by Funda Özlem Şeran
-I-
Mavi Bayraktar awoke from a bad dream and opened his eyes to the morning of another new day in his perfect life.
His beloved wife, whom he believed to be his soul mate, and his two smart and well-behaved children were sleeping in their rooms. They got up at the sound of the alarm, each completed their own preparations and met at the breakfast table.
Conversation was calm and their meals were healthy. However, Mr. Mavi’s absent-mindedness attracted his wife’s attention.
“Darling, are you okay?”
Like a TV set just turned on, Mavi blinked his eyes, which were not blue at all, unlike the meaning of his name. “Yes… Of course…”
“You didn’t have nightmares again, did you?”
Mr. Mavi froze for a moment – as if the broadcast had stopped – then smiled. “No… I guess I didn’t get enough sleep.”
His wife’s smile was as forced as his own, almost studied. But neither of them dwelled on the matter.
They put the children on the school bus and went in opposite directions. They both walked to work, because a little exercise, especially in the morning, was good for everyone.
But Mavi Bayraktar didn’t feel well at all. He had hoped that walking would help him loosen up and feel normal again. In fact, he had done everything he could to return to normal. So why did he still feel this way?
He was taking good care of himself. He cherished his wife. He loved and spoiled his children. He had a good job that benefited society. Everything in his life was logical and consistent. So what was the problem? Why couldn’t his mind feel at ease? What was causing the strange nightmares? Why couldn’t he get rid of them?
Mavi Bayraktar suddenly stopped in the middle of the road. He was almost run over by a labor bus, but fortunately the vehicle stopped in time. Nevertheless, this unexpected movement caused a small disturbance. Vehicles were lined up one after the other, people were looking at him strangely.
But for the first time in a long while, Mr. Mavi didn’t feel strange – he had finally figured out what to do. He marveled that he had never thought about it before, but there was nothing to be surprised about. It was something that had never been done before.
Mr. Mavi quickened his steps in the opposite direction. The determined strides of the people around him moved in perfect harmony, but he couldn’t keep pace.
He reached the bridge after a half-hour walk. Vehicles were coming and going in their usual order. There were no other pedestrians because nobody walked that far. And Mr. Mavi was not interested in walking either. He stopped in the middle of the bridge. In front of him was a unique view of the Bosphorus. A bright sun overhead, happy little clouds in front of him: everything was perfect. Maybe too perfect. Of course no one had had that thought before.
Mavi Bayraktar gripped the bridge railing firmly and carefully swung his legs over to the other side. Stepping past the safety wire, he didn’t hesitate—he let himself fall into the void. The sea below was a deep blue, and the clouds above were still and motionless.
-II-
“… While no announcement has yet been made about the asteroid approaching the Earth, authorities say there is nothing to worry about and that necessary precautions will be taken. At this rate, the object is expected to enter the atmosphere in a few days… It’s 6.30 am… Now the weather… Ist -“
Without waiting for the rest, he reached over and turned off the radio. He wasn’t listening to it anyway; he just wanted some sound in the empty house. Any sound other than the voices in his head …
Then he went to the kitchen and took a second pill. He had taken the first one when a nightmare had awakened him, and it seemed to have worked. At the very least, he had managed to ward off the bloody images that flooded his mind every time he closed his eyes. The voices would go away too, he knew that. They always did.
After a short morning work-out, he showered and prepared a nutritious breakfast while still naked—the advantage of living alone. When no one was around, he liked to do little “oddities” like this. But then an uncomfortable feeling would come over him, as if someone were watching… He felt an icy chill on the back of his head, right on the nape of his neck, and it bothered him so much that he had to get up and perform some other nonsensical action. It was usually something small, like leaving the cupboard doors open or throwing whites and colors in the washer at the same time, but it felt like a challenge toward his imaginary audience. He was claiming his freedom to do whatever he wanted.
Today, before leaving the house, he took one of the glasses lined up on the counter and pulled it forward, breaking the line. He could not help but wash and put away the dishes or dress appropriately, but the misplaced glass was enough. After all, he was a supervisor; he could not possibly tolerate a bigger disturbance. But that was precisely why he could not avoid indulging in these absurd ventures, and the worse he felt, the more he wanted to perform them. That was the real conundrum, and unfortunately there was no pill for that.
In fact, as a supervisor, he was not even needed. With the end of the Great Destruction and the Dark Age that followed, humanity had learned its lesson; there was no room for “disorder” in the new order. Inequality, injustice, violence, crime, war, disease, hunger… whatever had caused the Great Destruction had been left behind in the Dark Age. People had forsaken all those things; they had been able to learn from their mistakes and build a new life. Yes, maybe their civilization was not as advanced as it used to be before the Destruction, but at least they were “civilized.” It had been a long time since they had come out of the Darkness, and they had learned to live in peace. Individuals acted rationally and with common sense, and as a result society functioned in harmony.
In such an order, everyone was in fact their own supervisors, but there was also a monitoring mechanism in case of minor accidents or misfortunes. In this way, citizens could go on with their lives without wasting time and energy on mishaps. The job of the inspectors was to ensure that everything returned to normal as soon as possible. So they were not overworked, but they had a great responsibility. Why an unforeseen event had occurred, where, how, and who had caused it-and the possible consequences for society-were investigated in detail and the result reported to the authorities. An unforeseen event… like an object approaching Earth.
Yet today’s mission was not about a meteorite crashing into the earth, but about a man who had crashed into the sea. He was to investigate the case of Mavi Bayraktar, the man who had fallen to his death from the Fifth Bosphorus Bridge. The event was considered an accident, but precautions had to be taken to prevent it from happening again. The bridge was temporarily closed to pedestrian traffic—perhaps individual crossings would have to be banned altogether. While the flow of vehicles on the road was being maintained in an orderly fashion, the officers blocking the sidewalk with lanes were discussing the issue.
“Good luck,” he said, interrupting the two men’s conversation and pulling his ID card out of his pocket. Auditor Engin Kurt had arrived on the scene, and everything would soon return to normal. Both officers appeared relieved and tried to help Engin as much as they could.
