Writing
Short fiction, essays, and the book.
Short Fiction
11 pieces
-
Measured
The fourth-floor elevator button had been sticking since spring. People usually pressed it more than once. He did the same and went up with two men from statistics who were talking about football.
3 min · scenes
17 min · notes
-
It Was Not a Question
“Do what you want,” she said. “Go wherever you like.” He said nothing. “İyi yıllar.” She hung up. The invitations had arrived in December, and they had arrived for two people. A rooftop in Kadıköy. A thing in Cihangir that was never fully explained.
11 min
-
The Notice
The notice had gone up weeks ago, on the street door. The seal, the block number, the word demolition, a date. The date was this week.
In choices
-
The Lines Between Us
Emre came to Kaş because of Cem. They had been friends for ten years. Cem had spent the first of those years in an office in İstanbul and the rest of them regretting it. One spring he quit, bought a pension in Kaş, and...
18 min
-
Michi
Sora counted seventeen umbrellas at the foot of the first gate. It had rained in the morning, the quicksilver rain that came and went before the vendors had finished arranging their charms. Now the stones were dark in the joints, and the red gates...
7 min
-
It Will Be
Rain runs down the café window. The three men sit at the table by the window. A newspaper lies open between them. The street door opens. Two women come in under one umbrella. Rain darkens one shoulder of each coat. One of them carries...
The Corner
4 min
-
Thinking Is for After
Shadows stretch across the walls. Her mother’s plates form stacks on the table. Newspapers rest beside them. Crates cover the floorboards. Mara spreads a newspaper flat. She lifts a plate from the stack and sets it on the paper. Paper folds over ceramic. The...
The Corner
5 min
-
Written in Ink
In Bologna her mother handed her the tablet across the kitchen table, in a white box with the lid still creased. The tomato sauce moved in folds on the stove and the window had gone soft with steam. Lucia ran her thumb along the...
The Corner
6 min
-
Let’s Have Some Cheese
I have never been good with weddings. Still, I went. I went because Esra, the bride, was a dear friend. We had not seen each other in years, and there are friendships that survive badly in daily life but remain intact in memory, waiting...
6 min
-
The Cost
He belonged to İstanbul—or to an İstanbul that is mostly gone now. White hair, neatly combed back. Thin glasses. A jacket that had not been chosen to impress anyone, which made it more impressive. He drank cognac before dinner. Later, with the others, he...
5 min
-
Collateral
The halıcı in Kreuzberg owns the building and won’t sell a single flat. Narrow and tall, French balconies on every floor. Every flat one-plus-one. Kahraman walks through all of them. The ground floor is high, windows two and a half meters off the street....
7 min
Essays
15 pieces
-
On Silence
This piece also appears in The Fragments as Moris. I forgot I had a cat. It was his first night in the apartment. He was six months old, a tiny, terrified shadow that had spent most of the day hiding in some invisible corner...
The On Series
2 min
-
On Longing
The hands that press the collar, the comb drawn through the hair—they hold a form against erosion. But there is something the ritual can’t reach. Something that doesn’t stay where the comb leaves it. I—The Trigger I walked into the concert. I’m forty-five. Stage...
The On Series
8 min
-
On Keeping
Some debts stay. Some structures fall. But there is an older question than whether the damage can be undone—it is whether anything can be held whole in the first place. Adversity strips you bare. What you choose to maintain in that bareness—the small, stubborn...
The On Series
3 min
-
On Forgiveness
Four men in a room. Ardbeg in our glasses, heavy and gold. The screen pulling us into Dogville’s chalk-lined dark—a stage set pretending to be a town, cruelty made architectural. My stomach knots somewhere in the second act. The third. I stop counting. The...
The On Series
3 min
-
On Looking
The liar builds a corridor and remembers the blueprint. The misperceiver builds one and moves in. But there is another architecture—one where everyone builds at the same time, and nobody notices the walls. “To tell the truth, it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it....
The On Series
4 min
-
On Perceiving
“I’m a realist. I see things exactly as they are.” I’ve never trusted anyone who says this. Lying was the subject of On Lying. This is a different phenomenon. They actually believe it. That’s what makes it harder to argue with and almost impossible...
The On Series
5 min
-
On Lying
A lie is an environment. The liar constructs a context in which the false conclusion becomes the only one available to the listener. The most effective deceptions are built from true information, arranged carefully. Ask someone, “Did you withdraw that money?” and they might...
The On Series
2 min
-
The Best Ideas Come When You Let Go
I am walking along the İdealtepe coast. It’s five minutes until sunrise; the sky is torn between deep orange and pale blue, and the sea is almost silver. There isn’t a single thought in my head. At least, that’s what I think. Suddenly, the...
3 min
-
The Empathy Paradox
We are sitting at a table by the window. Outside, the rain has just stopped; the pavement is gleaming. Two coffees, both gone cold. My friend is talking. I am listening. Her eyes fill with tears. She pauses. She grabs a napkin and crumples...
4 min
-
It Is Either from Love or Fear
There is a city with white walls. It has always been under siege—or at least, that is the story it tells itself. And stories, told long enough, become the walls themselves. They wanted to be a light. Perhaps they even were, once. But somewhere...
5 min
-
Why Do Unfinished Things Haunt Us?
I’m at the register. Someone ahead of me is counting coins. The scanner beeps. I’m holding a shopping basket, wearing the face of an ordinary evening. From the outside, everything looks still. Ordinary. But something inside won’t stop moving. I reach for my phone—it...
6 min
-
Jung’s Golden Shadow
Have you ever noticed that your own potential shines behind the very things that annoy, anger, or make you envious? The answer to this question lies at the core of the “shadow” concept, introduced by Carl Gustav Jung as he explored the human psyche....
5 min
-
Our Defense Mechanisms
I’ve been digging into this topic for a while now. Especially when it comes to things that directly affect my life, I want to know what the experts say, how much of it I actually understand, and where I stand in my own experience....
5 min
-
Will AI Be Enough for Us?
AI agents haven’t fully entered our lives yet—I know that. Most of us still wake up and go about our day without talking to an assistant, relying purely on our own will. But then again, which of us hasn’t turned to an AI for...
4 min
-
Why Do We Say Hello?
Have you ever found yourself in an argument you never intended to have, asking, “How did we even get here?” Or, despite being an adult, have you ever felt yourself suddenly shrinking into a guilty child in front of an authority figure? Often, communication...
8 min