The Waiting List

The Waiting List You’ve had those moments too, haven’t you? The ones where you ask, "Why did this happen to me?" As if you’re not part of this world, as if this world isn’t part of you. As if you live inside a sheltered fortress where nothing wicked can enter. I’ve had those moments. They scorched me to the bone. When God breathed a soul into me, I was in no condition to understand what was happening. Was it a curse or a gift? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t even know why I was here, in this world. With time, things began to settle into their places, slowly, reluctantly. I saw what I wished I had not seen, heard what I wished I had not heard. And once I stepped out of that fortress, I found myself alone in a solitude that felt like hell. Every morning I waited for the bus, along with many others. If I tell you I never boarded it, don’t be surprised. I truly never did. I only waited with people for the buses to come. They climbed on and went; I stayed. I couldn’t go. I remember the first day I tasted pain as if it were yesterday. In that moment it was as though the whole world’s weight had been set on my shoulders. A woman in her seventies stood waiting with a plastic bag in her hand. I felt the rain at the nape of my neck and the cold wrapping itself around everything. A young girl drifted close, looked her up and down, wrinkled her nose, and stepped away. I will never forget that instant, not even in death, whenever that may be. When the bus arrived, the woman’s card had no balance, so they made her get off. I watched her check her pockets. She had only one lira. She turned and walked in the opposite direction. It was cold that day. I felt even colder. The second blow I took from a madman. Yes, a madman, that’s what you call him. I listened. I heard him. Unlike you, I grieved with him. He rested his head on my lap, drew his knees to his chest, and folded in on himself. Through tears he told me he had been driving, his wife beside him and their five-month-old baby with them. "I had been drinking," he said. He swore he wasn’t drunk. His attention slipped for a single moment and the car rolled down into a ravine. He screamed. The people waiting scattered. Only I caught his words. Softly, as if it were a confession, he said, "They died." People were afraid. I cried harder. After that I suffered again and again while waiting for the buses to arrive. I never boarded a single one. I wanted to run, to leave. I could neither go nor stay. One day a man came. The tears in his coat had been clumsily stitched; the toes of his shoes were worn through. A faint smile hovered on his face. He glanced around, embarrassed, and asked someone for the time. I never understood the way people look at the poor. Dozens of expensive cars slid past us that day. The man sat on the curb, slowly tilted to one side, and collapsed. Apart from one or two people, no one even looked. The ambulance came much later. "He may have fainted from hunger," someone said. They took him away, sirens wailing. Everyone watched them go. There was so much noise. I felt myself going deafer still. "My God, I can’t endure this. I can’t explain it. There is too much pain in this world. Why? Why me?" I asked again and again, only inside myself. "I hear the sound of pain. I see it. I listen to people, what they’ve lived through, their fears and regrets. I can’t let go. I can’t go anywhere else. I wake in the same place. I fall asleep in the same place." But it doesn’t matter. I can’t die. The screech of brakes split my ears. My vision darkened with helplessness. He came dragging his feet and stopped right in front of me. Forty, give or take. Tired. Elsewhere in his mind. If he had spoken, I would have listened. I could not have comforted him, but I would have listened. I wanted to say, "Come sit. Rest a while," but I couldn’t. It was clear he stepped deliberately into the bus’s path. The driver saw him too late and braked too late. I could do nothing. If I could have moved, I would have gone to him, but no one did. He lay there for a while, struggling for breath. A few people recorded him. He died quietly. And I died most of all. Yes, God gave me a soul, but perhaps He thought the world was not ready for the stories a bus stop could tell. Yet maybe what I needed most was simply to tell them. By listening, I learned people’s languages. When I finally grew mature enough to understand them, you wouldn’t believe how badly I wished I could turn time back and remain unknowing. If only you knew how long I’ve been here. Those who leave, those who arrive, the seasons. Toward dawn a cat came in without a sound, slipped onto my bench, and stretched out. It was peaceful. The sky was paling. Not a single car, not a single bus. People were deep in sleep. The cat slept and I watched. At one point the street sweepers passed by. Everything was still. And I was the stillest of all. deri