They said the operation had no side effects. Now that I was lying on the couch in the living room with foam in my mouth, they were obviously wrong. Or maybe they deliberately misled me to get my money. I assumed I had an epileptic seizure. Before my consciousness closed, my body began to tremble and then contract violently. Fortunately, I managed to throw myself on the couch before I passed out. Could I have gone mad? I didn't want to bite anyone but rather look at the world with compassionate eyes.
I got up and walked to the bathroom. The epilepsy attack may have passed, but I was still half asleep, and in the daytime thought that appeared in my mind, I was in a forest entirely covered by the waters. I was floating comfortably in the water like a fish, pushing myself forward, taking power from tree trunks with both feet. As if I was lying on my back in a forest without gravity and hovering among the trees. Above, I could see the undulating surface of the water through the leaves of the trees oscillating in the water.
After washing my face, I carefully examined myself in the mirror. I'd be considered handsome. I wish my eyes were a little bigger and my ears smaller. These were not meaningful thoughts for someone who had just had an epileptic seizure. Now that the fog covering my mind is slowly starting to dissipate, I'd better think about what I should do.
On the second floor of an apartment in Levent, I was given a serum that strengthened the activity of the mind. This illegal operation took place three days ago, and the next day I managed to get a job at a multinational company. I thought the serum was influential in getting a job because it had been nearly two years since I graduated from college, and during that time, I had conducted countless job interviews, none of which I had been accepted for. Even if the serum had no other effect, it indeed increased my self-confidence.; because that morning, after I administered the second dose of the serum to myself at home, I called Gizem and told her I wanted to visit her. Although she was a little surprised, she invited me to her house in Fatih, next to the Blue Mosque.
I didn't feel like calling the doctor who did the mind-strengthening procedure at his house in Levent. Because after months of searching, I found a job with full salary, and it would be nice if I had a lover. If I stopped using the serum, I would return to my old tired state and say goodbye to my dream of being a lover with Gizem.
You couldn't be sure about anything like that. Maybe the doctor could solve my problem with a bit of change in the formula. My high school friend Metin, who managed to embarrass Hippocrates every time with his attitude, said that Semih Akyurek, a psychiatrist who secretly performed this procedure in his home. Because of his anarchist nature, he did not follow the rules. Clinical tests of some of the substances he added to the serum have not yet been completed, but the doctor was sure that these substances would not cause any side effects.
In the 90s, mobile phones were devices that only the well-off could use. Since our home phone was also closed due to debt, we made our calls using a payphone in Migros' backyard. I pulled an industrial seal out of my pocket and threw it on the payphone. The industrial seal sat in the slot with a light punch that I applied from the side. Psychiatrist Semih Akyurek's secretary, who is also his wife, said his husband was full for the following three days. I said that my situation was urgent, that my life was in danger, that I wanted to at least talk to him on the phone." I'll keep you waiting," she said, but I didn't have to wait long.
Psychiatrist Semih Bey asked in an angry tone, "What is the problem?"
"I just fell and fainted, and foam came out of my mouth," I said.
"When was the last time you used the serum?"
"This morning."
"Has it ever happened before?"
"No, it's the first time. I'm afraid I'll fall and hit my head again," I said to fill in the word life-threatening because the angry tone in his voice had not changed.
"Stop using the serum. Don't leave the house today and tomorrow, and have someone with you."
"I wonder if it repeats?".
"I'll do a thorough examination when you arrive."
"All right, thanks, "I hung up.
My roommate Kenan had gone to his hometown, and I had no intention of calling anyone home to babysit me. Besides, I had myself invited to the house of Gizem, and this opportunity wouldn't have gone away. I went home and showered, brushed my teeth, shaved, squeezed the perfume Kenan had brought from abroad, and combed my hair.
The face of Gizem, who greeted me at the entrance door of his home in conqueror, was sullen. She was a girl who usually smiled, but there was no sign of the joy and confidence that is common in beautiful girls.
" You're upset," I said as soon as I walked through the door.
"Kaptan is missing. He hasn't been here for how many hours," Gizem said.
I said," Let's find him now." I've been a completely different man since I started taking the serum. A sense of confidence sprouted in my mind that I could achieve whatever I attempted.
"Take a breath, and we'll see," Gizem said.
A boy in the house named Adnan was clearly trying to appeal to Gizem. Gizem did not like him, but Adnan did not care. He obviously didn't want to break up once he had entered Gizem's gravitational field. He even considered it a privilege to be near her. I understood him very well. Gizem had such a skeletal structure that a person would like to watch her for many hours. Although her face was not perfect, she was tall, and her body was proportional. Gizem was aware of her beauty and used that advantage directing young men like Adnan and me.
Gizem's home phone rang, and it was obviously another man. The man on the other side of the telephone extended the word. Fortunately, Gizem eventually hung up, saying she had urgent business to take care of.
"What can I offer you?" Gizem asked.
I said," I think we'll find the captain first, and I'll have the right to drink tea."
"He entered the tunnel while chasing a cat in the basement and disappeared in the dark," she said.
"Wherever he went, let's find and bring him back."