Mavi Bayraktar was, like everyone else, a useful citizen of society. A well-liked and respected individual. He was a married dentist with two children. The previous morning, he had left his house to go to work, but he had not made it to his office. The last place he was seen was on this bridge, right in the middle of it. People in passing cars witnessed his fall, and his lifeless body was later found washed up on the shore. It was not known why he had come to the bridge, why he was on foot, and how he had fallen down despite the safety barrier. This is where Auditor Engin Kurt came in.
He examined and analyzed everything: from the wind speed on the bridge at the time of the incident, to the condition of the stones on the sidewalk; from whether the ground was slippery to the vehicles passing on the adjacent road; from the guardrail to the safety wire. There were no external factors that could have caused the man to fall from the bridge. He checked Mr. Mavi’s medical records. The dentist was of sound constitution, nothing could make him suddenly weak or make him feel like fainting. If it happened, he would take the necessary steps, as any person with good sense would.
The officer next to Engin hesitantly asked, “Do you think someone would … you know … push him?”
The Auditor, like the other officer present, was startled by such a preposterous claim. Yes, there were black marks in human history. Their ancestors had once lived and died in barbaric and miserable conditions. But now everything was very different. In the new order, everyone was equal; the rules were for the good of everyone and applied to everyone. Everything that used to cause wars and massacres had disappeared. Religion, language, race, gender were no longer grounds for discrimination or privilege; there were no economic or social classes. Material resources were shared equally. Each individual was responsible for his or her own spiritual fulfillment and would make the decision that would make him or her happy and benefit society within the framework of logic. No one interfered with anyone else. Rare disagreements were resolved by common sense under the supervision of arbitrators.
So, who could have what problem with whom? Or who would want to harm Mavi Bayraktar?
“Maybe someone accidentally hit him?” the second officer speculated. The Auditor had ruled out this possibility; the eyewitnesses had not mentioned anyone being with Mr. Mavi. Still, he could not overlook any detail. He asked the officers to take written statements from all the eyewitnesses, and he himself would go and talk to the medical examiner who was inspecting the body.
He would do whatever it took to ensure that such an incident would never happen again.
-III-
Mavi Bayraktar’s wife Rana Bayraktar was a survey engineer. On the day of the accident, she was helping to register newly found places in the system, so the news had reached her too late. But that didn’t change much.
The woman – in her late middle age – had not shed a tear. Nor was she crying now. Sitting opposite Engin, she was very composed and calm. Of course this was expected; after all, life went on.
“Did you observe any differences or anomalies in your husband on that day or previously?”
“No …” Rana thought for a moment. “Mavi was an ideal husband and a very good father. Ours is a very regular and normal life.”
“Of course, of course …”
The auditor reassured her that the opposite was unthinkable. He looked at the two children who were doing their homework at the dining table.
The woman had told them what had happened – it would be absurd to keep the truth from them just because they were young. They had understood the reason for their father’s absence and, after receiving information from their mother about their future lives, they had gone back to their studies. As any normal child would do…
“What about his health? The records and the post-mortem report show no anomalies, but as a matter of procedure, I must ask you. Did your husband have any illnesses that may have caused him to fall off the bridge?”
“No. I would have known, and he would have been treated. This … This is ridiculous.”
Engin Kurt agreed with her.
So far, he had been unable to explain how the man had managed to fall from such a height. Getting up on the bridge, climbing over the railings, going beyond the wires… Everything seemed illogical. There was a flaw in the reasoning somewhere … Auditor Kurt was determined to find it.
He asked her permission to examine the man’s house and belongings. Rana didn’t mind; while the auditor looked around, she went into the kitchen and started to prepare dinner for the children.
The house was an ordinary, normal dwelling. As a rule, the number of rooms increased based on the number of occupants, ensuring each person had a private space to store their personal belongings – essential hygiene items, clothing, and school or work supplies, which varied according to the owner. All was clean and organized as expected; the only difference from Engin’s house was that there was no kitchen cabinet left open, and the glasses were kept in order.
Although Engin lived alone, he noticed something familiar when he entered the couple’s shared bedroom. On Rana’s bedside table were scattered work-related documents. So she, too, sometimes lost her calm and control, particularly when it came to her work. Leaning over the papers more closely, Engin realized that they were map sketches. During the Great Destruction, much of Earth’s landmass was wiped out – some areas submerged by rising waters, while others were torn apart by earthquakes, forming new islands and continents. The world had plunged into the Dark Ages. While humankind had reshaped it and built a new civilization, they were still in the process of discovering and exploring this transformed world. Rana Bayraktar’s work seemed important, but most of the documents were full of terms and symbols that Engin did not know.
He turned his attention to the man’s side of the bed. There was only an alarm clock and a glass of water on his nightstand. Water that Mr. Mavi had not drunk that morning and would never drink again. The nightstand had a drawer; the Auditor opened it and looked inside. He found instruction manuals for household items, and after some digging, a few boxes of pills: painkillers, antipyretics, and eye drops. A bottle of pills was almost empty, and Engin Kurt recognized it: it was the same medicine he used to take when he woke up in the middle of the night from recurring nightmares.
At that moment, the house phone started ringing. The auditor kept staring at the bottle in his hand as he heard Mrs. Rana’s voice call him. He blinked as if waking up from sleep.
“Mr. Engin, it’s for you. An officer from the center, it’s important…”
He nodded and left the room, leaving the nightstand’s drawer open. Only this time he didn’t do it on purpose.
In the hall, he saw the telephone receiver on the coffee table, where Rana had left it. He picked it up and brought it to his ear. It was the officer he had assigned to take witness statements on the bridge.
“Chief, you need to get down here right away. One of the witnesses saw the incident up close … The man jumped down … I mean … Spontaneously … Specifically … Deliberately …”
Hearing no response from the Auditor, the officer spoke again. Only then did Engin Kurt reply.
“Are you sure? I mean, is the witness sure what they saw?”
