The Batman Republic Prosecution Office announced that Hatice’s body would be kept in the morgue for a few more days and in the event that no one came to claim the body she would be buried in the orphan cemetery.

Once upon a time there were tribes who lived in these lands that never buried their dead; instead they would leave the bodies on the top of a tower. The priests of the communities would hide somewhere nearby and watch to see which parts of the body the birds of prey would eat first.

This tower where vultures devoured the dead was called the Tower of Silence.

In Turkey we have ended up with a great tower of silence … We have turned our country into a tower where our tyrants can eat our dead.

Like mute priests lying low, we watch the fallen.

But I should finish my first story. After his son asked, ‘where is the lamb?’ Ibrahim the holy paused for a moment and then gave the following answer:

“God will give us the lamb.”

I have an easier question:

“Who is going to put humanity back in our hearts?”

2

I Am an Orphan, Press
Me to Your Chest

Faruk was the son of one of our staff members who kept working in our hospital even after he retired. He was a young lad in his thirties who was as thin as a branch. A quiet kid who kept to himself. His son was born in our hospital. That’s how I knew him. Faruk then got cancer of the liver. They found it too late. It was already metastasized. The expert who administered the Doppler ultrasound was the one to break the bad news. Nonetheless they went ahead and operated on him, as the common phrase goes, “they opened him up.”

Young Faruk worked for the municipality. He was married and they now had a son who was eight. A lovely boy with a blond head of hair. When his dad was in hospital I would often see him too. Whenever I went to check in on Faruk, I would find his little boy lying next to his dad, his head on his chest.

After the operation no one dared say anything about what had happened, no one dared tell him the truth. He was under the impression that the cancerous organ had been removed and that he was getting better. Meanwhile he kept asking his dad: “Now that you had the operation, show me malady. Bring me the malady so I can look at it.”

His dad came over to me and awkwardly explained the situation. So we asked the operating ward and they sent over the piece of flesh wrapped in gauze—it was of no use to them anyway. His dad and I showed the boy the “malady.” He looked at it for some time then leaned back comfortably in his bed. But he looked a little perplexed: it turned out all that pain and suffering was caused by such a little thing.