we look like: then we wouldn't know if we're whole, only one corps, I mean.”

They are sitting on a bench near the station, it's late afternoon- cold and greyish and not much people are out- and they still have five more hours to spend before the train takes off.

“What about others; people will see us, which will allow them to know, and if theydo, so do we.”

She smiles softly, in a very content way; their conversation is no longer one sided: he has finally responded and is pointing out the right spots.

“ I don't think so”, new questions fill in his mind just when he's started to think that he can, after all, get her a little, “how can one be sure what others see is the same as hers? Take your shirt: what colour is it?”

“Blue.” he answers.

“And define blue for me, please? What kind of a colour is it?”

“Soft?” he answers again, gazing her curiously.

“ Me, I would call it lively. Here is the contradiction; what if my blue is your red and what you see pink is nothing but a huge black hole to me? We both say the sky is blue- same as water and same as that ugly, old car Mrs.Longsley once owned- but how do you know that they are the same? See? Those are just visions. Reflections. A dirty little game our own minds play with us.”

As she ends her sentence, for the very first time in his nineteen years long life, Will Morris truly senses the meaning behind one's words. This woman, no, these women, these people in front of him are thousands trapped in one vision.

Drabble 009

“True love is like a bottle of cologne” he declared with a graceful voice, “it vanishes away once the cap is opened and there's only a worthless piece of plastic left”. The gloom of the night was keeping her away from seeing his facial features, still she couldn't help but to moan under his weight, faces had no significance anyways. “Maybe it does exist”, he went on as the scars on his hands got healed by the warmth of her skin, “just that; it's nothing about peace”. She closed her eyelids and let herself drift off to another dreamless sleep. His whispers wandered around in the air, covered her like a fluffy blanket and chanted the softest lullabies into her ears. A reminiscence of her mama's caresses found life in the butterfly kisses he had been planting on her waist and she squeezed his hand lightly to get a hold of them. Despite of the heavy perfume he wore, his hair smelled like newly baked cookies underneath; she inhaled deeply and found herself at the age of eight once again. The smell got stronger and stronger as she ascended the stairs to step into their small, old kitchen; it looked just the same - same as on every Tuesday night, same as in her childhood memories. She watched as her mother took a step back from the oven, handing her a cookie; then smiled- at the sweet scent of cookies mixed with the feeling of peace.

the day she died

Kim Maya was dead. She had died on November 13th swallowing a handful of pills she had had found in the bathroom cabinet. And on 14th it was on the newspapers, on the page before the yellow pages, on the left side, written in fonts too small to read, without any details.

“Kim Maya has died, the funeral will be held in 23th Street on November 17th by noon.” Funny, the only thing remarkable about her death was how it happened, but it wasn’t even written that the act was a suicide. Kim Maya has died. Four words only.

Yet in a way, it was fair. Kim Maya had died long ago, her last days on earth consisted only of an empty vessel moving around. Her last minutes alive were spent in vain, she was already dead within. So, the news on the paper was as much as she deserved.

Kim Maya was dead on November 13th. And on the day of her funeral, at 12.01 pm precisely, there were three people present. The Priest, her landlord and the beggar from the down street, hoping to find something to eat. You see, Kim Maya was no loner, she just was already dead, there was no meaning in attending a long gone’s funeral. And to the man’s surprise, there was nothing to eat either.

At the midnight of November 12th as Kim Maya reached out to grab the bottle of pills off her single eyed cabinet, people continued to sip their expensive wines and old Mrs. Young passed away at the age of 81, as she swallowed them one by one. In actual, Maya had always disliked their tasteless taste, still after giving it a hard thought she had concluded that pills; were the the best way to die. (Her second option was to cut herself but she didn’t wanted to look all white the moment she died.) That’s why while she tiptoed to open her cabinet she was silently praying to God. Ironically, Maya didn’t believe in God and when her little hands touched to cold surface of the bottle she nearly felt a sparkle of belief inside, so she took them one by one, in case she wanted to reconsider. Yet, you see, if one haven’t have believed in all her life, the last moments are not the right time to begin. That’s why she died.