“Well, there is a recording, chief. The witness was taking pictures at the time. He also captured the moment of the incident.”
“OK, I’m coming.”
Engin’s voice was calm; he did not realize that he was still holding the pill bottle. He was clutching it so tightly in his palm that it was about to break into pieces.
-IV-
The photos were blurry because the vehicle was moving when it was taken, but they showed it all: the man standing on the bridge, grabbing the bars, swinging his legs over the railing and beyond the wires. In the last one, the bridge was empty. Mavi Bayraktar had jumped down.
The photos had been taken by a 12-year-old boy on a school trip. He was on the school bus to the second bank and wanted to take a picture of the city as a whole as they crossed the bridge. The man was blocking his view, but he had kept snapping, thinking he would capture the sight anyway. When he noticed that the man had disappeared, he figured out what had happened and notified his teacher.
There were no other witnesses. Some people had seen Mavi Bayraktar on the bridge, but no one could say exactly what had happened. The photos, however, left no doubt. Auditor Engin Kurt had examined the blurry shots again and again, had even tampered with the camera to make sure there were no mistakes, yet the truth – that unthinkable truth – was crystal clear: Mavi Bayraktar had jumped off the bridge deliberately and ended his own life.
It was impossible that he hadn’t considered the consequences of his actions – he was a healthy, rational, and self-controlled individual. Yet, for those very reasons, his decision to take his own life – to commit suicide – was inexplicable. Why would a decent citizen, healthy and content with his life, choose to die?
Engin had heard of suicides in ancient civilizations, he knew there were various reasons: unhappiness, insanity, guilt, constant suffering… But all this nonsense had ended with the New Order. The life of every living being was important, and every human being had responsibilities to himself and the environment. Life energy was never to be wasted. So why had Mavi Bayraktar disregarded his own?
The inspector looked again at the pills in a sample bag. After the phone call, he had spoken to Rana Bayraktar some more, asked her about the pills in the bottle and learned about Mavi Bayraktar’s nightmares. The man had been having trouble sleeping for some time but Rana did not know what the dreams were about. She could only say that Mr. Mavi, who was very affected by those unreal images, avoided talking about them and had recently consulted a doctor for help. Engin Kurt took the name of the doctor along with the pill bottle and said goodbye to the woman – who had no idea why her husband had committed suicide.
At the center, the supervisor and his colleagues wouldn’t leave him alone. Once word spread that it hadn’t been an accident, but a self-termination – the first and only case in nearly a century – chaos erupted. Unable to keep their curiosity and bewilderment under control, the auditors filled the corridor where Engin Kurt’s office was located. There were those who reasoned and considered different theories and those who wanted to help Engin with the case. But all whispers were cut off as if with a knife when the supervisor arrived. The man, a complete authority in age as much as in experience, cleared his throat gently and suddenly the hallway emptied.
“Good luck, Auditor Engin.”
The auditor quickly recovered from the surprise and hid the bottle of pills without even realizing it.
“Thank you, chief.”
“What’s the latest?” the supervisor asked, pointing to the pill bottle as he sat down. The head of a unit whose duty was to observe and supervise was not going to leave out such a detail. Engin was embarrassed and stammered for a moment, not understanding why he was doing this.
“The investigation continues. I will talk to Mavi Bayraktar’s doctor, maybe he can provide an explanation.”
“If he can’t, you will have to.”
“What?”
The supervisor leaned toward him as if talking about a private matter.
“This case has disturbed us all. Especially the authorities want order to be restored as soon as possible … We all do …”
The second part of the sentence, added as a later thought, did not go unnoticed by Engin. The man was really in great discomfort. Engin had known him for a long time, and he had never seen him like this. The signs of age on his face had been there for a while, but his cheeks were more saggy today, the lines on his forehead more prominent. His sunken eyes were bloodshot and watery. Engin wondered for a moment whether he was having nightmares, too, and if so, whether he was on medication. Deep in these thoughts, he missed part of the supervisor’s speech.
“As I said, I expect a report from you examining every single moment. This is very important. No rest until we explain the situation and get everything in order. And talk to his doctor as soon as possible …”
“Sure, I’ll go tomorrow …”
“Not tomorrow!” the supervisor objected. “Do it today.”
This outburst from the usually calm, poised supervisor surprised and worried the auditor.
“But the office hours are almost over …”
“Then hurry up! Go, don’t let me hold you.” He got up and was about to leave but he turned at the door. “I want copies of these photos on my desk. Give them to my secretary before you go.”
“Sure,” was all Engin could say. However, he felt like answering “No!” for the first time.
He didn’t know where that impulse came from – but he immediately controlled it. Nevertheless, before leaving the office, he could not help but open both desk drawers completely and leave them like that.
-V-
When he arrived at the doctor’s office, the assistant girl at the entrance was closing her calendar and packing her things. When Engin came in, she looked at him indifferently and spoke.
“Ms. Sanem is with her last patient; they are about to leave. Unfortunately, we cannot accept any more patients today. If you want, you can make an appointment for tomorrow.”
Sighing with relief that he had arrived before closing time, Engin was taken aback, however, by the word patient. That must also be the way his doctor spoke of him. But in fact, it was normal: people who had pain somewhere, a limb or organ that was malfunctioning, went to the doctor to be treated. And the mind could sometimes get confused and when one had, for example, nightmares that affected the quality of their sleep and daily life, they could consult a doctor as well. But it bothered him all the same, and he immediately started to explain.
“I’m not a patient, I’m from the supervision center. I have a few questions for the doctor about one of her patients …”
The doctor’s assistant replied automatically.
“Unfortunately, we cannot share information about patients.”
Engin froze for a moment, then remembered to show her his auditor ID card.
“Look, this is a very important matter. One of the doctor’s patients lost his life,” he added, without hesitation, to impress her. “Or rather, he took his own life. So please, I would appreciate it if you could help us restore order as soon as possible.”
He didn’t need to say anything else. The assistant’s wide eyes, her batting eyelashes, and her stammering voice indicated that she was reconsidering her decision.
