Humble Attention

Earlier in the tale of two cities, Sit Down in Trabzon called Lucky in Giresun.

There’s a meeting tomorrow of all the native speakers. Catch a bus today, this afternoon, tonight, there’s no hurry, the meeting is tomorrow. What time? 9:00 a.m. All the native speakers will meet here and go to the local police station. And then? You need to bring your passport and four passport photos. Ok, and then?

Lucky was through this process before – bureau crazies, clerks, bored administrator traitors, self-important regal dignitaries well fed, others less so, intent on pushing, writing, typing, folding, stapling, sorting, reading, mutilating, massing papers, filing, speaking cardiovascular wage slave vocabularies pretending to be busy intent on bent necked acquiescence of humble attention to DUTY as complacent dreams explored new fantasies filled with vague prospects of retiring before dying of tedious boredom.

And then? We will go to the bank and get you a tax number, oh and by the way, you don’t happen to have $2,500 or $3,000 in your pocket to open an account do you? No? I didn’t think so, well it’s not important, don’t worry about it, Ok I won’t, Ok then see you later, what time are you coming, Around 6-7 keep the key for me, Yes, I don’t know where it is, I’ll ask one of the other teachers to wait for you, don’t worry about it, Ok thanks see you later.

On the G to T bus a father and son sat squeezed like fresh orange juice and nervous son with his fish mouth open conditioned by his father to be afraid of TIME kept checking his gigantic round watch.

Black Sea extended its long blue story.

Amazon Women Kill Males

After eating, Turkish businessmen splashed aromatic tonic on their hands, patted jowls and slicked back thinning hair. One man adjusted spectacles. Eating fish fast made him sweat. Sharing a joke about bones he smiled at an assassin writing a character sketch.

Ancient serious women in scarves accepted mountain village hard life. Young women divorced from confronting nature, soil and invisible roots appeared dazed and confused facing steep cobblestone Trabzon streets confronting miles of shops, window dummies and aggressive male textile hawkers yelling, “BUY FROM ME. SPECIAL MORNING PRICE. HAVE A LOOK-SEE. GET LUCKY.”

Shoppers’ visual examination loved text-based consumption paradigms.

Lucky hung out observing the flow as cats prowled for scraps, bodies with a voice cautioned parking spaces and lost souls attempting sad cellular telecommunication connections stumbled through temporary life inconveniences below Roman walls.

An abandoned Roman castle overlooking Giresun had a secret tunnel to a nearby is-land where Amazon women lived. They mated annually. Keep the race going. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, said an Amazon woman to her Black Sea lover. Take your time. After you make love to me I will kill you and eat your heart. I have something to look forward to he said, Yes, death is a new adventure. Nothing ever happens again.

Mosque mullahs calling the pious echoed exhortations swirling down cobblestone alleys past Giresun boys riding spoke less bikes between crumbling yellow Ottoman walls and mackerel sellers admiring haphazard silver fins lying dead eyed glossy on ice crystals melting into a refrain, The Sea! The Sea!

12 October 12

Turkish peasants love guns in a hunting culture.

Bang-bang, you shot me down. Bang-bang I hit the ground. Bang-bang that awful sound, Bang-bang my baby shot me down.

Are you the hunter or the prey?

Giresun munitions shop until you drop dead sold rifles, double-odd, pistols, bullets, calibers, double gaged gangrene, lock, stock and barrels of talking monkeys and circus clowns. Guns on weary authoritarian desperadoes waists itched bedraggled large breasted concubines as hip-hop head wrapped plastic hearted lovers cried.

Hearing suffering’s universal broken laughter a stranger composed a melody....”I Am So Tired.”

I didn’t get here by whining, said a sad neglected child bride victim of sixteen conceiving a child out of fear and loneliness facing future abandonment in an arranged marriage. Have a healthy progeny or get stoned to death for adultery, said her mother stirring tomatoes.

- Citizens play ‘walking chicken’ on narrow sidewalks.

- Drivers confront mechanical anxieties with bravado.

- Everyone's so excited as emotional paleontology squirmed dialogue with an EIQ of -7.

- Citizens remain traumatized since birth and younger than memory’s fascination.

- Sex is a DUTY said The Posture Police.

*

The creature behind the black curtain at the shooting gallery in a Giresun shopping center was s-l-o-w on the trigger to hide two graphic red and black bulls-eyes on a target screen after Lucky, exploring as usual parted the curtain asking what, oh what’s behind the blackness? Low and behold. Tear guts. Targets galore, said the creature. Lock n’ load. Fire when ready Freddy keep hands steady.

Happiness is a warm gun.

The Language Company