Her heart sank once more before that icy logic. This dialogue was the same one repeated countless times over the years. A man physically present, but spiritually long gone.
He stood up. “No,” he said, this time from the bottom of his heart. “It wasn’t enough.”
She moved away from him, from the lounge chair, from the concrete. Her feet carried her from the stones to the soft ash of the beach. She took off her shoes. When the cold water wrapped around her ankles, she paused and said silently, "Yes." "This is it."
As the grains of sand slipped through her fingers, she seemed to release a memory with each grain. Her whisper lingered on the wind:
"Take, take and go... The rain that wet my hair on that first date... The heavy sound of that door slamming in resentment... The names we chose for our unborn child... Go. That's not me anymore."
Müge İplikçi wrote: Last call
On the horizon, the ferry's lights shone like a faint star. Something inside him awoke with terror.
“No!” he muttered to himself. “Don’t miss her!”
He turned and took one last look. The red chaise longue and the silhouette on it were now a distant, foggy image. He raised his hand. He said nothing. He simply waved. That wave was both a farewell, an apology, and a first, bold step toward himself.
And then he started running.
Her skirt tangled in the wet sand, and the wind stabbed into her lungs like a sharp knife. Sand, water, then wood beneath her feet… She moved forward, leaping and leaping, her breath coming in short gasps. And then the dock. The ferry's final whistle became a muffled scream in her ears. The bridge that opened onto the dock was being pulled up, creaking as if in protest of her arrival.
Someone on deck shouted at her: "Ma'am! You can't jump! Where's your ticket?!"
With one last dash, he reached for the end of the board, the edge of the gap between two lives, his feet wet, his heart caged in his chest like a mad bird.
“Yes!” he shouted into the wind, his voice cracking with fear and triumph. “Yes, I have the ticket!”
When the dream ended, she opened her eyes. Her forehead was damp with cool sweat. Her breathing was still rapid. The bed was safe and familiar. Through the window, she saw the calm sea, illuminated by the first light of dawn. Next to her, her husband was fast asleep.
He sat on the edge of the bed. The last question from the dream rang in his mind as he repeated it in a murmur: “Where is your ticket?”
He stood up slowly. He walked to the window. Below, a real ferry was silently approaching the dock. Soon, it would be waiting for its new passengers for a new day.
A sleepy, blurred voice came from behind him in bed: "What's going on? It's not even morning yet..."
The woman looked at the window and replied: “The ferry is about to leave.”
There was silence for a moment. There was the rustle of the bedsheets. Then, this time, the same voice, a little closer but just as indifferent and sleepy, called out to him: “Ticket?… Where did this ticket come from?”
This time, the woman murmured the answer in a whisper so loud that only she and the passenger in her heart could hear it: “Inside me.”
And in that first light of the morning, he knew clearly for the first time what to do, where to run, where to go with the ticket he had for the rest of his life.