“Sure, sure. Just sit there; you can go in when the patient comes out.”
Engin took a seat in one of the armchairs in the waiting room, while the secretary put her things back on her desk and sat down. Now she couldn’t take her eyes off the auditor.
“Excuse me … Which patient is it? Who would do such a thing?”
Engin couldn’t resist the urge. “I’m afraid I can’t share this information,” he said with a professional, polite smile. Contrary to his words, the gesture was practiced.
At that moment, the office door opened, and the doctor came out with her patient, seeing him off while giving him some final advice. The man looked quite exhausted. Engin wondered for a moment if he also had trouble sleeping and if he himself looked like that.
The doctor’s voice roused him from his thoughts.
“Hello! Welcome, but our office hours are over for today. If you wish …”
The assistant explained the situation. When Ms. Sanem realized the circumstances, she immediately let the auditor into her office.
“Thank you, Deniz,” she said to her assistant. “You can leave now.”
Once they stepped into the office, the doctor did not hide her surprise. She was stunned that one of her patients had committed suicide – especially because said patient was Mr. Mavi Bayraktar.
“Mr. Mavi was doing very well lately. In fact, after his last checkup, we stopped the medication because he was feeling better.”
“You’re talking about these pills, aren’t you?” the auditor said, pulling out a sample bottle from his pocket.
“Yes, these … After he finished the first bottle, I wrote him another prescription in case he needed it, but then he started sleeping better.”
Engin looked at the bottle. Only a few pills were left. It looked like Mr. Mavi had needed them.
“Are you sure about this? It seems like he continued the treatment himself …”
The doctor’s eyebrows rose in honest incomprehension. “But … he would have told me if he did such a thing. In our recent conversations, he told me that the nightmares had stopped and that he was sleeping better.”
The auditor couldn’t believe he was asking such a question, but before he could think, he blurted out, “Could he have kept it from you?”
“No way!” Ms. Sanem tried to keep a professional tone. “Why would he hide it? That’s preposterous. He was coming here of his own free will, why would a human being…”
Her voice trailed off as she realized what she had said. After all, Mr. Mavi had killed himself. Still, the doctor had a hard time accepting it. Clearing her throat, she maintained her scientific stance. “It is unrealistic that he did not tell the truth, this is unacceptable. To deceive someone else is to deceive yourself. Lying is the work of barbarians; it belongs to decadent civilizations.”
“The same is true for suicide …”
Engin sighed. Apparently, he couldn’t hold his tongue. He decided to change the subject.
“So, can you tell me a little bit about the nightmares he had? What kept Mr. Mavi up at night?”
She took a deep breath. “It’s horrible … And so absurd. It was as if he had created a world of his own inside his mind. But it was not a beautiful world. It was a place of pain, of torture, of illogical events. Sometimes he would share bits and pieces, described long but meaningless events. He claimed that his dreams were real, that he had been there and experienced those things, as if they were real!”
Engin Kurt felt a chill on the back of his neck and flinched. He hoped the doctor hadn’t noticed it.
“Did he ever mention what kind of images or events he considered real?” he asked fearfully.
“Of course, it was very clear-headed, at first. He described the uninhabitable streets of a chaotic city. The air was unbreathable, people used special devices to breathe. He said that there was another city reaching up to the sky and only certain people could live there – what the ancients called the rich, I think. But he used a different term, let me remember what it was … Something like superior or high level. It is detailed in my notes, I recorded it all.”
Engin felt relieved for a moment, but he had to be sure.
“Can I see those notes?”
“Sure, you can take whatever you need, if it helps.”
“Thank you. I won’t take any more of your time. If you want to add anything or remember anything, you can contact me at the center.”
Actually, he was the one who didn’t want to stay in this office any longer. He had an unfounded concern that the topic would change, and the discussion would focus on him. Did Mavi Bayraktar do the same? How did he keep his secrets? By cutting short his sessions with the doctor?
“Yes, of course,” the doctor replied. “I am ready to do whatever I can. It bothers me a lot, that a patient of mine would do such a thing … I mean … After all, he was my responsibility.”
Struggling with his own guilt, the auditor replied in an automatic tone: “Every individual is responsible for themselves, their first duty is to themselves, and then to society.”
This brought the doctor to her senses; she gathered herself and walked Engin to the door.
At the entrance, they noticed that the assistant had not left yet. Ms. Sanem asked her to share the notes about Mr. Mavi with Engin, then she excused herself.
The auditor sensed a change in the assistant’s demeanor. Perhaps she was relieved to know who the patient was that had committed suicide, but Engin still found her behavior strange.
As she rummaged through the filing cabinet, she wouldn’t stop talking.
“It’s such a pity! Mr. Mavi was a very good man. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do such a thing.”
“Did you know him well?”
“No … But you get an idea about people as they come and go.”
The girl’s attitude was way too friendly now, but he didn’t dwell on it.
“You said he was a very good man. What did you mean?”
“He was just a good person … Kind, respectful, measured …”
“Isn’t everyone?”
Deniz turned her head towards him and smiled. She caught the auditor off guard. Her smile was so bright, so real. Engin felt that no one had ever smiled like that at him in his entire life.
“It still makes you sad, of course. Ms. Sanem cares a lot about her patients; it is very painful to lose them in such an untimely manner …”
Engin was shocked as she handed the folder to him. But it wasn’t the girl’s sweet smile that took his attention this time.
“What do you mean by ‘them’?”
“Uh …” She waved her hand as if it were unimportant. “You know, dear … Accidents, unexpected events, etcetera …”
The auditor took the file without taking his eyes off her. Accidents and unexpected events were his profession.
“Did the doctor have other patients who died? I mean, out of the blue, for no reason?”
“We can’t say they died without a reason, of course. Some traffic accidents, some domestic accidents … Well, accidents happen, don’t they?” The girl laughed outrageously. “But of course, you auditors know better!”
Engin did not know how to react in the face of her extreme attitude. The girl took advantage of his hesitation.
