Eight Hours

"The Greeks stole everything!" He nearly tears the paper filter as he unfolds it and starts precisely measuring the grounds.

"Yes, you told me. They stole your art, your culture, your food."

"Aşkım..." His finger waves at me and he clicks his tongue.

The pot sizzles into place.

"You’re resisting, aren't you?" I tease him. "You can continue your rant."

"You just want to hear me curse."

"Maybe."

"Belki." He repeats, amused. “Always, 'maybe' with you.”

"I promise, I will never call it a gyro again. It is a döner."

"Thank you, Bebeğim." He bends close, black hair falling out of place, leveling his gaze, the creases of his eyes widening. "Çok güzelsın." He says.

And I feel very beautiful. I pull the blanket over my shoulders.

"Are you cold, Aşkım?" He asks.

"A little."

"Turn up the heat if you are cold."

"I will be fine."

"Tamam. Tamam."

The coffee pot clicks just as the call to prayer erupts from the buzzing loudspeakers of a nearby Mosque. Too near.

"It's so early." I check the time.

A canister lid slowly turns. His back is to me.

"You are ruining it!" I warn.

"Don't watch, Aşkım. Just one spoon." Silver clinks against ceramic. "Will you have some?"

"Not your coffee!" I lean forward to rest my chin in my hands.

“Turkish coffee, Bebeğim! It is the best in the world!”

“Really? First of all, you just put fake sugar in it. Second, you buy beans from Brazil and make it with a drip coffee pot! I’d hardly call that a cultural gem.”

He laughs, nearly spilling the contents of the cheap mug as he sits.

"You are right, Aşkım.”

“I know I'm right!”

“You like watching me make coffee, don't you?" He grins.

I nod slowly.

“Someday, I will make real Turkish coffee for you... without sugar... and we will drink it together.”

“Without eight hours between us?” I ask.

“Yes, in the same place, at the same time. I want to meet you.”

“I want to meet you too.” I say. "Someday."

I watch him, watching me and savor the pleasure echoing between us like infinite mirrors.

He tells me of the stray cats who lay beneath pomegranate trees. They run to him and rub against his ankle or fall at his feet, exposing their bellies, hoping for a piece of meat or a rub, which he gladly gives.

The courtyard of his apartment reminds him of Rear Window. There’s a refugee boy who plays on the balcony across the way. The mother calls to him in Russian whenever it’s time to eat.

We leave quaint reality behind and find our way into a familiar wilderness. I wish we could live in this Eden of our minds. Sometimes I lose him as we navigate the rocky limits of our words. We fight our way to the precipice where it seems we can go no further. Here he tells me not to think, as if from this point on we will fly like birds. Or maybe we must seek out the desolate caves of the mountain and enter that secret, silent space where concrete thoughts are distant echoes of a greater truth, where God speaks and we do not. Maybe this place exists, but I have never seen it.

"A beginning assumes an end. Doesn't it?" I say. "It’s always the first bookend in a pair. So can creation exist without destruction? Maybe destruction is part of it, like death is baked into life."

He waves his finger and sits back to gather his thoughts. His black beard bristles with pleasure.

I should have guessed what he would say; that there is no creation at all. There is only existence. Even identity is a delusion to be overcome. If we can know that God is the only thing, then we would see that these terms we use, these bodies we inhabit, are useless, and in fact they are nothing.

“Where does a woman end and the infant growing inside her begin? At what point, do the woman's cells stop being hers and belong to the infant? The entire body of another human being comes from this shared substance inside this woman. Right? Or at what point does a heart transplant stop belonging to one human and belong to another? I say none of it belongs to the woman, or the infant, or the man who died, or the one getting a new heart. The only thing that is… makes up everything."

"Okay, does green exist?" I ask.

"Green is only what an eye perceives, not what is. A dog sees a different color. A bee sees another. We are only what we perceive, not what is. You don't believe me?" He asks.

“It isn’t a matter of belief! It’s a color in the material world. You're talking about something else. Immaterial. Spiritual. I could get behind your idea if you were not talking about...”

My phone vibrates and I glance down.

"What is it, Aşkım?” He asks.

“Sorry…” I shake my head, pushing away the message. “Just their father… Christmas Eve plans. Um… I don't know."

"What do you not know?" He asks.

"A lot. I'm pretty clueless, actually."

"Tell me."

"You say nothing exists. I say everything has an end."

"No. I say there is only existence. No end. Just God. God is everything. God is green."

"God is green?" I am lost. He left me behind in the thick weeds of a dark valley. "I am a human! I'm not God! I'm not just a soul either. I experience being alive. I get hungry and tired. I feel lonely and I have excruciating pain. What is the point? What is the point of our experience of being human, of having feelings, of having a life, of being born and dying? What is the point of all the hard work that it takes to survive in this world if we are just supposed to transcend it all… to forget everything tangible… to be… What? One with God?”

“Yes.” He replies.

His certainty is infuriating. I feel foolish and disappointed. It shouldn’t be this hard without a reason. I’m tied up in a straight jacket… A very hopeless, stupid, human straight jacket.

“Never mind.” His voice is low and gentle. “It’s late there. Get some rest, Bebeğim.”

I breathe deeply.

"I love it when you call me ‘Baby.’" I whisper, climbing out of the weeds.

“I know, Bebeğim." He leans near and kisses the air.

“I can’t believe you think God is green. He’s obviously blue."

"Seni seviyorum."

"I love you too."