Engin Akyurek maybe the best actor in the world ever-BIO/Updates pg4&a - Page 46

When the bus was able to stop without an incident, its doors had been opened with the sound of its stertorous breathing. I had floated to the back of the bus like waves catching and carrying me along. Moving to back, an old habit from my school days, was making me show off my tallness gallantly. It's known by some people that sitting at the back meant to be Avarell (4) of an organized crime.

My calculator watch showed 7:45. It was such a nice combination of time and location. The girl who had a cloud hidden in her eyes would get into the bus two stops later. She would get into the bus and elegantly find herself a place to sit.

When the bus arrived her stop, it seemed like it had cleared its hoarse throat and opened its doors quickly. When I looked at her, I always felt like it was drizzling even in a sunny weather. My heart's weather forecast showed rain because of her partially cloudy eyes. Even though I didn't know her name, I was dreaming scenes which her story and where she came from didn't matter. The damp weather in her eyes haunted my dreams. I was naming her in my dreams and rehearsing our first greeting in my sleeps.

"Hi."

"Hi."

There was no need to go further because anything expressed in sentences could steal the meaning in her eyes. The sentences would turn into verbs as we looked at each other and verbs would dwindle to our hidden (or null) subject.

The bus had moved forward. Although I should have gotten off the bus three stops ago, I had still been in the bus to be with her. Clouds in those eyes could breake away easily in a world where 3-bus stop distance could be a problem. Overcoming my ego, I had memorized the EGO (5) timetable. Our two weeks story was as old as Adam and as unique as Eve. I was traveling to the most beautiful places on earth with her in the bus.

When the bus driver, turning back with his voice rather than his head, said "Move all the way to the back", I was already at the swing carousel part(6) of the bus. When the crowd swarmed over me, I had caught her eyes as if we had a date. When two pairs of eyes were too close to each other, one couldn't look.
I used to love clouds. Those clouds that heroically challenged the condescending sun were this girl's story. And her story was my story.

We were filming the most beautiful love story of the world. Looking at my calculator watch, she had asked me "Excuse me, what time is it?" It was 8:15. The quarter-ness of time wasn't important anymore. She would get off the bus at past-twenties anyways. My inner recording devices had recorded her voice. Her musical note was on all my sounds now.

This girl was the topic of everything I told my friends. I told them so many things under that topic that they were really curious about her.

"What's her name?"

"I don't know."

"Have you talked to her yet?"

"No."

"Why?"

If we trimmed the question parts, my answers would be hidden in her eyes. It was like looking the most beautiful view of the world from the most beautiful hill. I had wanted to grow or green something in the most crowded borders of the bus. Our first sentence, first hello should last a lifetime, let alone three bus stops.

Hakan and Mehmet had begun to get on the bus although they didn't need it. Curiosity was a beautiful thing. Loving someone from distance was more beautiful and more intriguing. The more I talked about her hair, her skin, and most importantly, her eyes, the more she was turning into a fairy tale heroine whose name I didn't know.

I had my vocal chords, screaming like a bunch of hooligans, gathered at the command echelon of my heart. They had the power of translating "What time is it?" question into Japanese. Although all translations had the same meaning, I could only understand her language.

My two weeks story had extended to its third week which was the Gregorian sign of transition from the Ice Age to the First Age.

Grinning, Hakan and Mehmet were waiting for me at mybus stop at 7:30 in the morning. But there was childish malice behind their grinning. They were there as if they would steal something that I had. However, the thing that they would steal wasn't a couple of car pictures collected from a Turbo gum. These things that I told them belonged to me and it was more of a story of clouds, this girl's story than my story.

The red old man, one of our old men (TN: he means the bus), whose name I didn't know and I recognized from its torn bellow, had come at 7:45. As always, I had moved to the back of the bus. Mehmet and Hakan had stood closer to me, under someone's elbow (TN: He allegorically implies that they were short). They were shorter than me. They didn't know back seats. They always loved sitting next to the driver. Their grin hadn't been died down and they had been grinning like a Cheshire cat, like a flaring pear beacon.

It was almost 8:15. The morning traffic was making people stressful. My excitement was causing landslides inside me and they were turning into erosion as Mehmet and Hakan kept grinning and people kept honking in the heavy traffic.

When the bus reached the famous bus stop, all three of us had snapped to attention. I was the head of the protocol and, thank god, I was the tallest one. The door hissed and fizzled as if it released its bolts. It sounded so bad that it suited neither the girl we had been waiting for nor our pathetic poise. While I was waiting like a Simple Simon, our girl got into bus holding hands with some else.

At that moment, the bus got older and turned into the face of a grumpy old man on his deathbed. I could wash the face of the boy holding her hand with a softener; his soul was smelling hydrochloric acid anyways. As Mehmet, elbowing my side, asked me who she was, the bus was becoming uglier and turning into my feudist. Even though the weather forecast showed rain, the weather was becoming sunny and the clouds were breaking away as if they were never there.

Hakan, catching my stares, had said, "Was this the girl?"

There were moments that we didn't need the truth. Dreams and the things that stayed with us were sometimes more important than the thing we called reality.

Turning to Hakan, I had said "The weather is sunny today".

"What?"

"I mean, no bro, this girl is very ugly."

Footnotes:
1) Halay is a folk dance style performed in Central and Southeastern Anatolia which people dance together in line hand to hand or shoulder to shoulder ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2jOK_mWkjw)
2) Bar (means dance in Armenian) is a folk dance style performed in Eastern Anatolia which people dance together side-by-side, hand to hand, shoulder to shoulder and arm-in-arm. ((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QOZnh8OjUs)
3) Horon (originated from Greek (dance)) is a folk dance style performed in Black Sea region of Turkey which people dance together hand-in-hand in short steps. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZCsYWRu4bI)
4) The tallest, youngest, and stupidest of the Dalton Brothers in Lucky Luke comics series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris.
5) Abbreviation for "Elektrik Gaz Otobs Genel Mdrl - Ankara Electricity, Gas and Bus Operations Organization (EGO General Directorate)" which provides electricity, gas, and public transportation under the umbrella of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality.
6) Pivoting joint of an articulated bus that connects two rigid sections.