“Anyway, my shift is over. Have a good evening, and if you need anything else, you know where to find me!”
She threw her bag over her shoulder and walked toward the door.
The auditor stared after her, muttering, “Good evening.”
He was sure now: he had never met anyone like this in his life.
-VI-
After informing his supervisor of the latest developments, he went straight home. He wanted to check the file himself first, without any interference.
He completed his daily chores and had dinner and then he went straight to work. The folder the doctor’s secretary had given him was quite thick, and just as he was thinking, I wonder how long Mr. Mavi had been going to the doctor or what he told her, he came across something else. The file contained not only information about Mr. Mavi, but also notes of other patients of Ms. Sanem. At first he thought there must be some confusion. Maybe the girl was talking too much and couldn’t do her job properly. But when he shuffled the papers a bit, he realized that there was something else going on.
The documents in the folder all belonged to patients who had died. Some had been hit by a car, some had fallen from somewhere. Some had been accidentally electrocuted, some had slipped and hit their head. Every single one of them was an accident victim. Just like the assistant had said …
It was also quite interesting that all those patients had sleep problems and were taking a medication, the same pills that Engin himself was taking to counteract the nightmares. All these patients talked about nightmares, just like Mavi Bayraktar, and Ms. Sanem had taken detailed notes on their stories. For example, one of the patients, a female teacher in her twenties, kept seeing herself in a laboratory full of pregnant women. In the dream, her belly was also swollen, and she was repeatedly giving birth to her lookalike (specifically referred to in the notes as a clone and the doctor had put a question mark next to that word. Engin did not know what it meant). The woman had later died of food poisoning.
A sixty-three-year-old carpenter man dreamed that he was on a brightly lighted platform. Hundreds of people were gathered around him, watching him, and small machines and tools were flying through the air. A woman approached him and stabbed him with a knife while someone shouted in a loud voice. The carpenter insisted that he committed suicide in the nightmare. In reality, he had had an accident in his carpentry shop: a blade had accidentally plunged into his torso, and he had bled to death before he could call for help.
Another patient, a ten-year-old girl, found herself trapped in a room in her dreams. A large, ugly man was shoving a red-hot skewer into her genitals and demanding that she scream, “Don’t do it, Daddy!” Then someone identical to the girl entered the room (Engin noticed that the girl referred to her as clonebot in the notes) and started strangling her. Oddly enough, the same girl had drowned by falling into a pond.
Then there was a farmer. Thirty-five years old, he claimed that when he slept, a chip (the doctor had put a question mark there) was implanted behind one of his eyes. This chip supposedly controlled his brain, making decisions for him. An intelligent machine saw, heard, knew, and managed everything. There was no escape from it, he said. But the farmer must have escaped, because the nightmares ended when he was killed by a moving plow.
And then there was Mr. Mavi. A forty-three-year-old dentist, married with two children, who in his dreams was the “pet” of the youngest son of a very rich family in a place he called Uptown. Like a pet, he was fed, taken to the toilet, and expected to entertain the child in return. Whenever the child was unhappy, he would either starve him or torture him by locking him in a dark place. Mavi Bayraktar once described having his eye peeled with a fruit knife. But the worst thing was that when he got older and was replaced by a younger, newer version, the boy’s father threw him down one of the air ducts in the upper city. That is, from many kilometers above the ground … Just as Mr. Mavi had died: from a fall – or rather, from a jump …
The list went on and on. As he read the notes, names, nightmares, and accidents started to blend together. Engin felt nauseous. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. Those people had no connection to each other, their nightmares bore strange similarities and seemed real, all had had accidents and inexplicable deaths …He felt his eyelids close, but he forced himself not to fall asleep. His pills were in a bottle on the table. But now it was not only the nightmares that worried him, it was also what happened to the people who took those pills.
He reached for the bottle. He had not yet decided whether to open it and swallow one of the pills or throw it away. He knocked a stack of papers with his hand, and they scattered around. The folder slipped off the table and fell to the floor.
With a groan, Engin bent down to fix the mess and noticed a hidden pocket inside the file cover. He spotted the corner of a piece of paper tucked inside. Surprised he hadn’t seen it before, he picked up the folder and pulled out the paper, realizing it had been deliberately hidden. Maybe someone had placed it there for him to find. Maybe Assistant Deniz wasn’t so absent-minded after all.
The paper had writing on both sides, like one of those old documents penned by a cheap dactilo. The Great Destruction/Big Lie was written on the front in huge letters and followed by lots of exclamation marks. The words New Order and New Evil were side by side, with an equal sign between them. The paragraphs that followed were completely insane.
According to this piece of paper, the Dark Ages never happened. Humanity had become completely dehumanized after being enslaved by advanced technology, and then had fallen into the hands of certain forces. There was no free will anymore, everything was under the control of the authorities. People were programmed to do whatever those in power wanted. They even made people forget their past and imposed false memories on them. The shifting of continents, the climate, even the color of the sea were all part of this big lie. And they used the clouds to manage everything, so they could watch everyone and know what was going through a person’s mind before they even thought about it.
All this nonsense was so wild that Engin stopped reading after a while and threw the paper aside. He tried crumpling it but the paper, somehow, resumed its old shape. It was as if someone were mocking him, but who could be so irrational? Whoever it was, they must have read all the patients’ dreams, made up some stupid stories, and then attached them to the doctor’s file. Dr. Sanem did not seem the type to do such a thing. Her assistant was weird, but this was too much even for her. After all, who would attempt such a thing and for what purpose?
Realizing that the situation was worse than he thought, Engin left the mess as it was and went to the kitchen. His nerves were upset, his nausea had turned into heartburn. Whenever he couldn’t explain something, he felt a burning inside him, as if flames were engulfing his chest.
He opened the fridge and looked for something to drink – it was not the time for fruit juices with lots of vitamins, Coffee or tea would keep him awake, he was craving something else. If only there was a drink that could take away the nonsensical ideas filling his head! One that would make him forget everything and give him peace, even for a moment. If only he could drink himself into oblivion and forget until morning. But there wasn’t.
