The Empty Room

How an almost empty dormitory will send you to the deepest part of your thoughts?

It was a 22-year old Libyan, a second year civil engineering student who welcomed me to Room 115 Block A almost past six months. A slightly taller guy with common Arab features, he provided me the initial survival skills starting off with giving me an exclusive tour to the canteen. He was kind yet his deep-set eyes tells you of his silenced good manners. He didn't speak English neither do I speak Turkish. In five months, we shared same room. Awkwardness set in most of the time because we seemed unable to find the right topics to talk about. 

But now, I live alone in our then lonely room. He was gone. And he may never come back.

The EMPTY ROOM. We were two, now it's one.

Not that he's gone "forever". No, he's not dead. He just moved to other dormitory near to the university like the other hundreds of students who did the same thing, leaving only a few not even a hundred maybe here, mostly TOMER students. They say it's an advantage since one person can have the whole room which normally is for six students. Yes, indeed it is. You can sing your heart out with your music in full volume with no one to care, not even the security guard at the ground floor. You can set your alarm anytime without waking up angry monsters before the sun even rises. You can have all the six cabinets in the room too and you don't have to deal with people with some sort of personality issues regarding room-sharing. It's a lot more cozier, they say. Until then...

Until you realized that it brings you to deeper parts of your thoughts.

When you open the window and the cold breeze of post-winter season enters your person-deprived room, a kaleidoscope of mixed memories of all human emotions you had in the past will come through you like a dagger. A man is always in need of company, even the self-proclaimed solitary beings think of having a company sometimes. In times you like talking, the option that is left for you is the books in your cabinet and you dive into the world of literature. In those books, you meet characters of different types, engage into adventures that in your real life may never happen, and you learn from every page you flip.

When you take those Yeni Hitit books from your "Real Madrid" sling bag, a football team you don't even bother to care, you start to read and you realize you yearn for a practice buddy who would help you out from the dungeon. And you seek companionship inside your poorly-lit room and you realized you're all alone. You remind yourself of people who deserve your attention. You open your cabinet, take your 2-month old Nescafe with his wife CofeeMate, and tried to make coffee. Only you body knows how much caffeine you have in your system right now. You want to offer you favorite drink, but to whom? No one. 

You wish you could speak the common language. A lot of people have stories that you want to hear and listen. The security guard, the driver, the vendor pushing his cart across the sidewalk, the shoe shiner at front of TOMER, the beggar. Your lack of ability is the only obstacle from understanding their plight, their everyday struggles, their pains and dreams, their hopes and their survival stories. You consider the world around a storybook and ordinary people are the best narrators. As to when you'll have the chance, only you can say answer that.

You think and your thoughts will soon become your actions. Your actions will determine what person you are. And as you attempt to lengthen this insignificant story, you realize that you're running out of words again. "Not again!" you said. Under the sunny day with the cold wind piercing through your then-thin-now-chubby body with melancholic song in the background, you scrap the shit out of you. And you go on, you deep breathe, and there just there. You find the thing your longing for.

The world is not a game of thrones. :)