I was watching the dancing girl hologram at Pan Cafe while I was waiting for the order. I didn't know why I came to the Pan Cafe; my feet brought me there. I was watching the girl dancing in her red dress like I was enchanted. It was interesting that after all the events I experienced, an image consisted of light affected me.
When it came to me, I said: “latte” showing "one" with my finger. The guy who took the order told me a few words I didn't understand. He entered the order to system correctly, so I didn't try to figure out what he was saying. The girl who prepared my drink told me some words that I didn't understand when I handed out the cup. She said the words in her mouth, so I didn't bother trying to guess, I took the latte and sat down at one of the nearby tables.
The girl sitting at the next table was telling her friend something feverishly. Unfortunately, I didn't understand a word she was saying. I might have experienced a great shock, but I hadn't lost my mind yet, or at least I hoped that way. I was listening to what was being said at the other tables, and I couldn't understand a word from them. I was a stranger in my town.
I'd better make an assessment. About half an hour ago, after returning home from my workplace, I heard strange noises coming from our bedroom. My eye was hung up in our service gynoid Iglo, her lights were out, and she was still standing, and I think she was shut down so that she could not witness the events in the house. I went to the bedroom hoping that I had misinterpreted the sounds that came in my ear and witnessed my wife making love with another man. I went out of the house without saying a word after I got eyes on my wife and the guy I didn't know.
After wandering the streets of Levent for a while, I came to the Pan Café. What I experienced was far beyond the limit I could endure. In the last two months, I've seen all my savings melt slowly before my eyes. There was a complete collapse in the shoe market in which I was operating, and my savings, which I likened to a snowman, were almost destroyed. In the middle of winter, it was as if a burning sun had appeared, and there hadn't been a single cloud in the sky for days.
I left the Pan Cafe before I finished drinking and lit an electronic cigarette. I jumped on my capsule motorcycle which I left in front of the cafe and started to move towards Kadikoy where my parents lived. It was playing Manowar on my capsule motorcycle, and I could understand the words. So I wasn't crazy, only the Turks started to speak another language. Manowar's music was ideally suited to my current mood. I remembered that dark day when my capsule motorcycle was driving on autopilot towards the Bosphorus Bridge. The flying shuttle that took our son to school was crashed on the edge of the Istanbul Strait. After we lost our child in the accident, nothing was the same. Psychotherapy and anti-depressants were not enough to relieve the child's pain. We might have gotten used to it, but there was an annoying buzz in our brains. We realized how fragile our lives were. My wife Eylem was perhaps more affected by the incident, or she was able to express her sorrow better. Every relationship is a story created together. As the tale become sad, the relationship loses its ground, and everything that begins has an end.
My mother didn't stay much at home, luckily she was home, and she greeted me with words I didn't understand. I told her what happened at the Pan Cafe, and of course, I didn't say a word about what Eylem did. Her gaze showed she didn't understand my words. The only word I could understand was “Sarp.” In this parallel world, where I couldn't understand what was going on, at least my name was the same. Obviously, my mother thought I was joking with her, and when I told her I didn't understand her language, she answered me with angry words. She finally realized from my face that I didn't really understand, and she told me to come in and sit down with her hand. She brought me a glass of water from the kitchen. She hoped that I would return to my old state when I drank the water, and I also had such a dream. After I drank the water, I said, “Thank you.” My mother repeated my words and put her hand under her chin and began to think.
A little while later, she looked like she was thinking of something, and she made a few phone calls. She asked me if I was hungry, and when I expressed I wasn't hungry, my mother brought me fruit, but I didn't eat what she carried, and I didn't want anything.
Just like when I was a kid, my parents were in the front, and I was sitting in the back seat. My father's self-controlled flying car was moving up and down to optimize the route according to air traffic.
They put a weird, plastic robe on my naked body and shoved me into the imaging device. From inside the machine, some clippings like the ones in the mechanic shops could be heard. The technology was not progressing in all areas, taking pictures of my brain sections shouldn't take so long. When the transaction was finally complete, I was cold, and I was like drunk. It felt like death to take off the dress and wear my clothes again.
I was able to tell him what I was going through because unlike my parents, the doctor knew English. As a person born and raised in Turkey, it was understood that I had forgotten my mother tongue. Then what was the language that I talked thinking it was Turkish? The doctor asked me to speak after opening Google's translation service. I started to tell how much I enjoyed getting into bumper cars in the amusement park when I was a kid.
“Marika,” said my mother, who had solved the mystery, her face was illuminated. Dr. Kaan Ersöz noted that the language I spoke was Georgian. Since my mother worked, Marika looked after me from the day I was born to seven years old.
The doctor was relieved to think that the case was enlightened: “a shock you experienced opened the lid of the trunk where the Georgian was buried in your mind, and by the way, I think you forgot Turkish. I remember reading a few historical cases like this. But I didn't think to put such a diagnosis on your case because others were a result of a physical trauma.”
”Nothing compares to my son's pain about losing his son, and his work has been disrupted lately, " my mother said.
“It's hard to say for certain. There is no physical deformation in the area of the brain specialized in language. The situation may improve tomorrow, or it may never improve.”
On the way back, I told my parents to drive me home. Eylem was at home, and her fellow was gone. I asked why she was in our bed with another man in English. She had such a great sense of guilt that she said, “I'm sorry, I got caught up in a stream,” not even questioning why I speak English.
“How long has this been happening?” I asked,
“It happened all of a sudden,” she said.
My company went bankrupt at the end of the month, while I was hoping to start speaking Turkish again at my parents' house. But for some reason, I was starting to get better. Maybe I could start with what I had left. I took Marika's phone from my mother and asked her what I could do in Georgia. Marika was surprised, said I spoke very well in Georgian and asked how I learned.
"I learned when I was talking to you. I'm glad to hear your voice again.”
“So am I. I don't know about business, but I know people. I can make you talk to them."
Three days later, I was on a plane to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. I thought the best way to start a new life was to move to a new country.
Image Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/vidKDvmN6A4
Türk Takipçilerime Not: Bu öykünün Türkçe versiyonunu 