Shadowless by Hasan Ali Toptas

Author:Hasan Ali Toptas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408850848
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-02-03T19:19:24+00:00

23

The man in the chair was staring deep into the mirror, as if he were still dreaming. It made him tired, just to see how tired he looked. At the same time, he was sure that if he took his eyes off the mirror, he would probably fall asleep again. This time he would dream of puttering over the mountains on a motorcycle, crossing the plains in search of a village that the world had forgotten. But its inhabitants had not forgotten him; some were watching the road, some dreaming of the road and some whispering of their memories of his last visit.

‘I have to go,’ he said.

I wasn’t completely sure that he had spoken. Because the voice I heard was far away, and as weak as a clumsy sentence. Each word was its own phantom. Maybe the man in the chair had only thought these words. Maybe I was still waiting for him to say them. I took a deep breath and looked at him, waiting for him to repeat them.

‘I have to go,’ he said again.

‘Where?’ I asked. With sleep-fogged eyes, he gazed at my reflection in the mirror.

‘You said you had to go somewhere?’

This made him laugh. I was, I feared, the object of a joke I had yet to understand.

‘I didn’t say anything of the sort,’ he snapped.

That took me aback. I decided I must have angered him when I’d said he’d been dreaming. Now this was his revenge. Because the moment he worked out that I wasn’t sure what I had heard, the ghost of a smirk crossed his face.

‘You never said you had to go?’ I asked again.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I never did.’

‘Fine, but what was the last thing you said to me?’

‘I said maybe this conversation we’re having right now is nothing but a dream.’

Then silence. At a loss, I looked back into the mirror.

He was scraping the foam off his face, but that ghost of a smirk was still there. Yes, most definitely. He was enjoying his revenge.

‘Don’t be upset,’ he said next, in a voice that was both childish and grave. ‘I didn’t say I was going, but I am going. I can’t waste any more time waiting for this barber.’

Though I did not wish to cause more trouble, I decided to ask him where he was going, one last time. But for some reason, I couldn’t coax the words from my mouth. And once again, it seemed as if he could hear what I hadn’t said, for he gave me a watery grin as he leant down into the sink to wash his face. What was this contest that bound us together? It had no name, though it had us eyeing and goading each other. Whatever we said, it turned into a game of wits.

As he rose from the chair, he pulled the towel off his neck to dry his face.

In a soft voice, I asked, ‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I’m a postman,’ he said, gesturing towards the motorcycle parked outside.

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