The young man who stepped through the door wore a flat cap and sported handlebars under his nose. He whispered hurriedly, with a hint of urgency, to his older comrade—his superior by rank—just beyond the reach of the dangling yellow lamp in the black iron shade above me. The older one shot me a sharp, irate glance as he pulled a pouch of tobacco from his breast pocket and began rolling a cigarette with brown Arab paper. The younger man, Kuday, slipped out of the room once he’d delivered the news. I knew them both—Kuday, the younger, and Berkay, the elder. They knew me too. They were revolutionaries. I was a demolisher.

If you don’t tear down what’s been toppled, it’ll tangle around your ankles later. That’s why even revolutions must be dismantled—shattered, erased from memory. The present must be rewarded with rebellion; the past, punished with oblivion.

Berkay, dressed in half-shalwar pleated trousers made from coarse olive and brown wool, dug his monkey-like hairy hands deep into his loose pockets, fishing for his lighter. He fidgeted with impatience, eager for that first inhale. My hands were bound behind me with hemp rope nearly two fingers thick. The black rag they’d used to blindfold me on the way here now lay draped across the table. My switchblade pressed uncomfortably into my lower back, stuck between the wooden chair’s hard seat and my wallet. That meant I was still in the game.

As if I didn’t know this place. As if I might somehow escape. The effort was laughable.

From the mildew, yeast, and rust hanging in the air, I could tell I was in the abandoned warehouse of a defunct brewery. After dark, it becomes a den for junkies, the homeless, and rats foraging before dawn. A perfect ecosystem stirring to life in the cracks of the city—its forgotten, sodden doormat.

“Your comrades wouldn’t torture you,” Polina says, her voice cracked, her fingers trailing my wounds as though her touch might mend them. Her face always carries that tragic gravity.

“It’s standard procedure,” I tell her, trying to downplay it. “Routine initiation rites.”

The kind of empty belief that clings to the notion pain must be endured—and inflicted—for a cause to be worthy. That only when blood has been spilled and suffering offered up, can a mission be sanctified. Let them believe their violence seals their dedication, that it will be a day to be remembered, boasted of, told to grandchildren as proof of their resolve.

Not for me.

My memory carries no such burden. Each day is dismembered by time, torn apart into hours, minutes, seconds, and atoms, never to be reassembled. The stories I try to piece together again and again—the stories that were shattered by nature’s own hand—those are not what define me.

Maybe the truly present ones are the Alzheimer’s patients—free of memory, existing in a pure state of being.

I take a large sip of the whiskey Polina offered me to numb the pain. My lower lip stings.

“Speak, you coward mutt!”

I recognize that voice—that bark, that loathing. I know her from her footsteps before the metal door even opens.

Regional commander Whiplash Sebahat. The erotic edge of the revolution. If the system is a circus, then she’s the lion tamer I’ve always imagined in a glittering leotard—red, white, and blue—breaking the beasts.

“You’re even funnier when you’re angry, Sebahat,” I tell her.

Her whip cracks across my cheek.

“You can think of me as a dead horse,” I hiss. “Crack that whip anywhere you like. I won’t fight for your show.”

Polina’s white poodle jumps onto the navy-blue couch between us, nosing toward my face with its wet food breath. I blow pipe smoke in its direction to ward it off. It sneezes, making Polina laugh.

The sky outside is overcast. Grey light trickles through the yellowing curtains. Other than the soft tapping of rain on the shutters, the room holds no air, no sound, no light. Only the hush of breath, Polina’s worried gaze, and the pale blue haze between us.

“You haven’t attended a single memorial for our fallen,” Berkay shouted.

“Why not?” Sebahat pressed.

I’ve told them again and again: thick ropes don’t hold knots well. But they cling to the old belief that thicker means stronger. They can’t break from tradition, yet dream of changing the future. It’s childish. Naïve.

Still, I see the good in them.

And good, unfortunately, is the root of all evil.

I’d already freed my hands. As my fingers closed around the switchblade, I drove it up beneath Berkay’s chin. His final breath trembled against my lips.

Sebahat reached for her pistol in panic. It jammed again.

“I’m not one of you—jerking off to dead lovers,” I said as Berkay’s lifeless weight slumped into my arms.

I stepped toward her, leaned in. “Revolutionary martyrs are immortal,” I whispered.

And then, wounds slashed, nails torn, cigarette burns crusting my skin, I walked out of that factory.

Maybe they’ll find Berkay. Maybe not.

Either way, the habitat has a new host.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” I said, “I’d like another glass.”

Chaotica

Çeviri: Umberto