Long Story - Four Days of the Catastrophe - Part 7

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Part 7

We entered an old apartment two blocks away, climbed the stairs that smelled of mildew and roasted onions and reached the third floor. The old man knocked on the door of an apartment with muddy shoes in front of it. The man that looked like a horse thief agreed to take us anywhere we want. That's what I guess; he didn't bother to look at us, and they spoke in a language we didn't understand.

Five minutes later, we got into a Lada-brand land vehicle with huge wheels, and we were going on deserted streets of Büyükçekmece. The driver asked for payment in gold or bitcoin, and we persuaded him to accept dollars. He was in the mood as if he had given us a favor, even though he had put the eight hundred dollars in his pocket in cash. Passing Büyükçekmece district we went to Çatalca, then we passed through some villages, and reached Öçünlü. Thanks to the large wheels and high body of the terrain vehicle, we only stopped on the road twice. The first one was because of strange lightning flashes in the twilight of the sky, and our driver was frightened because the ends of the lightning reached the ground. Our second stop was due to a passenger plane on our way. Our ingenious driver, fortunately, was able to get into the fields and travel around the plane. When he approached the village on the shore of the lake, Nihan started to sympathize with our driver and asked, “Is the off-road vehicle yours?”

"I was renting it to those who like to wander on the land.”

“What do you think happened to us?” I asked.

“I am saying that this is our destiny. I don't know anything else,” the driver answered, and then he turned on the car's radio and started digging. Our driver caught a channel broadcasting in a language we don't know about on the radio, but he quickly passed the channel and started scanning other frequencies.

“Come back; you just caught it,” Nihan said.

"Do you know that language, sister?"

“Maybe I know, will you go back there?”

The driver followed Nihan's advice and went back to that channel. It was probably a Greek radio.

“If my mobile computer had not run out of battery, we would have translated it into Turkish,” said Nihan.

Nihan told the driver to wait for us in front of his mother's Villa. As he resisted, Nihan squeezed a $ 100 in his pocket and said, “just 10 minutes.” When she found out that the villa was not damaged, she was relieved; she walked through the garden door fast, went inside and rang the bell. While waiting for the door to open, I took a look at our clothes, and after 24 hours of the incident, we used to wander through dirt, and it didn't seem strange anymore. When the door did not open, Nihan first checked under the mat and then behind the mailbox and found the key to the house. After opening the door, she shouted, “Mother! Bulut! Are you home?”. She turned to me and said, “You better sit here. I will take a look at the neighbors.”

I waited for Nihan into the footstool at the entrance, because it would not be suitable for me to sit in armchairs with my muddy clothes.

The houses were not destroyed, and there was no heavy stone around. And I've not seen any trace of seawater on the streets. They were probably frightened by the earthquake and panicked by a few rocks falling from the sky, but they were lucky compared to us, who faced the quake, the tsunami, and the massive flood.

I waited so long for Nihan that I thought she'd leave me alone at home. At last, the door was knocked; I opened it.

“What happened? Did you find them?”

“The neighbors are gone; as if the earth was split and they entered inside.”

“Let's go ask the reeve or somebody else.”

“I encountered a kid in the street. He said the people were in the shelter.”

“Did he know where the shelter is?”

"He was from another village, waiting for his father."

“They may be either in the school or in the municipality.…”

“I looked everywhere.”

“What do we do now?”

“Let's sit down, have tea and rest, and then we'il see.”

I went to the bathroom and took a hot shower, changed my muddy clothes and put on the sweat suit Nihon gave me. As Nihan was a tall woman, her outfits didn't look too bad on me. I think Nihan took a shower while I put tea and set something to eat, half an hour later we met at the dining table in the hall.

“Life goes on,” Nihan said smiling at the table.

I said, “I don't want to burden you anymore.”

“Where are you going?”

"I'll go find where I work. Maybe I have a family.”

"Do you have money?”

“No.”

“Don't rush.”

"I remember my business password, but I'm not sure.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“I remembered some scenes in the shower. Work-related things.”

Nihan suddenly became distracted, and then she woke up as if something came to her mind, separated her mobile computer from a portable charger. She went inside and brought a battery radio. She opened the radio and found the Greek channel we listened to on the road. “I downloaded the translation program so it wouldn't eat my internet quota,” she said.

It was the first time we would hear from the world since the disaster took place, and my heart was beating fast.

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/airplane-wrecked-plane-aircraft-731126/