Am I awake?
It seems so. The air is humid, clouds cover the sky. Mountains on the coast of a sea: it can't be anything but Trabzon. I'm definitely awake.
Father arrives with his car, parks it at our house. I've been waiting for him so long! We are going to Rize, he says. He booked a hotel for both of us. Just to spend a week together. As we turn to West on the highway, I remind him that Rize is to the East but soon we arrive to the city. Am I awake?
The hotel is decent, however the receptionist asks for much more money (700 TL) than we were expecting to pay. My father argues as the booking he made was a mere 400 TL. I'm trying to convince him to pay but he calls it a folly and storms out. I'm alone again, standing at a crossing at the highway. The famous tea factory is on my left. As I cross I meet new friends of mine: people from the recent Istanbul conference I participated in. We are going somewhere, anywhere: we are all quite happy but somehow I lose them and I find myself at the seaside.
The mighty waves of Karadeniz! Rize looks like a grim Venice here, shallow and narrow canals lead into the great sea. Weird people pass me by, some are invisible (yet I'm sensing them), some are just creepy. The Black Sea is endless as always. Makes me feel I'm standing on the edge of the world. The edge of my life. The edge of... everything.
Yet somehow the scene changes once more. I'm in a shopping centre. Bit like the mix of Forum and a nameless one in Madrid. I'm with friends again though I can't remember any of them by now. A tiny, tiny little baby toddles towards me. She is awkwardly tiny, maybe the size of my hand. My mother comes forward with my brothers and she announces she's my new sister, Eva. I raise the miniature newborn and lay her small body on my shoulder. I can't see her, the glasses I occasionaly wear is splattered by dirt and water. She is just so fragile!
Faint laughter of a woman echoes from the distance: a canorous laughter it is. Sounds familiar, something from the near past, something sweet... I can't remember.
I'm at the candy shop now, choosing some gummies but the price is damn too high (5.000 HUF). I hesitate to take it, even though I don't have much money with me. And at that very moment a cold, strong voice calls out my name. What it said is hazy but I'll try to quote it correctly:
'Again you are undecided! You are so easy to influence! Look at yourself, you wanted to buy something for tenth of that price yet just because you already took it you are afraid to withdraw from your decision. You are weak to decide! Weak to change and week to live!'
Curtains.
Now, I'm definitely awake. The voice still rings in my head. And I have the weirdest feeling I've had in the past year: something has changed deep down in the roots.
Yes, I'm awake.