On November 13th, at 01 am , by the time the effect of pills had already pried Kim Maya off the living world, there was a knock on her door and she missed it, so she did the loud noise the hinges gave out when it was broken open and so she did the warmth of the body rocking her back and forth, begging for an answer. Maya had long stopped giving answers.

Four days after her death, early in the morning, much after the first prayers of the day, the oversized doors of St. Louis Church , the one on the 23th Street, were pushed open slowly. A man stepped in, dressed all in white and if he was in a younger age, the Priest, he also, could have misjudged him as a holly creature sent by the Lord, himself, just like his mother used to tell. Thirty years earlier, precisely two years ten months seven days five hours and fourteen minutes before Kim Maya was born, the fatherless priest had lost his mother and was left all alone with a huge Jesus Complex. It had followed him right into his father’s (as he liked to call him) sacred house.

As the clock showed 08.01 am, the first words of the day left the young man’s lips:

“I’m looking for Kim Maya.”

The priest nodded his head understandingly.

“ Sorry for your loss, but I’m afraid her body hasn’t reached here yet.”

“I see.” the young man’s voice was soft and held a slight sign of agony. Assuming he was still in grief, the priest went on:

“ You should have no doubts, I’ll pray for her soul to pass through the gates of our father.” he hesitated a little before saying our instead of my; after years spent in his noble duty, he still hadn’t gotten used to refer his father as theirs.

“Maya doesn’t believe.” the man turned and prepared to leave as silent as he had came.

“ Do you?” the priest asked out of curiosity. He was kind of a man who thought everything in life had a meaning and a hidden objective , so he was determined to figure out the role this young man played in his own life, reminded him one day, out of no where, his late mother that he had long forgotten.

“I’ll try, on her behalf.”

On May 22nd five months twenty-five days before her physical death, Kim Maya left her house and smelled the fresh spring air reminding her how beautiful it was to be alive. She followed her routine; grabbed a drink and a sandwich on her way and opened her bookshop by 10 o’clock. She inhaled the comforting odour of old, 2nd hand books and picked up one to read before lunch.

The Day 183. The story was about a man who, after concluding the only form of life worth living was the one created in one’s mind, locked himself in a room underground from Word War II and starved himself to death searching for the non-existing signs of life inside his head. Skipping the lunch and the dinner, Maya read half of the book until the time to close. She then placed a paper on the page she had left and put it back to where it was standing before that morning.

On May 22nd, at 7 pm the moment the book filled its gap on the shelf, like the last piece of an unfinished puzzle, Maya knew that she would never take it back. She left the store and decided to walk home, behaving out of her daily rote. You see, if one has lived all her life following a simple task, one little difference is enough to damage to balance. The second Kim Maya skipped her lunch, a new chain of events started to form; the waitress from her usual restaurant took a five minutes early break, caught her boyfriend cheating, then killed herself five years later, along with the seeds of the boy she could have given birth to. Their death had nothing to do with Maya’s, she hadn’t lived long enough to see it to begin with, but you see; if one crosses the line she has unconsciously been drawing over years, even if it’s a single step which would normally do no visible harm, the balance is damaged. That’s why Maya died.

6 hours after the book refilled its place, Kim Maya smelled the late night flowers on her balcony, got inside and locked the door. No doors in her one room apartment were ever opened. The moment the book lost the touch of her fingertips, Maya had decided to die. She was suddenly too tired. To take a death decision had taken no more than a second; she felt alive in the morning and was already dead by night. Life sure was cruel.

The following days, (for five months twenty-four days and a half), she found her self a new routine: not answering the calls, ignoring the knocks on her door, forcing people to leave with harsh words. It was so unlike to her soft nature, then again Kim Maya had already died, the one speaking was not her. She did not bother to unplug the phone, simply did not care. Life went on in her absence; the rent was paid automatically with the money on her account, she had enough food to survive, not that she ate much anyways. She laid and watched her ceiling, not hearing nor seeing anything. She was dead, so were her senses. Then, people once around her, now gone; started to ignore her too, not like she was dead but as if she never existed. One can mourn for a physically dead person, not the other way around.

