Ankara

Brown rolling hills said, Open sesame. Shazam. 1,001 Arabian Nights shared stories inside stories. Dervish mystic dancers wheeling in trances welcomed his spirit.

Lucky learned the majority of Turks suffered from anxiety. They took anti-depressants called Xanax to calm psychotic neurosis. Symptoms of overwhelming sadness dressed citizens in rose petals between self-pity, loathing and thorns.

Ankara was a boring, cold capital city filled with sad administrative paper-pushing androids.

He’d accepted a teaching/facilitating TLC job with an acquisition cycle.

A part-time female teacher from South Africa married to an English environmentalist studying seal habitats along the southern coastline helped Lucky buy a DNA cell phone. He’d never had one.

It was a 1984 red gadget with buttons and functions like calendars, tools, SMS, IM, Teams, Bluetooth, internet access, GPS and To Do, Did, and Does it work? Connections. Locations.

It displayed points of interest at low interest rates.

Instant,

Everywhere You Are

Or Imagine You Are

or Need To Be

Where You Are Now

at this precise moment

with dimensional proportions

suited his nomadic status

acquiring mobility extremes.

One morning he walked to the Ulus garden nursery below an old Roman castle. A red hammer and sickle flag waved above ramparts. He discovered white, red and purple roses, cactus, ten small plants, containers and potting soil. Good dirt.

A word gravedigger craves good dirt.

The Language Company

Ankara, Turkey

Brown rolling hills said, Open sesame. Shazam. 1,001 Arabian Nights shared stories inside stories. Dervish mystic dancers wheeling in trances welcomed his spirit.

Lucky had accepted a teaching/facilitating TLC job with an acquisition cycle.

He learned the majority of Turks suffered from anxiety. They took anti-depressants called Xanax to calm psychotic neurosis. Symptoms of overwhelming sadness dressed citizens in rose petals between self-pity, loathing and thorns.

Ankara was a boring, cold capital city filled with sad administrative paper-pushing androids.

A part-time female teacher from South Africa married to an English environmentalist studying seal habitats along the southern coastline helped Lucky buy a DNA cell phone. He’d never had one.

It was a 1984 red gadget with buttons and functions like calendars, tools, SMS, IM, Teams, Bluetooth, internet access, GPS and To Do, Did, and Does it work?

Connections. Locations.

It displayed points of interest at low interest rates. Instant, Everywhere You Are Or Imagine You Are or Need To Be Where You Are Now at this precise moment with dimensional proportions suited his nomadic status acquiring mobility extremes.

One morning he walked to the Ulus garden nursery below an old Roman castle. A red hammer and sickle flag waved above ramparts. He discovered white, red and purple roses, cactus, ten small plants, containers and potting soil. Good dirt.

A word gravedigger caresses good dirt.

For language play he stole brown, beige and black linen pants, five long-sleeved button-down cotton shirts, two silk ties and three pairs of thin black socks. He bought an iron and ironing board for linen, cotton threads and extraneous words.

Like Murakami he loved ironing. Zen heat and gentle pressure married textile’s texture.

He knotted a tie to his phone and dragged it through Ankara yelling, “Don’t think. Look. See. I’m connected to the Universe. I am now a VIP. I have Infinite Diversity through Infinite Combinations. IDIC for short.”

After studying cracked pavement anxious Turkish eyes expressed serious facial expressions

In Search of Lost Time.

Citizens cradled delicate phones like infants in sleep mode.

Strangers congratulated Lucky with lilies, orchids, rose thorns, floral arrangements and invitations to weddings and funerals in Kurdish PKK controlled no-fly zones bordering Syrian refugee camps.

The Language Company

Tax office Trabzon - TLC

Eat dreams with Turkish yogurt minus needles of anxiety.

Cultivate silence and bliss.

Amazon women visited the residency permit offic3 in Trap A Zone. They severed their right breast. Here you are. We’re ahead of schedule and below budget. We pay now.

Arrows of time sang, Bull’s-Eye.

Everything has already happened, said Z. You just need to experience it. You and I hit the target others don’t see.

Before visiting the taxman Lucky discovered a pinecone poem near the tax office inhaled it caressed needle texture and put it in his pocket. Talisman.

The cool deep forest season scent reminded him of managing Glen Malure, an isolated Wicklow hostel in Ireland below Lugnaquilla Mountain absorbing the same sensation with pinecone nature in his pocket grounding him deep helping him survive dear old dirty Dublin passing through to wild Donegal in 1979.

Down the rocky road, one, two, three, leaving them all broken hearted.

After the tax office barbarians sang at The Bank of Greed & Prosperity to open an account. Wake up the clerk. Keep people busy. Sit Down deposited 12K to get it straight. Deposit today, withdraw next week, said sleepy teller.

