Mummy, Where Are You?

Mummy, Where Are You? I won this race passing millions of sperms. You should not think that was so easy. You must have a good heart to win this race. The place where I had been staying was warm instead of being dark and narrow. I did not feel cold here although I was not in clothes. I was ready to start the journey that would last 266 days. At teh first month, I was called “embrio”. I did not know what it meant, but what I only know was I was growing here day by day. At the second month, I was not called “Embrio” any more. When When they called me as “Fetus” I was taken aback. I looked around me. However, I could not find anybody to ask the meaning of this word.

I heard a voice that was saying to me “My dear, my baby” with my small ears, and I felt a hand touching me warmly with my little heart. I supposed that he was my father. Who knows that how he was looking forward to me. I seized that my mother was eating good food for my health. The food that she sent me was very delicious. Occasionally, She was making me listen to so wonderful music tahat was remedy to my spirit. When my mum was turning bath left and right in bed, I was so disturbed that as if I was surfing inside. I could not mean the thing looking like a hose was surrounding me any more. However, I managed to guess that the liquid coming through from that hose-shaped thing was binding me to life.

Recently I heard again a voice saying “Your mum loves you very much”. It was so friendly tahat I could not narrate. Yesterday, my Mum was in pain, so I was very sad being inside her. If I had had a possibility, I would have gone out and given her a glass of water. Her pain made me sorrowful. I knew Her pain was because of me. I made her life upside down. Who knows that how big pains she was enduring for growing up and giving birth to me. I couln’t afford to say “My deaar Mum”. While I was becoming bigger and bigger I saw how I was pressing her organs surrounding me. When I turned somewhere and played inside, I was feeling my Mum’s hands on me. Hey Dads! The ones who think themselves as a father do not think that being a mother is so easy. Or, Do you not remember your lives in your mothers? When you wanted to eat something in an unsuitable season, did your mother buy it for you. Last Summer I was met with the fruit that is called watermelon.. I could not tell how I enjoyed it. In the middle of Winter, I longed for it very much, so that my father rushed in the city. At the end ,with a great appetite I ate a bit colorless watermelon from Chile Day by day my mother was carrying me in trouble. Some nights she could not turn in bed, I had been feeling that very much recently. Her hands were on her belly. When I turned inside, she was writhing with pain. I did not want that, but I had to turn. I wanted to go outside and see the world. In my eight month, I heard our door knock. I supposed that this person was our neighbour.

“Run, Nilgün, run!” Her voice was too loud. My mother being in a hurry ruhed out of the home without her shoes. I was also taken aback. İnside I turned upside down very badly . Wlile my mother was running I thought my brain would come out. I had hardly been hearing what was spoken. In a crowd some bad boys were beating my elder brother, whom I love very much. My mother was trying to make them calm down, but it was in vain. What could she do as a woman? The strokes touching me were causing acute pain. My mother was in the middle of the quarrel and I was in a corner because I was frightened. I had not met such a bad situation before. While I was waiting for what would happen, a hot object entered my mum after the sound of an explosion. The objects which was pierced in the heart made us fall down. I was not able to hear the sound of my mother’s heart, which had been used to hearing during eight months and falling to sleep with the melody of. I felt that my veins began to shrink, and that the blood which had been nourishing became hard in the hose-shaped thing. I could not tell that I was feeling dizzy. I did not know who could hear outside whwn I shouted. My mother- I did not see and I did not suck her milk - was lyingon the ground as a dead person.

In the crowd that was surrounding us I was hardly hearing these words: “Hurry up! Call an ambulance! At least, we must rescue the baby.” I wanted to breath but it was too difficult for me. When I accepted that my life was nearly over, I blurbly saw a white smiling face with my swelling eyes. I thought she was my mum. However, I did not like this woman. I lookked for my mother’s smell, but I coud not. When my father was said that she had gone, I understood my mother was dead. Now she was in the most beautiful part of the paradise. At last I was in the arms of my Dad, who was tried of crying. I understood the realities of life while my father’s tears were dropping on my unopened eyes.

Now then who will give me the warmness? Will I not taste my mum’s milk? Will I not g oto sleep with the lullibies “Ooo, my baby” I was very comfortable in you, my mummy. What will I do without you, my mum?

2007 – Bursa cıty from Turkey

Write in by ; Ertuğrul ERDOĞAN
Translator ms,Tülin Göncü