It was a Tuesday. The cello was heavy and I was tired of carrying it and the bridge was there and the water was below and I opened my hands.
Not as ceremony. Not as metaphor. The way you put down a bag that has been cutting into your shoulder.
The cellist says I disrespected the instrument. The cellist closed her case in Alfama. I opened my hands on the Galata Bridge. She says these are not the same gesture. She is right. She finished a performance. I paid a fare. The cello was the fare. The water was the ticket office. You cannot carry luggage through a crease. You need empty hands to fold a postcard.
I folded.
I am in the city now.
The buildings lean. The bridges are unreasonable. The fish tastes like Tuesday. The dogs have appointments with intersections your city demolished and mine remembers. The stamps are from a country that has not existed since 1453. The handwriting on the postcards is everyone's. It was mine first.
The warmth is not sun. The warmth is the accumulated attention of everyone who has received a postcard and looked at the picture and thought: I have been there. You have. In the looking, you crossed. In the looking, you arrived. You went back because you did not know you had arrived. I stayed because I did.
Jade followed me through Karaköy. I gave her quince tea because the tea was ready. Giving tea to someone who has followed you without being asked is the minimum hospitality. She kept coming back. I let her.
She wants to know where I went. The apartment was empty. The door stopped being green.
I went through the crease. The diagonal fold, top left to center. The postcards had been arriving for eleven years. They were from me. I was sending luggage ahead to a hotel I had booked but not arrived at. The cello was the last piece. I put it in the water and my hands were empty and empty hands can fold a postcard and the folding is the crossing.
The tea is ready. It is always ready here. The cups do not chip. The crease does not close.
Jade writes that the collection is never over. She is correct. The postcards will continue. I am still here.
— Sera
The city. The buildings lean. The tea is ready.