He poured a glass of water and went to his bedroom. He had taken the pill bottle with him. He took a pill out of it. As he held it in his palm, he shook himself out of his thoughts, took out another capsule and swallowed them both with plenty of water. He was not taking any chances tonight.
-VII-
He was in that white corridor again. He was standing, but it was as if he were looking through someone else’s eyes. He raised his arms; his hands were metal. When he moved his fingers, he could see tiny pistons, cables, and connections moving under a transparent skin. When he wanted to squeeze his palm, the machine that was his body obeyed.
Then they came. They were running toward him from the opposite end of the corridor, carrying strange weapons. One ran ahead of everyone, behind him two more, and behind them even more. Their faces were expressionless, their clothes looked the same – but it didn’t matter to him anyway.
When the first shots were fired, he reflexively stretched his hands forward. At the same moment, a mechanical voice in his ears said, “Protection shield activated,” and the bullets that were coming out of the guns were neutralized and fell to the ground.
He didn’t wait. He rushed forward, grabbed the man in front by the collar and threw him against the wall. It was effortless, as if he weighed nothing. Then he went for the others. Kicks, punches, precise and heavy blows landed one after the other. He moved so fast that the men could not keep up with him, even though they outnumbered him. He never missed a shot; he knew exactly whom to hit and when and where. That’s when he realized that other parts of his body were also part of the steel machine. He was a flesh and blood killing machine …
He broke one man’s neck and hit several others in different parts of their bodies. He shot one with his own pistol. He slit the throat of another who pulled a knife. The man he had just thrown against the wall picked himself up – he kept coming back. He plunged his metal hand into his chest, his fingers dug into the flesh, breaking bones and then grasping something and pulling it out. The man collapsed to the ground, his beating heart still in the steel palm of his opponent’s hand. The sound was accompanied by the moans and screams of the dying men.
*
When he woke up, gasping for breath, he realized that it was he who was moaning, and it was his own heart that was pounding. All those images of violence, blood, and brutality filled his head. Instead of banishing the nightmares, the pills had made them worse. This time the nightmare had felt more real than ever. He remembered killing those people with perfect clarity, he even felt the pleasure of it. But there was also something else. Inside the nightmare, he had felt a presence, like someone watching him through his own eyes. A silent driver controlling his arms and legs, giving him instructions. Maybe it was this someone who had activated the protection shield.
He was afraid that if he kept thinking he might lose his reason. He got up and washed his face and hands. He didn’t take any more pills, but he didn’t go back to sleep either. He stared at the stack of papers on the table and the flat brochure in the center and waited for morning. He needed answers.
-VIII-
“Good morning, how can I help you?”
At first, the assistant looked up and stared blankly with the disinterested demeanor she had displayed at their first meeting. She recovered when she saw Engin.
“Ah, it’s you.”
There was no trace of last night’s good humor and smiling demeanor now. It was a good thing, because the auditor was in no mood to laugh either. He threw the file in front of her, trying to restrain himself as he spoke.
“Are you making fun of me?”
Startled, Deniz looked at him and at the file. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know where this nonsense came from, but you have to explain it to me!”
It was the first time he ever raised his voice to someone, but he was finding it difficult to stay calm. The auditor was about to lose control.
When the assistant, who had been dealing with all kinds of patients for years, saw him in such a state, she composed herself and addressed him according to the protocol for similar cases.
“Please calm down, sit down for a while. Then tell me what happened. I am here to help you.”
The change in the girl’s attitude calmed Engin down for a moment. He took a deep breath.
“Why did you give me these files?”
The assistant looked at the papers on the desk. She was puzzled. She opened the file cover but looked at it uncomprehending. “But …”
“I asked you to give me the notes about Mavi Bayraktar, but you also added other patients’ information. Besides …” His voice rose again, and he stood up. “You slipped this nonsense in there too!” He showed her. “What’s all this crazy nonsense? Where did all this come from, why did you do such a thing?”
The assistant, whose eyes widened as she studied the papers, finally turned to him with a blank stare. She looked genuinely puzzled.
“What file, sir? I didn’t give you anything, how did you get hold of these?”
It was Engin’s turn to stare blankly. “What are you saying? Is this a joke? I remind you that I am an auditor, Ma’am!”
As their roles were reversed, Deniz got angry.
“Being an auditor doesn’t give you the right to do this! These notes are highly confidential, you can’t take them without permission! I will report you!”
Engin calmed down and explained. There was something odd going on.
“You gave them to me yesterday afternoon, at the request of the doctor. She was here too. I didn’t do anything irregular. Please, come to your senses.”
“Sir, are you dreaming or something? If that were the case, I would remember. I never gave these to you! You went in for a meeting with Ms. Sanem and I left because my shift was over. You probably took advantage of my absence and took the files. How should I know?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You were here when my meeting with the doctor was over. You talked about other patients, you said, ‘Mr. Mavi was such a good man’. I’m not making this up!”
“What, am I making it up? Am I lying?!”
The girl was terrified, she could not comprehend what Engin was saying. They were like two stubborn goats on a bridge. But the auditor insisted.
“This isn’t going anywhere. Can’t we ask Ms. Sanem to end this discussion? She was here anyway.”
“Of course, Sir! But she is in a committee meeting right now. She will be back in the afternoon; we have to wait.”
Both of them kept silent, keeping their nerves under control. Engin went to sit in the waiting room and Deniz returned to her desk. As he sat down, something rustled in his pocket. Then he remembered what it was and decided to play his last card.
“And what do you have to say about this?” he said, pulling out the brochure he had unsuccessfully tried to crumple the night before. He hadn’t put it back in the file because he thought it was evidence, but he had taken it with him. Waving it in front of her face, he waited for her to finally give in, to come clean and confess.
The assistant picked the flyer, turned it over, and handed it back to Engin with an expression that showed she was unimpressed.
“What is this?”