The money being transferred from her account to her landlord’s was the last, smallest sign showing that once, Kim Maya lived. She smiled, cried, inhaled and exhaled and she did them all willingly. If Maya knew she would have cancelled that transfer. When people leave your life, they take the pieces of your existence away, yet a one sole reminisce is enough for you to subsist.

On November 12th , 9 in the morning, Peter Weiss checked his mails and was surprised to find a white, thin envelope written only three words on, aside from his name and address.

“Sender: Kim Maya” he showed it to the sun and cut it open carefully, without ripping up its content: a single, torn paper. He stared at it for a good five minutes before finally reading, no fans actually wrote through the old fashion nowadays. The writer in him, also, had woken up; he wanted the letter to be something good as well, something out of which Peter could slice off a story, not just a sick love letter.


To Samuel Mendoza,

“Day 180, I woke up. I don’t know how but three days before the end, I woke up. For nearly seven months now, I have been in depression, as if I had let the man I was before to lay down and sleep, a nice afternoon nap, in the middle of the day. In the middle of one’s life.”page 234

Samuel, you said you were in deep depression; I, am suffering from romantic schizophrenia. You said it all was like a sweet nap; I, haven’t been sleeping lately.

Treat me as that little voice you were searching for so long, as a road companion, as a stranger who somehow found your haven.

You woke up and left. I was stuck. You escaped on the day 180, I will wait for the 183. I am surprised that you knew, all along, where the key was. But then you took it with you and locked me on.

Samuel, It’s day 180 and once again I will let you take over. We’ll wait for the day 183, together.


On November 10th, three days before the day, Kim Maya attempted her last act as a being. She stood up, fought to regain her consciousness out of the dark hands of her mind and actually did manage, for five steady hours. That was enough, she had not expected nor wanted to survive through it. It was like a nice afternoon nap and like one’s last breath.

On November 17th , at 5.34 am, with the first prayers of the day, Peter Weiss inserted a key into the hole and turned the lock. The door opened. He did not remember his way around but you see, it’s not one’s flesh and blood only; that miraculously call for him in these kinds of occasions, so he found the book just as he entered.

The Day 183 – Peter Weiss. He took it with a single move and placed the letter in, got out, locked the door and drove towards the 23rd Street.

Drabble 008

I do not know why, but the sea talked to me, just as the wind talked to my father. It whispered me with a voice too soft for its huge body, like a well-built man with a girly voice, and I listened. Just as my father did. He followed the wind wherever it went and I don't have any idea what had made him settle down to start a family. But luckily enough, my mother had had it with the whole moving around thing and he took off one day, when I was eleven and my sister was three, and hit the road all by himself after that. When my sister began to ask the obvious questions; the where father had gone and why he never came back; my mother told her that he, being the wind himself, had gave us, his pollens, the chance to blossom up and continued his journey to help others. If you ask me, it was a pretty sick story to tell to a six year old, but she believed it nevertheless. Me? I don't remember disliking anything more than that story as a child. It made me cry almost every night to think that father had finished it with us and was there to be the wind to other pollens.

I wondered time to time if it was me who made up all those conversations with the sea, due to my big father complex. But just like those painstakingly sweet moments one doubts herself to have assumed wrong things out of her soon-to-be-lover-boy's behaviours, it faded away not long after. The sea talked to me, no doubt.

On early spring days, as I laid on the rock at the back of our house, I swear I could hear its footsteps slowly approaching me. Sea loved to play games, when I went close enough it would plant a wet kiss on my feet and back away right after. For the longest time, I feared to respond it, sea would talk and I would listen without any answers. I feared. It was a pretty childish thing to do; but the more I listened, the more I feared that one day I would understand father for leaving us, and worse, that I would find him right.

