I woke up by the morning light. It was still too early, everyone else was sleeping. I panted in silence. Our new cell had long windows with a view of the prison backyard. A view to the sky. I looked at grey clouds and didn’t worry about the rain. The shadows of the night slowly disappeared and I distinguished shapes and objects, brightened by a timid blue sunrise.
On the dirty wall by the bed, I recognized handwritten messages of old prisoners. Images of Rostam and dying Sohrab, broken hearts and broken arrows, poems of Hafez and Khayaam praising the futility of life, the simple one lined drawings of men, women or objects, pictures of flowers and skeletons, sexual objects and sexual insults, names and phone numbers. Most of them were signed in Turkish or else, in black, blue or green. Some of them dated from the time I was a kid. The most visible one was written in blood, in big letters and it was in English: It read “Sick of Goodbyes”. The fainting image of a little girl was drawn under it. It was signed almost a decade ago. The whole wall was stained with grease and ink, but nothing could cover up this image. The image on the wall, imposing and sinister, was unique and isolated. As if it belonged to another place, another race of humanity or another dimension. Or as if the time had stopped and all prisoners were linking together through one’s despair. But what is the use of catching these moments to spread it to the end of times? What could be behind this desire of capturing this image for unborn generations? What kind of use might the eternity have for this useless unhappiness?
I didn’t need to see this sorrow. I wouldn’t have written this nightmare. I wouldn’t have taken this picture. It was the vision I didn’t want to see. It was the words I didn’t want to read. It was forcing the silence I didn’t want to break. Almost like the truth I didn’t want to defy.
The symbol of a life I didn’t dare to live.
I never liked farewells. I never liked to say goodbye. My mother always complained about my lack of respect. I didn’t hug my father on that last day. I didn’t hold tight my mother at the airport. I didn’t continue writing to most of my friends leaving. I didn’t say anything to my only lover the day he left me for good.
Sick of goodbyes, too many goodbyes.