“You tell me what it is! It was hidden in the folder. Nonsensical allegations, absurd theories …” He fell silent as he looked at the paper again. The page was blank.
“What …”
He grabbed it and looked at both sides, but there was nothing of what he had read last night. Not a word, not a dot. It was just plain, milky white paper. His mouth hung open; he could not speak. A thousand thoughts raced through his head at the same time and at the same speed. He certainly hadn’t put the wrong flyer in his pocket; he didn’t have any others. Besides, it was too peculiar to be mistaken for anything else. He turned it over in his hands again and again, waved it, and lifted it into the air, but it was all in vain. At that moment, he locked eyes with the girl. The assistant looked at him with concern, as if she thought the auditor had lost his mind and was frightened by it. Was he really losing his mind? Was this what it felt like to go crazy?
“Please, have a seat. Can I get you some water?”
She was as understanding and compassionate as if she were dealing with one of Dr. Sanem’s patients. Engin couldn’t argue with her anymore. When she walked away to get some water, he stared at the floor as if the words which had disappeared were down there and he could actually pick them up.
Was he already having nightmares before he had fallen asleep? Was this how dying patients felt in their last days, just before they had an accident or committed suicide?
Shuddering, he tried to rouse himself. The cold water the girl brought him helped a little. After drinking, he thanked her and asked her for something else. He wanted her to tell him what had happened yesterday afternoon. If it was true that he was imagining things, maybe he had also imagined the files and the insane flyer.
Deniz explained everything in a patient voice, leaving out no detail. The auditor had come to the office, asked to see the doctor to talk about a patient who had committed suicide, then sat and waited until the patient who was with Dr. Sanem came out of her office. Then Dr. Sanem had welcomed him. After that, everything was different from what the auditor remembered. The secretary claimed she had left because she was late and in a hurry. She hadn’t been here when Engin and Dr. Sanem ended their interview. They never spoke and she never smiled at him.
Engin didn’t object. What reason would she have to lie? Besides, that blank piece of paper told him that she was telling the truth. He was the odd one and that scared him terribly. He apologized to the assistant, asked her to contact him when the doctor arrived, and left. He had gotten nothing more out of their meeting than that useless and disturbing piece of paper.
-IX-
When he arrived at the center, everyone was waiting for him. But the whispering crowd was unbearable. The voices in his head and the ache in his stomach had intensified and he was afraid to take more pills.
“You are never late, Engin. Did something happen?”
The supervisor caught him off guard, he had expected to be alone, but the man was already there when he entered his office. However, Engin was not ready to report.
“Chief … I was going to come to your office later.”
As the words came out of his mouth, he realized they were a lie. How easily he had said it. First the dreams, now the lies … What was next? Suicide?
“Did you find anything useful in the doctor’s notes?”
“I …” he had to force himself to speak. “I haven’t come to any conclusions yet, but I’m continuing to investigate.”
The other man’s dissatisfaction was evident.
“Hurry up, you know this is a very important matter.” He pointed at the photographs on the table. “Those are bothering me a lot. We need to clarify this situation as soon as possible. It is up to us to restore order. We have society and authorities to answer to.”
As the words authority and order echoed in his mind, his hand reflexively brushed against his pocket. He wasn’t going to tell his supervisor about the paper that claimed everything was a lie, only to turn out to be a lie itself. Fortunately, the man didn’t realize he was hiding something.
“Well then. Get back to work. Let me know as soon as you can.”
Engin let out the breath he was holding. He had no idea what to do next. It was the first time he experienced such indecisiveness, and such uncertainty terrified him.
He closed the door and threw himself on the couch. On the desk, the last images of Mavi Bayraktar were lined up in reverse, as if mocking him; first the empty bridge, then Mr. Mavi jumping off, then he was climbing over the railing. As if nothing had happened, as if order had not been disturbed…
Engin nervously opened a few drawers, but that wasn’t enough. He got up and opened the window. The sky was blue, and big white clouds hung in the air, motionless. For a moment it seemed as if someone were watching him again. He could not be sure whether they were above the clouds or inside his head as in his nightmare.
“Hi!”
He was startled by a voice behind him. He hadn’t heard a knock on the door nor the door opening. It was one of his coworkers, one he sometimes had lunch with.
“Did you hear, the asteroid is going to fall north of Mara. You can watch it from the shore, but they said not to go down the hills, just in case. Nurcan and I are going, will you come?”
He murmured, feeling exasperated. “Nurcan who, what meteorite?”
Suddenly, he shut up. He approached his friend excitedly.
“How did you learn about this?”
“On the news… They said it in the morning broadcast.”
“Did they say anything else? About Mavi Bayraktar?”
The man shrugged. “No… By the way, what happened to that case? I wasn’t in yesterday, I just heard some rumors, but what’s the situation?”
Engin took a deep breath and grabbed his shoulders. It was the friendliest gesture he had made since they met, and the other man looked surprised. Engin then surprised him even more by walking out of the office without saying a word.
Perhaps he had imagined crazy words on a strange piece of paper; perhaps he had had frightening nightmares at night. Perhaps he had even taken those medical records himself. But one thing was certain and indisputable: Mavi Bayraktar had committed suicide. And unlike the news of a falling meteorite, this information had not been shared.
Auditor Engin went down to the archive floor with determined steps, showed his ID card and went inside. The officer didn’t ask him what he was looking for. He didn’t need to, because he was an auditor. One with a very important matter to investigate.
He had left the patients’ files in the doctor’s office, but he didn’t mind. He knew their names by heart. It took him a while to dig out each one from the accident archive, but he finally made it back to his office carrying a small bundle. Fortunately, no one tried to stop him or question what he was doing.
After arranging the files on the table, he began to read them one by one. All of the incidents had been reported as accidental – but Engin knew better. By examining them in more depth he noticed oddities in the photographs or in the witnesses’ statements.
