during the day, stars cross behind blue skies. we are in the second half. the air—artificial, flowing out of an oversized pipe from the ceiling—blows on my right arm in swift, staggering breaths. we are either too cold or too hot; we make sense of our comfort with the sting of extremes.
i look at a young man sitting outside, on the other side of the glass. smaller pipes breathe on him, ones full of soot and combustion. he is pale and curious. he reads a book with one eye and drinks coffee in short sips, resting his cup on the table next to his phone. he doesn’t belong there, but that’s how he fits in the crowd: conspicuously, with careful deliberation.
the young man will meet someone someday—a passerby, a stranger in the hallway, a woman, perhaps; a half-turkish woman, even. he will tell this someone, the woman, that there was a time when he lived in istanbul. that will please her. there will be a short exchange about the seas or the seasons, and she will desperately try to remember the colour yellow, but it will only come back to her when the moment has gone, when she finds herself sitting in a café, looking at a pale young man.