6/12/2018 Necessary Fiction - Tarık Dursun K., 'Oh, My Life' http://necessaryfiction.com/stories/TarikDursunKOhMyLife 1/5 Fiction · 12/07/2016 Oh, My Life by Tarık Dursun K. Translated by Vuslat D. Katsanis She remembered nothing, no; not a single thing. I could see it when she spoke. Her eyes were not cloudy, her hands were not trembling. She could find the right words easily. She was wearing her long gown, and had drawn a knit sweater over her shoulders; the red of her sweater clashed with the needle pointed green leaves of the wild black pepper tree above our heads. “I lost my slippers,” she said suddenly; reached out her hand, held mine, it was warm, her voice had a barely discernible lamentation. “It was under my bed, I had taken them off at night to sleep. I searched this morning and couldn’t find them.” “I’ll bring you new ones next week,” I said. She became happy. “You’ll bring them, won’t you?” I nodded my head. “I will bring them. What color should they be?” She thought a bit. Then, she slowly moved her index finger from one end of her upper lip to the other. “You tell me, what color should they be?” “Blue,” I said. She put her finger down. “Why blue?” “I don’t know. I just thought of blue, so I said blue.” Two male hospital attendants in brown cloaks passed in front of the bench where we were sitting. Without removing her gaze from them: “I dreamt of the cat again last night,” she said. “It was morning and I was supposed to leave home and go to work. I got ready. I think it was raining, I seemed to have grabbed my umbrella, it was in my hand. I went out the door, and saw her. She even had three kittens, lying on the doorstep, nursing her babies. One of the kittens was black and white, one orange, and the other a grey tabby. I just stood there at the doorstep, I didn’t move, I didn’t move at all. The cat and I exchanged glances. She was staring at me through her glass-like eyes, as if my mother. The kittens had buried their heads deep into her stomach, suckling on her tits. I searched her face for that sweet relaxation, that satisfaction, but I couldn’t find it. It was as if she was suffering, but still resisting, resisting against something. I clutched my umbrella tightly in my hand, she felt it; her eyes suddenly darkened, its shine vanished, replaced by redness, she lifted her head ever so slightly. She stared at me, kept staring at me and stopped. “It was just a dream,” I said, without removing my hand. “Did you wake up after that?”