The teacher who had died of food poisoning had cooked dinner herself that night, and the medicine bottles in her house were empty. The carpenter had forty years of experience and yet he had left a knife lying around, had fallen onto it, and hadn’t called for help even though there was a telephone within reach. The girl who had fallen into the pond could swim, but strangely enough, she had a rope wrapped around her foot – and there was a stone at the end of the rope.
Many similar cases had been closed, all of them suspicious deaths where the deceased had committed suicide. Nevertheless, all the cases had been recorded as an accident. Perhaps if it hadn’t been for the photographs taken at the time of the incident, Mavi Bayraktar’s death would have been remembered in the same way.
The auditor pulled himself together. He couldn’t be imagining this; something was definitely wrong. He should report the situation to his superior immediately and inform the authorities. That’s what a rational citizen would do. Engin paused. Thousands of thoughts and hundreds of possibilities were going through his mind. How had no one noticed these suicides until now? Or had they been deliberately ignored? He remembered how people had reacted when Mavi Bayraktar’s case had become public – even he had felt confused. Perhaps everything had been covered up to prevent a collective frenzy?
But why were these people committing suicide? What was the meaning of their nightmares? What effect did the pills have? The doctor should have known more. Maybe the assistant girl had lied and made Engin doubt himself. But what about that flyer? He found the courage to pull it out of his pocket to look at it again. The page, untouched, not crumpled or torn, bore different words, in a different font and color from last time. An address on the third bank. It was unclear what it was, there was no name or explanation. Engin was sure it had not been there the night before. And this morning that piece of paper was blank. Whatever had happened, had happened in his pocket.
But how was it possible for words written on a piece of paper to erase themselves and reappear reassembled in a different form? There had to be another explanation, other than that Engin had gone mad. He checked the page again, trying to figure out what material it was made of. It looked like nothing he had ever seen before. As he turned the strange page over and over in his hands, he thought of Deniz’s smiling eyes. “If you need anything else, you know where to find me!” He heard her voice in his ears. Or was it someone else?
He couldn’t let himself get more confused. He grabbed his jacket and left the center. He didn’t tell anyone that he was leaving and left the files on his desk. He was going to take one of the passenger shuttles to the other side. He quickened his pace as he walked towards the bus stop. He didn’t want to be late – he wasn’t sure what he would be late for, but he was going to memorize the address on the flyer. In case it would be erased or something.
Just then, he was struck by a cargo vehicle. Witnesses to the incident noted that Engin had crossed the street without looking in either direction. The vehicle’s automatic driving system recorded that everything had followed protocol, the accident was unforeseeable, and the pedestrian was at fault. As Engin lay bleeding beneath the truck that had hit him, he realized that the flesh on his hands had been stripped away, revealing metal rods and wires instead of bone.
-X-
“Contrary to estimates, the death toll is still undetermined after the meteorite struck in the North Hills near the coast instead of offshore in the Mara Sea. Hundreds of injured people were taken to hospitals and teams are still working to recover the bodies of the dead. Authorities said it was an unfortunate accident, but the necessary investigations will be carried out. All supervisory units have been called to urgent duty to maintain order… It’s 6:30 am… The weather now; Ist, partly cloudy, 15 degrees… An, sunny, 18 degrees… Bul…”
He reached over and turned off the radio. Part of him longed to rush to his post like the rest of his colleagues, but he was still on leave. He had recovered quickly after the accident; his wounds were healing. He had no problems with mobility, but his doctors and his supervisor had advised him to rest and get stronger before going back to work. As a rational individual, he would follow the advice of experts.
After doing his physical therapy exercises, he took a warm shower and put on his sweatpants. He ate a healthy breakfast and took his strengthening vitamins. He had just finished washing the dishes when the phone rang.
“Hello, this is Auditor Engin Kurt.”
“Hello, Mr. Engin. This is Dr. Sanem’s secretary Deniz Saygun. The last time you were here, you asked me to let you know when the doctor was back, and I did, but I couldn’t reach you. They told me you had an accident. I hope you get well soon.”
“Thank you. But how did you get my home number?”
“Someone at the center gave it to me when I said it was an important matter. I have been trying to reach you for a few days, I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“I was mistaken. I don’t know how it happened, but there must have been a mistake in my memory. When I talked to Dr. Sanem, she told me that she had indeed instructed me to share the files with you and that I was with you when she left. Again, I can’t remember much, but I apologize for giving you a hard time that day. If there is anything I can help you with, I would like to make it up to you.”
Engin did not say anything. To be honest, he didn’t remember her or the doctor very well. He only knew that he had closed a case before the accident. It was the case of an unfortunate man who fell off a bridge, but it was nothing important. Order had been restored.
“Thank you, but there’s no problem. It was a waste of your time.”
“So, did you find out why Mr. Mavi killed himself?”
“There must have been a misunderstanding. It wasn’t suicide. Mr. Mavi died in an accident.”
The girl in front of him paused. “Oh. Is that so?”
For some reason, Engin thought she was smiling. A bright smile appeared in his mind, but he didn’t know who it belonged to.
“OK then. I am sorry for the inconvenience. I wish you a fast recovery and good work.”
“Thank you. Good work to you too,” Engin said and hung up the phone. Then he stared at the telephone receiver for a moment.
The telephone receiver in Mavi Bayraktar’s house, the photographs of him standing on the bridge, the piece of paper on which weird theories and a mysterious address were written … none of it was in his mind. It was as if all of that had never existed.
Engin shrugged off the emptiness in his mind and returned to the kitchen. He saw that several cupboard doors and drawers had been left open. He closed them one by one. He rearranged the glasses on the counter. When order was restored, the inspector stopped and took a deep breath. Everything was fine.
He had no idea of the nightmares he would have at night.
Funda Özlem Şeran was born in İstanbul, Turkey, in 1984. She graduated from Political Science and International Relations at Marmara University, completed her master’s degree in the same department with her thesis on political science fiction, comparing utopian and dystopian literature. Her published works include horror anthologies, adult urban-fantasy novels, sci-fi novellas and various children’s books. She won several national awards with sci-fi short stories and is published in Italian, Dutch, Greek, German and Canadian anthologies.