Fatma Irmak Tuncel
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…
6.00 am.
The alarms rang.
no time for breakfast, maybe later or… just never
Must leave the building, that’s for sure.
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They were in the streets. Walking in a perfect harmony.
Or maybe,
it wasn’t harmonious. Maybe on the contrary, they were in chaos, but they couldn’t tell, even I can’t tell. Were they even there? I can’t distinguish anymore. There was nothing there as everything was there.
No sound of the steps, no sound of the cars getting unlocked. But they… they were walking, they were getting in the cars?
Yet no sound of the steps, no sound of the cars getting unlocked.
Maybe it was just because they don’t care if there was. If no one is listening, does the sound still exist? Or it’s just us who make it real…
But something is for sure,
there was no light, nor darkness.
There was only the clock.
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Sun left us, it’s been… I don’t remember exactly when, but sure it was a long time ago.
No light, nor darkness.
Only the clock.
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Destination is clear, all set in their cars. The rush of the time that they have set for themselves. Typical but essential.
8.00 am.
They finally converged on the massive artificial blocks filled with perfection. Those flawless, faultless blocks which were waiting for them to arrive. Now it was just them and their work. Only them and their work for the next 9 hours. The absolute happ… What was the word? I don’t remember. We don’t use it anymore. In fact, we don’t need it anymore. They will be out at 5 pm… or maybe 6 if it’s monday, or maybe 7 if it’s t… Well, does it really matter? Night or day how can you tell… since the moon left us just like the sun. Even the moon left us… Since then,
we have no light, nor darkness.
Only the clock.
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Gray is no longer a color. Gray is what we have, all we have. It is the normal. Everything is the same while everything is turning into nothing. Gray is turning into nothing. And I hardly remember its name because it doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t even have its shades.
…
I stood there and tried to “see” them. I wanted to see them separately, individually. And for a short moment, I assumed that I had seen someone in the front seat of a car but no… the moment my eyes were locked on her, she wasn’t there anymore. She was a part of the car and the car was fading every passing minute. They were slowly becoming the street itself which was uniting with the long line of plazas overflowing from the city. They were becoming the sky, they were becoming everything.
And now that there was nothing left, it was swallowing itself and creating a tremendous emptiness just like a hungry newborn black hole. Only difference, the black hole was now a “gray hole”. In that fatal silence,
there was no light, nor darkness.
Only the clock.
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It is no longer “us”. We are the part of the gray without shades, without shadows. We have lost our shadows when the sun was gone and… the moon. My name is gray, and yours as well. We have disappeared in this agonizing soullessness, nevertheless we don’t even feel pain anymore… and now that it has us all, it is disappearing itself. There is no meaning for it to be a color if it is already the only color, the only shade. Now that it is everything, it can be finally nothing in peace. We’re all dead and this “ensemble vide” is our cemetery but our souls aren’t there.
…
It’s been a long time that God has left us and some even say that it was us who killed him.
There is no heaven, nor hell,
Only the clock.
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…
and now, I completely forgot its name,
tic
that color’s name,
tac
that color which was all around…
tic
I forgot my name.
tac
No light
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No darkness
tac
a
Only the clock
tic
… tac.