either. Matrices of probability contain failure. What’s the relationship between the postponement of your uncle’s trial and our historic rights over this nation? Between your sister’s marriage and the morning prayer called at the Süleymaniye Mosque or to your birth to a Muslim father? Or between the real estate broker who swindles you of your money and the values that constitute our inner character or the colossal realities that make us who we are? Even if these realities ultimately rest in society, they shouldn’t incite us to inkâr, denial of ourselves, but to change the conditions in which we find ourselves. Of course there are countries and citizens more content than us; of course we feel in our lives – rather, in our flesh and blood – the vast fallout of two centuries of disintegration and collapse, of being the remnants of an empire and still unable to establish our own norms and idioms. Allowing this suffering to drive us to nihilistic inkâr, in effect, would be to accept even greater catastrophe, would it not? Motherland and nation are cherished because they are the motherland and the nation; religion is disputed, rejected, or accepted as religion, and not based on the ease it purports to bring to our lives ...”
As Mümtaz spoke, he realized that his expectations of others were high. He knew that when the social idiom changed, people changed and the faces of the gods paled. Yet he also realized it shouldn’t always be this way. While he fed the pigeons, he contemplated such thoughts; at the same time he noticed that the fine grain coating his palm irritated him like an aperture shutting somewhere in his person.
No, he wouldn’t ask anything of Allah anymore. Mümtaz wasn’t going to confront Him with his fate or the missteps of his life, because were his plea ignored, his loss would be twofold.
The pigeons, indifferent toward the grain in the midafternoon heat, approached reluctantly, hovering close to the ground and gliding in one at a time. Like the hand of a magician producing a bright blue handkerchief out of thin air, they still made surprising and illusive movements as they flew, but they didn’t flock and crest all at once with the swiftness of a wave under a southerly breeze as they did when in full feather and hungry; they didn’t pivot in the airy void as if there were a whirlwind above them; and they didn’t lose all speed in the aether and plummet as if they’d come to an unseen pier or the wall of a manor by the sea.
They made a rather tranquil arrival, sluggish and languid. Some of them looked dubiously – almost with pity – at the grain on the ground from the wall of the opposite building where they’d perched in a line. Yet, beneath them a small, oneiric flock gathered and pecked, each detail of its movements depicted separately and as an isolated form, like seas issuing from the brushwork of the Fauvist Raoul Dufy.
Despite their avarice and exploitation of one’s affection, they were beautiful creatures. Especially in the way they trusted, they were beautiful. Humans were this way, they delighted in being trusted. This sensation deeply satisfied man as master and singular, eminent creator of life. Despite man’s brief and tormented life, his absurdity and selfishness, this hobbled and deficient deity recognized such trust as the sole expression of worship toward him. But he took pleasure in betraying those who trusted in him. Because he liked to change, and he enjoyed the cognizance of himself during different moments and situations. Because he was narcissistic, yet the conversation within him wasn’t merely one-sided.
He sprinkled the grain from above, raising his hand over his head in a circle so that the pigeons might rise and he might sense the winged flutter about him. But none of them moved the way he desired; a few feeble and sporadic attempts resulted in a fluttering ascension of a half yard above ground before the momentum died.
For Mümtaz, the pigeons
As Mümtaz spoke, he realized that his expectations of others were high. He knew that when the social idiom changed, people changed and the faces of the gods paled. Yet he also realized it shouldn’t always be this way. While he fed the pigeons, he contemplated such thoughts; at the same time he noticed that the fine grain coating his palm irritated him like an aperture shutting somewhere in his person.
No, he wouldn’t ask anything of Allah anymore. Mümtaz wasn’t going to confront Him with his fate or the missteps of his life, because were his plea ignored, his loss would be twofold.
The pigeons, indifferent toward the grain in the midafternoon heat, approached reluctantly, hovering close to the ground and gliding in one at a time. Like the hand of a magician producing a bright blue handkerchief out of thin air, they still made surprising and illusive movements as they flew, but they didn’t flock and crest all at once with the swiftness of a wave under a southerly breeze as they did when in full feather and hungry; they didn’t pivot in the airy void as if there were a whirlwind above them; and they didn’t lose all speed in the aether and plummet as if they’d come to an unseen pier or the wall of a manor by the sea.
They made a rather tranquil arrival, sluggish and languid. Some of them looked dubiously – almost with pity – at the grain on the ground from the wall of the opposite building where they’d perched in a line. Yet, beneath them a small, oneiric flock gathered and pecked, each detail of its movements depicted separately and as an isolated form, like seas issuing from the brushwork of the Fauvist Raoul Dufy.
Despite their avarice and exploitation of one’s affection, they were beautiful creatures. Especially in the way they trusted, they were beautiful. Humans were this way, they delighted in being trusted. This sensation deeply satisfied man as master and singular, eminent creator of life. Despite man’s brief and tormented life, his absurdity and selfishness, this hobbled and deficient deity recognized such trust as the sole expression of worship toward him. But he took pleasure in betraying those who trusted in him. Because he liked to change, and he enjoyed the cognizance of himself during different moments and situations. Because he was narcissistic, yet the conversation within him wasn’t merely one-sided.
He sprinkled the grain from above, raising his hand over his head in a circle so that the pigeons might rise and he might sense the winged flutter about him. But none of them moved the way he desired; a few feeble and sporadic attempts resulted in a fluttering ascension of a half yard above ground before the momentum died.
For Mümtaz, the pigeons
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