"I thought so, but these underground tunnels have no end. This is the historic peninsula," Adnan said.
"If I find out who left the iron door in the basement open, I'm going to complain to the prosecutor. It could have been a child who went in there," Gizem said.
"Do you have a flashlight in the house?" I asked.
A minute later, we were in the basement with a flashlight and a gas lamp. The iron door, the corners of which were rotten because of the humidity, was indeed open. Behind the door were concrete steps that descended into darkness.
"I have claustrophobia, I thought I would hold on, but I think I have to go back," Adnan said when we landed on the floor of the tunnel.
I said to Gizem, "You can also go come back if you want."
"No way, Captain is my dog, and we will discover this place," she said with a smile.
Adnan came back with the gas lamp, and we continued on our way. The flashlight was in Gizem's hand. We were shoulder to shoulder in the two-meter-high tunnel, moving with cautious steps.
A little ahead, the road was splitting in half. We first turned left. Fortunately, there was a dent there. Gizem's dog, Kaptan, couldn't have gone through there, so we turned around and started moving forward, this time in the tunnel on the right side. Because the tunnel was relatively narrow, we were walking leaning against each other; I couldn't decide whether the pleasant smell that came to my nose was perfume or the scent of her skin. This smell seemed to me to come out of heaven compared to the tunnel's odor.
When we came down the steps at the end of the tunnel, we came across a wide channel full of water.
"Do you think he could have gone into the water?"
"When he's chasing cats, he can even get into a rat hole."
An inflatable boat was tied to the shore in the water, and its oars were in it. Gizem and I made eye contact, and she grabbed the boat by the rope and started pulling it towards the shore. She was a brave girl, and with this move, my admiration for her increased once more.
"I guess the end of this tunnel leads to the estuary, and while we're on the water, we'll take a walk around the estuary," I said.
She didn't answer, but I knew from her smile that she was warming up to me. We got on the boat carefully and began to move forward, paddling in the darkness. "KAPTAN... KAPTAN..." she shouted, her voice was echoing inside the tunnel.
The channel was longer than we expected. Even though we had been rowing for minutes, we couldn't reach the end. Gizem was now tired of calling her dog, and although we gradually lost hope of finding the Captan, we couldn't make ourselves go back.
Finally, we saw the channel elbow to the left, and Gizem said, "the light of the Lantern began to weaken, so let's look there and go back."
For obvious reasons, I never wanted to go back. For some reason, my eyes began to twitch. Then I had contractions in my left arm, and I lost my balance and was buried in the dark waters of the canal. I could feel my entire body in the water contracting violently, and then I plunged into the realm of dreams as if I were lying in my hotbed.
At that time, the casinos had not yet closed in Turkey, and I had a dream that I was at the casino of the Mövenpick Hotel, where I went to collect the money needed to apply the mind extension serum. The casino was underwater, and tables and chairs floated several feet above the floor, tied by ropes to hooks at the bottom. Shark investigators in white shirts and bow ties roamed between the tables. Customers didn't seem to complain about being underwater; as they talked and laughed, bubbles gushed out of their mouths, the smoke of their cigarettes scattered in the water like drops of ink. Serving mermaids in miniskirts glided between the tables in elegant movements. I walked past a tiny racecourse simulating horse racing, miniature horses pulling bubbles in the water as customers enthusiastically supported the horses they were betting on. I approached the roulette table and put half my chips in number 23.
Even though I wouldn't say I liked Michael Jordan in a dream, as in real life, I couldn't understand why I did it, roulette turned long, and the ball fell to number 33. But I liked Larry Bird very much. I put the rest of my chips back in number 23, and I won. I jumped up with joy, raising my hands in the air, but there was something wrong with me. One of the shark inspectors started dragging me by biting my pants. I wasn't afraid of him as he looked at me amicably. And one of the mermaids kissed me long on the lip. Why did she kiss so passionately? We hadn't even met before. Once again, when she brought his face closer to my face to kiss me, I felt like I had known her before. The second kiss was as long and unrelenting as the first.
I opened my eyes in a hospital room. On the two beds next to me lay middle-aged men. I had a serum attached to my arm, and the fluid in it was about to run out. I was going to ring the bell to find out what was going on with me, and Gizem came through the door in her white apron.
"You saved me?" I asked.
"Kaptan pulled you ashore, so I gave you CPR."
"I wish I were conscious," I said, smiling.
"It wouldn't have happened then because you're not my type."
I was not too fond of the last words of Gizem.
"Did you jump into the water behind me?" I asked.
"I must have jumped. We took the Hippocratic Oath."
"What's that got to do with it? You're not a lifeguard."
"I wonder if you're using drugs. Strange substances came out of your blood."
"I don't have anything to do with that kind of thing."
"Don't drink drugs you don't know about. You may not always be so lucky," said Gizem in an authoritarian doctor voice.
Adnan came to us as we spoke. "I wish I were with you, brother," he said.
"Thank you so much, "I said.
Gizem and I may not have created a binary star system, but I felt that Adnan and I would orbit her for a while longer.
Image Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/zGQ17qQMaaM
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