Palming an ace, Paperwork shuffled a loaded deck.

In the afternoon the native speaking tribe went to the police office for residency paperwork. Wake up the dick in the corner. Everyone was armed and legged with hand ups. Desperadoes sang bordello caliber melodies.

Lucky handed over sepia photos, documents in triplicate, passport and random pages of a well-traveled TLC narrative by Zeynep to a morose female clerk wearing a hipster 45. She did her computer data duty and passed everything to a young steely-eyed policeman who, by pure dumb luck had met Mr. Foot two weeks earlier on the TEOL balcony where they conversed about essential English skills. Use it or lose it, said Lucky.

Cop looked at the residency permit, stared him down and said you cannot work in Giresun. Yes, said Lucky. Always say yes when a kid fingering a loaded 45 says you cannot. Negative tense.

In the future all the world’s police will be children. Period.

The Language Company

Zeynep the heroine of TLC in Bursa.

Tired - TLC 15

Ankara students felt tired. They loved being addicted to a phenobarbital reality altering sensations and emotional health with anti-depressants.

“Anxiety is a national problem,” said a male psychiatrist. His small silver spoon dissolved sugar cubes manufactured in a factory where hygiene conditions were abysmal.

They sat on thick embroidered cushions in a teahouse decorated with Turkish and Iranian carpets, blue amber oil paintings near a well-thumbed Zen Tarot deck.

The troubled shrink had endless neurotic patients. Predicting the future Lucky shared a meditative suggestion. “Heal them with metta - loving kindness. We are all extras in someone's film. You play a leading role. They trust you.”

TLC - 10 Ankara 2008

Brown rolling hills said, Open sesame. Shazam. 1,001 Arabian Nights shared stories inside stories. Dervish mystic dancers wheeling in trances welcomed his spirit.

Lucky learned the majority of Turks suffered from anxiety. They took anti-depressants called Xanax to calm psychotic neurosis. Symptoms of overwhelming sadness dressed citizens in rose petals between self-pity, loathing and thorns.

Ankara was a boring, cold capital city filled with sad administrative paper-pushing androids. He’d accepted a teaching/facilitating TLC job with an acquisition cycle.

A part-time female teacher from South Africa married to an English environmentalist studying seal habitats along the southern coastline helped Lucky buy a DNA cell phone. He’d never had one.

It was a 1984 red gadget with buttons and functions like calendars, tools, SMS, IM, Teams, Bluetooth, internet access, GPS and To Do, Did, and Does it work? Connections. Locations. It displayed points of interest at low interest rates. Instant, Everywhere You Are Or Imagine You Are or Need To Be Where You Are Now at this precise moment with dimensional proportions suited his nomadic status acquiring mobility extremes.

One morning he walked to the Ulus garden nursery below an old Roman castle. A red hammer and sickle flag waved above ramparts. He discovered white, red and purple roses, cactus, ten small plants, containers and potting soil. Good dirt.

A word gravedigger craves good dirt.

For language play he stole brown, beige and black linen pants, five long-sleeved button-down cotton shirts, two silk ties and three pairs of thin black socks. He bought an iron and ironing board for linen, cotton threads and extraneous words. Like Murakami he loved ironing. Zen heat and gentle pressure married textile’s texture.

He knotted a tie to his phone and dragged it through Ankara yelling, “Don’t think. Look. See. I’m connected to the Universe. I am now a VIP. I have Infinite Diversity through Infinite Combinations. IDIC for short.”

After studying cracked pavement anxious Turkish eyes expressed serious facial expressions In Search of Lost Time. Citizens cradled delicate phones like infants in sleep mode. Strangers congratulated Lucky with lilies, orchids, rose thorns, floral arrangements and invitations to weddings and funerals in Kurdish PKK controlled no-fly zones bordering Syrian refugee camps.

Garrulous, the TLC manager took him to a seafood restaurant. Waiters in white shirts and black ties guided them to a table decorated with multiple sets of silver cutlery, water glasses and folded cotton napkins. Where are the chopsticks?

A waiter brought mineral water in a thin-stemmed glass goblet. A slice of lemon floated on bubbles. He deposited a bowl of green, red, and black olives dusted with chili powder, oil and vinegar. They enjoyed a fresh green salad of tomatoes, carrots, beets, parsley, mint leaves, corn, and red lettuce in a pistachio sauce with hot fresh brown bread and yellow butter. The main course was braised salmon, flame seared potato, tomato and green pepper. Thick coffee finished the feast. Grounds coated his throat.

Sexually depraved women with dark seductive eyes flashing lost love signals escorted him to a local cafe. They taught him the traditional game of backgammon while sharing apple-flavored hubby-bubbly tobacco pipes past his bedtime regaling him with fables, legends, myths, lies and stories about their hard hearted survival strategies in a man’s world.

TLC