I had more steps than an average man on earth. If only we all tried to step just a step more than the average man on earth, soon we would reach speed of light in our walks altogether. However, it is impossible. Kingdoms rise until a break point. Then they collapse. The rise is thanks to their slow progress, one more step a day. The fall is when their progress reaches to its maximum.
Protecting our borders are as crucial as expanding our world view. The greatest traveller has no home, greatest writer has no reader. If one wants to be a famous writer, one must become the average, not the best. The catchiness of the normal as a norm. This is how one can be read. The average person is as rare as the best person, only one person can be in the middle, others must be on the average person’s left or right slightly.
I am not the average person, nor the greatest or worst. When it comes to defining my position, I can only say, “I am here”. My hierarchy is geoid for I live inside this world. Unless the conditions change, it must stay like this. I must stay inside the earth. This is a limit. The greatest traveller must walk outside the world, must walk between planets, must walk between galaxies, must walk between universes. All I can do is I can walk in between universities. My border is from Atatürk University to Göttingen University so far. This is how much steps I expanded myself, but also limited myself. I could always go one step further. I could also go one step closer. Staggering!
One step closer to the truth of walking is the realisation of how ordinary of an act it is. As normal as for a worm to crawl, for a bird to fly; we walk.
In fictions, the wise is a wizard with teleporting skills. In the reality of a walker, wisdom is about not teleporting. In today’s words, it is the choice of walking instead of driving. The more you choose to walk, the more you become a walker.
He dropped the coin into the jukebox. “Herkes Gider Mi” by Beşiktaş Çocuk Korosu, from Cem Adrian album. The dialogue from the music echoed inside the pub:
Person 1: Are you still alone?
Person 2: Just free.
Person 1: So, are you unhappy?
Person 2: Just used to it.
Person 1: What about in love?
Person 2: Just incomplete. What about you, are you still waiting?
Person 1: Waiting is as pointless as singing the most beautiful song in the world to someone who cannot hear.
Person 2: What about hope?
Person 1: Hope is as difficult and impossible as describing a rainbow to someone who cannot see.
He chugged his beer down the throat, squinted his eyes to the barkeeper. With his burnt throat, he made a sour face. In a silent voice, “one more” he said. Barkeeper answered, “Enough for today, you must head back home buddy”. He asked, “Does everyone leave”? Barkeeper misunderstood his philosophical question and responded, “Everyone left already. We are alone”.
He: Have I you?
Barkeeper: I am tired, don’t make the night hard.
He: Am I used to you?
Barkeeper: You are only drunk.
He: Am I not sober enough to realise I am alone? You still are my bartender.
Barkeeper: Do you hear me buddy?
He: One more, please.
Barkeeper: Can you even see me?
He: I promise to visit and see you again tomorrow.
Barkeeper poured them a glass of her favourite afterwork cocktail.
They drank together. One more usual cup than a day before.
He staggered to his left and right ever slightly until he went back home. His unsteady fingers danced inside his pocket before finding his keys. Each clink and clang made him remember the chorus’s symphony.
He could not remember other important bits like how he got back home, how he got in, how he was naked, how there was an unknown woman in his bed.
He thought to himself, “I think I just found teleportation” before losing his consciousness and fully collapsing onto the floor.
(This is the story of an alcoholic.)
The next day, the mysterious woman in his bed left his house in fear. The barkeeper didn’t see him. There was a smell of death in the streets. The neighbours called the police after a month. They broke in and found his dead rotting body. Buddy.
And I had written a word more than yesterday.
And you had read a word more than yesterday.
And we had cried two more tears than yesterday; one tear from the left cheek and the other from the right cheek has staggered.
We fell into the silence still hearing the music in our ears as if our remorse is talking to us.
Our heart. It staggers.
I had more…
I had one more…
I had no more…