#1
I was sitting in the hostel’s bathroom, waiting for the water in the shower to warm up. To get to Taksim from the old city you’ve got to climb up quite a lot, unless you take the funicular, which we obviously didn’t take once; I couldn’t wait to wash away from my skin the last day of walking, mixed with the smell of narghilè and beer. I was tired, after two days of touring around in the heat of Istanbul: with every new day the sun got stronger, it has been challenging but I’m happy: I think I’m going to miss this unbelievable city. It was late when the screen on the phone lit up, I wasn’t thinking of you. After months of silence, your words were the thing I was running from, but they thrilled me. The water got warm, and cold again, while my brain was spinning faster that the airplane I’m going to take in the morning. It’s a good thing, right? That you want me to have your new number...And yes we’re going to be as far away as possible once I’ll be back home, but while I stand in this little room I feel you close somehow, and I’ll just hold on to this feeling. I still don’t understand why you didn’t write me back in July, but right now it doesn’t hurt: you reached out and that’ll be enough. I went back to the bedroom feeling a big smile on the face and in the heart. I couldn’t sleep, while you carried the conversation on, I started talking of all the things that I’ve seen and done in Istanbul, as we use to do this everyday, as if we were just catching up.
I fell asleep eventually, losing the fight to Morpheus, and now that the alarm goes off I find your last texts still asking questions. So I reply to them, thinking that these time zone conversations could be fun. We’re leaving this morning, and as we’re passing on the Bosphorus bridge driving to the airport, I bury the idea of forgetting you. I’ve tried to think of you as just a little happy chapter in the story: few days of blinding joy with no hope of lasting. I’ve told myself every night I couldn’t catch sleep because of you, that you had already done your entire part in my life. But I never believed myself for a second: in the back of my dreams, for two months, I’ve been laughing at my own lies and kept hoping for a sign from you. And now it came. Probably I’m just a fool and will have my hopes crushed in a flashing second, but for now, under the forever sweet Turkish sky, I go back to trust my gut and know what it felt like those days together.
V.
