I lifted the cover of the notebook and let my fingers wander over the texture of the first page. I felt outside of everything, as if stroking the shell of life itself. Moreover, in the image I saw, there were things quite contrary to this young man before me. He was wearing a very stylish suit. He sat there with his shiny leather shoes and black socks.
It was as if a wealthy man stood before me, yet his soul was so poor.
Every time I lift my head, I meet the contradictions in his honey-colored eyes.
I saw the abyss between him and me.
He was placing his drum right in front of the abyss and smiling at me. It felt as if neither he nor I knew why he was smiling.
When he said, "Do you know what is down there?" I merely shook my head from side to side to indicate that I didn't know.
"Do you want me to show you?" he asked, as if promising me a treasure. When I stood up and reached his side in two steps, he opened his arms to me as if happy about it.
"Where?" I said clearly while looking down. Suddenly, the man who had just called me to his side vanished, and I was left alone with just the drum.
"Don't you see?" I listened closely to the voice coming from a hidden, invisible source. I was looking down carefully, but I couldn't understand what I was seeing. After looking a few more times, I saw a girl there; she had a red hat and was riding on the tip of a brush, drawing things with that brush. First a sea, then the sky, and then a rainbow... A moment later, our eyes met.
As the spring air of those grass-colored eyes mingled with my soul, the pages of the notebook in my hand suddenly opened one after another, and while I just watched, a random page stayed open. The grass-eyed girl with the red hat came toward me and drew something on the notebook with her brush. I hadn't understood what this drawing was.
It was just a void. No one knew at that moment why I was drawing attention to this point.
I just continued to watch.
"What is this that you've drawn?" I said, hoping I asked in a very polite voice, and I brought my hand to the back of my neck, rubbing it for a while.
"Do you like it?" she asked simply, ignoring my question.
While this saddened me greatly, I frowned. This movement of mine made me anxious. The eyes I wanted to see her forever were not seeing; she wouldn't be able to see any of my movements. Thinking of this, I wouldn't move a single muscle of my expression to ease my conscience.
When I asked, "What did you draw?" her thin brown eyebrows glided upward in a vague arch.
"Don't you see what I drew?" she said angrily, as if scolding me. I knew my cheeks had already turned red, and I was quite intimidated by her. I turned my gaze to the notebook, but there was nothing there.
"I don't see it," I said, feeling a great agony; when a sharp pain entered my heart, I groaned, bringing my hand to my chest, and I resigned myself to getting lost in her grass-colored irises.
"How can you not see? I have no cornea, that's why I don't see; but you, why don't you see?" she said, speaking as if offended. Perhaps this was far from being hurtful; it was just a sweet reproach.
"I don't know, I must have just looked from another direction," I said, bowing my head. However, she jumped off the brush and sat quietly beside me, looking at the drum even though she couldn't see. I looked in the direction she was looking, but suddenly she averted her eyes.
"From which direction?" she scolded me again.
Perhaps she wasn't scolding me, but I wanted to perceive everything this way.
"Since I don't see anything, I don't know from which direction it is either," I replied. I was breaking into a cold sweat, yet she was quite calm. Her face was a bit more serene. After this, she spoke purely for the sake of explanation.
"What I drew is the color white," she said suddenly. It was as if everything we had talked about before was in vain.
"Colors are not drawn, they are painted," I said, this time me correcting her. I didn't know how I had the audacity to say this to a painter; my self-confidence had simply reached its peak at that moment.
She shook her head slightly from side to side, smiling.
"How do you know that colors cannot be drawn?" she asked.
I froze.
Just as I was about to open my mouth, I noticed a hand grabbing my arms. I was being shaken violently; faint colors were passing before my eyes.
I thought I was in a dream; I wanted to wake up but couldn't succeed. When the slap on my cheek brought me to my senses, my eyes fluttered open and I saw the nurse in a white coat before me. Although I saw her mouth moving, I couldn't yet perceive what she was saying.
"Bulut!"
"Come to yourself, can you hear me?"
"Had he taken his medicine?"
"Hadn't he eaten his food?"
"We went out and came back, he said he felt bad."
"Did he talk to anyone?"
"At the door, with the painter."
"I wonder if they said something?"
"He didn't tell us what they talked about."
"It was raining, he was soaking wet; the cold might have triggered the seizure."
"Hallucination, he's having a seizure."
"Ertan, bring the sedative, brother, but run."
"Stay calm."
When I felt the sting in my hip, my face contorted, and everything suddenly turned into a heavy darkness. I had stopped perceiving where I was. I was left alone with a terrible world.
With my very own mind.
End of Chapter