The first day I talked, was the day my first former boyfriend had decided to end things with me, telling me off and saying he didn't need a girl who spent less time with him then a huge fucking hole filled with water. I felt defended, and angry. Defended; because of his words, angry; because the words I had resented were not the ones about me. To tell the truth, the moment he had asked to talk to me, I knew; on my way back home it would start. No. I wish to say it all began that day but it was much earlier, the first day I had let the sea speak. I knew, after realizing I was not on the phone nor talking to myself, people thought I was mental. I could predict what were to happen, on dinner table as soon as they had a chance to talk, they would say:

“Hey, you know what I saw today? A girl talking to the sea, can you believe it, she was talking to it as if she were talking to a human! How sick is that?!” and they would laugh, probably all by themselves, as others surely had better things to do than listening to that stupid story. I was aware of it all, but could I care less, the sea somehow made me feel at home, something I had failed to do ever since I was eleven. And nothing mattered other than that. We were bounded, just like father and wind, me and sea.

On days, when there was no wind in the air, when sea was as flawless as the sky, I would ask it about father. Just like wind, sea travelled around the whole world, so it had to know. But on those days, sea wouldn't answer me. It was the only time it went silent, didn't get angry at the birds which tried to steal away its children, didn't get mad at the little ones throwing stones at it, didn't show anyone its waves, not in the way a wild cat showed its claws; it just listened me as I blabbed about how it was having dad around. I was obsessed if you ask me, a little girl refusing to let go of her dad who had left them, but all along, it was more. I knew it because it was father who had made us meet. The day before he left, he had took me to the sea and told with an unreadable look in his eyes, a mixture of longing and regret as I would name it after, that I was like him.

“ Me and wind, you and sea, June.”

As I stepped in the water and walked further and further, that one memory played in my mind again and again. I had left the adult in me on the sea shield and let the little one take over. Allowing sea to surround me, to hold me I knew this was how it was going to be. Me and sea, father and wind. I would let it take my hand and bring me to father. I would let it have its way with me, just like father and wind.

Drabble 007

Dear Yoona,
I don't know how to start, hell I'm not even sure why I'm writing this right now. I don't have pretty words to say to you. I really don't. Yeah, I know what you're thinking and I'm not sure either; is it me who has nothing to say to you or have words already given up on me? After all, you were always the one with the pretty words. See Yoona, I'm afraid I'll have to disappoint you with this matter too. But that shouldn't have surprised you, as much as I loved you very dearly, at some point I was a mere disappointment. I guess this won't be easy for you to accept, it's the thing about you; you're too good natured. I suppose you haven't even realized the reason why some people had started to avoid you, was me. Sadly Yoona, I'm no longer the kind of man one should devote herself to. I wish I could have cherished you, yet men are selfish, it's just the way it is and I wonder sometimes how you manage to hide it so well. If I had a choice, I admit we always do so let me rephrase, If I were brave enough to choose, I would have liked to stay with you. But pain is worst Yoona, when it's not physical. I couldn't stand the fact that I no longer felt anything, not happiness, not sadness, nor peace but only the empty agony of nothing. It was unbearable, now I see, I write these things out of my selfishness once again. I can't face the fact that I was alone, suffering, I was afraid Yoona. I needed someone to be with me. Call me a disgusting, thoughtless, heartless bastard, it will - I cannot stop it- only give me a sick feeling of joy. I'm sorry Yoona, I had lost the joy of living and had to look for it elsewhere.
Tell me Yoona, were you always this perfect? Was there a time someone, something, anything that could make you angry, that made you express your resentment? I doubt it.
Yoona, have you ever stopped loving? I admit I did. Both of us. I stopped loving you and myself. No, honestly, my sentiments will always belong to you but love is not about the heart, is it? It's all about one's mind. Once you stop thinking, once you stop feeling, the essence of love, what makes love "love", ends too.
It's getting late and my thoughts have started to fade away with the sunlight. This pen that I hold has became stranger to me; as if it's moving by itself, I'm only watching the letters to form on this ugly paper. Where have I found it? I no longer remember. Yoona, I'm afraid things I'll write from now on may not have a meaning at all. This reminds me of times I, too, used to write. But all seems just very long ago. How many days has it really been? Six months? Seven? Maybe more. I have had longer breaks but there was always a reason behind, there is none now. It's just empty Yoona, and it gives me pain. When have I landed my words to you and what are these ugly meaningless things that are forming on my paper against my will? Have you stolen them Yoona or was it me who gave them to you all conscious?
Yoona, I wish to stop remembering now. How did you manage to forget all those fights we had just the day after? Teach me. I won't ask you to give my words back. Just teach me that, how to forget.
It has became very dark Yoona, I can't see anymore. But I won't turn the lights on, it has been a while they have stopped illuminating my way.
Do you remember our childhood dear, somehow lately, I tend to remember those days quite often. Do you remember how my mother used to lit up the candles at night because I didn't like the plastic itch lights gave out and you simply feared of their absence. I continuously try to remember the smell, the intoxicating odour the smoke let out into the air but all that have left are reminisces, I cannot seem to recall the feeling.
Yoona, all my candels have already melted down. There is no meaning in writing anymore. I'll stop now and wait for the darkness to surround me until the day.

