Walking on the Ceiling

by Aysegül Savas

I wondered how it was that people knew what to do. Small things, I mean. The rituals of a day. The hours.

Perhaps I’d felt all along, even when I lived with him, that I was passing the time, that my life hinged on the single moment when I’d learn that my mother was dying. Then I would set everything else aside.

The coincidences always amazed me even if I knew that they were neither miracles nor revelations but the result of looking at the world deliberately and searching for connections.

Stories have their own logic. For one thing, a story can only be told once it has an ending. For another, it builds, and then unravels. Each element of a story is essential; its time will come and it will ultimately mean something. In this way, stories are accountable, because they can look you in the eye.

You had to be certain of their existence, that they were waiting for you even when you couldn’t see them day to day. Just as my father had been on that night he walked all the letters of my name, past my mother in the bedroom to the balcony, and then stepped off, leaving us behind.

That’s how I remember our friendship. We passed our stories back and forth until they merged. And with each pass, we lightened our own burden. At that time, brief though it was, we shared a single imagination. We may even have exaggerated our enthusiasm for the stories we told, for the sake of going on another walk and extending our frail acquaintance a bit further. But in the best moments our friendship was weightless—a pure, untainted invention.