the bench

My first piece for my creative non-fiction class:

We saw the flag first: a red and white smudge on the distant horizon. It emerged from the water and fluttered behind the approaching boat. The air was thick with smog and humidity, harbingers of rain in a city of thirteen million. Styrofoam bobbled on the water’s edges, rubbing against the grassy silt that coats the banks of the Golden Horn. The warped dock rocked on the heaving waves as boat and captain came into focus. We waited.

Damla, friend and tour guide, had led my brother and me to this remote location. Together we’d spent the morning navigating the gristle of Istanbul’s impossible transportation system. Like blood cells, we swam through the arteries of the pulsing metropolis until we found ourselves removed from the heart, in the knuckles of its arthritic fingers and toes. Our ears rang in the unusual silence as they searched for city sounds. The wind carried the scent of sulfur and water and at times my nostrils tingled with traces of burnt rubber – relics of the abandoned Go Kart track we’d cut through to get here, where weeds pushed through the pavement’s cracks. I scratched circles in the dirt with my weathered Chucks, adding a thin layer of Turkish dust to the coating of thick European grime that already covered their soles. As the boat drew closer, we waited.

On the hill behind us lay rows of houses, blocks of color – green, pink, nutty brown – arranged side by side like candies in a variety pack of Turkish delight. They stared down the urban clutter on the other side of the Bosphorous: the minaret-strewn cityscape adorning the postcards that pave Istanbul’s streets. Eventually, boat merged with land and Blake and I shared a glance of mutual understanding. I read disbelief, excitement, and skepticism in his furrowed brow while my own eyes widened with the realization that we were to take this feeble vessel across the Golden Horn. Damla’s lips twitched with smug amusement as she observed this scene with the cool disconnect of an anthropologist. But her smile faded comically as she, too, processed the reality of our impending voyage. How are we all going to fit? she wondered.

Our fearless captain must have been in his sixties. Though he never opened his mouth, the wrinkles buried in his forehead and the corners of his eyes seemed dusty with words, and he had clearly spent much of his life on the water – on this water. He wore a windbreaker only slightly less faded than the chipped paint of his boat, which was the rich blue of a 100-lira note, and his short gray hair disappeared into the cloudy sky that framed his dark face. With calloused hands, he gestured for us to board his humble ship and braced the wobbling raft with a paddle so that the three of us could pile into it. I climbed in first, steadying myself with a stray piece of rope before sitting down to the right of the captain. Blake embarked next, clumsily supporting himself on my shoulder as he located his place on the seat. After a moment of hesitation, Damla boarded last, anxiously grabbing Blake’s arm as the boat groaned beneath our weight, but loosening her grip once it settled. Though our knees bumped, the three of us nodded to the captain to indicate that we were ready. With a single thrust, he pushed us away from the shore, and as we floated away I watched a young couple replace us on the bench.