Drabble 006

“You got the wrong person”, her husky voice wafted through the railings of the balcony. The air she breathed out smelled of apricots and cigarettes and he wondered if it would have felt the same way if he casually took a taste of her lips. His legs were glued on the same spot he had been standing for the last two hours, yet his mischievous mind had long decided to wander around in different places, far away of his primary intentions. Still, he did nothing. Girls with an inferiority complex were never a speciality of his and secretly, he did not care enough to face the consequences. A pack of Lucky Strike blocked his sight and he instantly knew that she was the one. Nobody except that man’s daughter, herself, would carry such an expensive thing and generously offer it to a stranger.

Refusing her offer with the back of his left hand, he politely smiled and pointed the black-white wristband he was wearing.

“I’m on the verge of quitting.”

“Good for your health,” she calmly replied, “at least one of us will survive long enough to see our grand-grandchildren”. He watched her taking long breaths out of her cigarette and blowing the greyish smoke out.

“Trying to approach to me would be a waste.” her words filled in the gasps between the fumes that she had just created. A smile rested hidden on the corners of his lips.

“I’m not sure that I’m following.”

Hearing his answer, for the first time since the beginning of their little talking, she lifted her eyes and her gazes burned holes on his skin like the hell-fires.

“Don’t play games. I don’t like it, don’t deny your goals either, I know that you have been watching me.” She tapped lightly on the top of her cigarette with her index finger and went on as the ashes flew away to meet the land thirty feet down. “But I advice you not to do it, there will be no results.”

He sighed and took of his wristband, then picked a single cigarette out of her pack which had been lying forgotten on the railings. If she had already seen through him it would be a waste to miss that smoke.

“You know,” she said after a second of hesitation, “ for years I had been wondering the reason of my father’s coldness.” He crouched on ground with exhaustion, his back turned against her and his legs lazily stretched towards the entering of the balcony. If she had decided to utilize him as well, it was going to be a long ceremony of confession.

“Today I’ve learned, that I had killed my mother in a way.” He gazed her over the screen of his cellphone; her eyes were just as calm as before and she seemed untouched by her own act of revelation. There were no signs of regret nor a sole sign of guilt written on her face.

“So yeah, you’ve gotten the wrong person.” He inhaled one last time and stood up. She was right, he had gotten the wrong person, she held no help, she would be a useless step to take on the path of his elevation.

As he closed the door behind him, she lit one more cigarette; to shorten her life and to forget.

Drabble 005

Birthdays never had a special meaning for her. The burning towers on her cake served only to remind of the harm she had caused, the lives that were stolen to give birth to her. Every step she took in the muddy road of age dug a hole and swallowed her own pieces. “There is no use in struggling”, she was taught, “even if you do save the remaining, it’ll only cause you to sink”. So, as the time continued to march, she learned to leave pieces of her benignity behind, to perish in the swamp. The crumbs she dropped on the path were not meant to help her find way back home, she wanted to get lost, secretly aiming to break loose of the ropes that her mother held, to taste the fabled candy house. Yet, no matter how many sacrifices she was forced to make, her feet had touched the dirt once. The misdeeds of her mother ran down her legs smearing their sins all over. “What I do are, all for you.” she was told. Just like that, she took all on her shoulders and kept walking. Each step pulled her in, each year seeded more guilt into her soul.

Then finally, she wept when no one looked and declared:

“If you do anything that you shouldn’t I, mom, I’ll go to hell for you”.