I REMEMBER THAT DAY, sitting on the green sofa in the local café, two lazy cats dozing to my left. I was supposedly working, though in truth I was staring blankly at the screen. At the opposite table, a man was clearly in the middle of a loud video call, but I had insulated myself with noise-canceling headphones, listening to a piece called The Song of Klidonas by a Greek composer whose name escapes me now, playing on a loop. I remember having opened an email draft then and jotted down a note: Not everything in life has to be complicated. I remember the tea I was drinking—Earl Grey—and the way it grew cold in the glass; I remember the unfinished sourdough roll on the plate, the thin rain falling outside, the dust gathered on the giant leaves of the monstera beside me, even the dream I’d had that morning—looking down at a vast, wet garden of lush greenery, thinking that if I descended, my shoes would be ruined—but try as I might, I cannot remember what prompted that note. It sits there now in my drafts, sandwiched between an excerpt titled “My Blue Sadness” from Mary Ruefle’s My Private Property and the recipe for a perfect, flawless basmati rice given to me by my best friend’s brother who is a chef. Every now and then, I will open it, read it, and close it again, or perhaps one day, when it feels meaningless enough, I’ll delete it. For now, it stays there, carrying the weight of something that I am meant to remember. Let it stay a little longer, between the sadness and the rice. •




İpek Şoran (b. İzmir, 1983) studied English Language and Literature at Ege University. Now based in İstanbul, she balances her time across various roles within the publishing world while continuing her literary pursuits.

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