Beneath (Short Story‪)‬

A radio crackled with the doings of generals and politicians, news from the far-off capital. Half in shadow, a withered man in shirtsleeves crouched over his desk, silently counting out lira. A cigarette hung burning from his lips; a near-empty glass sat off to one side, dregs of tea and sugar congealing in the bottom. A fan placed atop a filing cabinet blew tepid air around the barren spaces of the tiny office, but it did little good against the heat creeping in through the shades, the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Adnan wondered if it was true what they said, that Turgut kept a knife in the drawer of his desk and did not mind using it. The thought made him shiver, though his forehead grew sticky with sweat. Adnan shifted from one foot to another and looked away, seeking distraction. The father of the nation, dapper in a black jacket and white bow tie, stared down from the wall with piercing blue eyes. Lulled by the heat, the boy drifted into fantasy: he was a young officer fighting by the great man's side, on battlefields long ago and far away. But the radio pulled him back into the present. It was rattling off events: war in Iraq, elections in America, an earthquake in China. Adnan wondered how the air felt in your nostrils, how the earth felt under your feet in America, or in China. Was the earth somehow different under your feet, or was it just the same everywhere?