Writer · Systems Thinker

After his mother died, Muhammad's swaying intensified. Wherever he turned, the hum rising from the city echoed in his ears: lies, injustices, hands reaching for orphan's property... Believing he would find peace, he fled to the mountain. Days passed, weeks passed... He spoke with the mountain winds, leaned into the silence of the stones. Eventually, he became a mystic.

One day, while walking on a mountain path, he saw a child. The child held a broken wooden horse. Muhammad greeted him, but the child never turned. Then he realized that the child was a shadow; a remnant of his mother's voice, a memory echoing in the mountains.

His relationship with pigs was not good at first. The issue wasn't the animals' wildness; on the contrary, this “unclean” herd showed Muhammad an inexplicable loyalty. Whenever he swayed in awe, the pigs gathered in front of the cave would also nod their heads in the same rhythm.

Muhammad's eyes were turned to the sky, awaiting a sign.

The pigs' eyes were turned to the ground, awaiting mushrooms.

One morning, an old pig with a torn left ear rolled a stone in front of the cave. There was moss on the stone. The pig scraped the top of the stone with its snout, ate the moss, and looked at Muhammad. At that moment, Muhammad thought that even this animal respected the stone's due.

One morning, the swaying intensified so much that Muhammad rocked from side to side and straightened up, like a plane tree tossed by an invisible wind. In the city below, someone had probably again reached for the forbidden.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the pig army. All of them were kneeling on their hind legs, looking at him in awe.

“Get out of my sight!” he roared. “You are forbidden to me! You are a test! Go!”

The pigs did not move.

The old one raised its snout, and grunted in a muffled voice:

> “Where shall we go, O Muhammad? Those below are devouring each other. There's no place left for us; the most lawful place is by your side.”

Muhammad's swaying stopped. Had this pig spoken, or was it a voice echoing in his own mind, a revelation smeared in mud?

“You are filthy,” said Muhammad, but his voice trembled.

> “I came to be cleansed.”

The pig scratched its muddy body against a tree:

> “You wash your outside, but the inside of those below is a sewer. Our mud dries and falls off; theirs never comes out. Keep swaying, perhaps you'll shake off the city on your back.”

That night, Muhammad dreamed that he was carrying a city on his back, with its minarets and roofs. Each time he swayed, a roof fell, revealing a crying child beneath. The pigs, even in his dream, were watching him.

Muhammad helplessly began to sway again. This time, his most loyal and most forbidden community was with him. The mountain's silence mingled with the city's hum. The sky was silent, but the mud spoke.

And Muhammad, in the shadow of the mountain, in the rhythm of the pigs, lost himself in his own tremor.

08/08/2023
Dawn was still distant, perhaps a few streets away. The moon and the North Star had been constantly shifting places for two months. We couldn't discern who was approaching whom, or from whom we were distancing ourselves. Were we fleeing from life, from ourselves, or from the ghosts whose existence we had convinced ourselves of? I moved away from breakfast, for instance, lest it become a solitary massacre. I didn't want to break that egg. I grew weary of merely calling it 'suitability'. I was tired of acting on the premise that running would invigorate me, only to drift away. I feared the slow deaths at the drinking tables spilling out onto the streets. My stomach churned at the 'play it safe' attitudes and the imitations of freshwater fish. I wanted to vomit, but it would have been a waste of all that I had consumed.

09/08/2023
Many times, I too wanted to leave this city. My failures, my disappointments, my sorrows; there were times, for instance, when I couldn't bear to look at certain views. Sometimes my comings and goings were for a woman, sometimes due to a man. It evolved, not into me running away at the last moment to someone I'd call "my olive-eyed one," but into finding myself in a city I couldn't leave or escape because of the one who loves black olives for breakfast. When you grow up, when you magnify it in your mind's eye, it might sound cliché, but when you don't know where to contain the hatred within you and you're in a fight with yourself, perhaps you too listen to that child. This soul struggled not to love, but its end is mourning. When it's too early to leave, yet not too late to stay, the very essence of these reasons transforms deep within. That deep ache then turns into monologues you have with that child. In that beautiful scenic place, he lies down, and as you sit beside him, he keeps you in that city, and you speak to him about someone named Rifat in your own voice; later, perhaps he speaks to you about Lucas. Your dream, which you've never told anyone about in your life, might come true under a magnificent moonlight, perhaps just as it did for Mauricio and Lucio.

12/08/2023
I burned the words. My fuel ran out that night. I walked home. That night, as in the nights before, we didn't make love. I felt the blood flowing in your veins, the sadness in your eyes, your fleeting glances, but I couldn't grasp them. I exhausted my voice reading sentences written by others. While fleeing from myself and unable to be myself, what was the point of this effort anyway? I missed it. I wanted to be friends with crows. I wanted to share my path, I wanted to share your path. Perhaps the beginning of our friendship would gaze upon a walnut. Yet, it was merely a delusion of considering myself very intelligent. That night, there was nothing in me except my mouth dry from much-smoked tobacco, my shirt stained with beer from my trembling hand, and my hungry soul. So, it was no different from other nights. Along with my words, I also burned. Since I wasn't as wet as before, I quickly caught fire.

07/01/2024
I am utterly fed up. With relationships that don't work out, false promises, their strutting exits and inglorious returns, their attempts to peddle worthless ideas, their petty airs, their 'master of the world' attitudes, the know-it-alls, and all similar immoralities…

-It was like this even when he was a child.
-How was it?
-Like this, you know.
-That's what I'm asking, how?
-You know, right?
-Son, how would I know, man? Did I eat a fortune-teller's poop to know? Tell me!
-Peculiar.
-How?
-Peculiar, just like that.
-Look, this will last until morning.
-What will last, bro?
-Don't start with your 'bro' now. Just tell me.
-You know, he had some feverish illness when he was a baby. Maybe that's why, I'm saying.
-Why don't you just get to the point, man?
-I'm saying that...
-Just say what you're going to say, man.
-Bro, if you don't interrupt, I'll tell you.
-Man, am I interrupting you, or are you telling it in bits and pieces? Think about that now!
-That's not fair, bro.
-What's not fair? Not getting to the point for hours isn't unfair, but what I'm doing now is? When did you get so soft?
-Bro!
-Don't start with your 'bro' now, man. If you just explained it properly, there wouldn't be all this word salad.
-Bro, this guy sometimes stares into space, he gets quiet, and then sometimes all his anger comes out at once, and he becomes a peculiar guy, you know. I think the reason for this is that feverish illness.
-Are we gonna cure him, man? Just let it go. Why are you insisting? Is he harming you?
-Bro, I just don't understand. Not being able to understand and not being able to help bothers me. After all, aren't we his friends?
-Maybe we're not. Maybe we just think we are. Couldn't it be?
-It could be, bro.