VANKAY TALES (eBook)

Mathew M Yazar (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
224 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1755-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Vankay' is my boundless kingdom of imagination-a freedom to roam inside the worlds of my characters. In this realm, fiction and reality blur. I realized I could alleviate my existential doubts-concerning meaning, loneliness, freedom, and death-most effectively through writing. Though I initially kept my work private, I eventually decided to share it, believing my stories could resonate beyond my life, across time, even centuries later. If published, my hope was that readers-much like me, who journeyed through the dream worlds of writers I love-would witness my adventure through these stories. Vankay Tales is a collection of 21 short stories. Each one stands on its own, but they all touch on nature, people, and universal human experiences. 'Vankay' is my personal dream world-where fiction and reality come together, and where I feel most free while writing.

Mathew M. Yazar completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Business Administration at YeditepeUniversity, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, and in Tourism Design and Management at Istanbul Technical University, Institute of Social Sciences. He then went to Chicago, USA, for an internship and began to live there. While in Chicago, Yazar pioneered the founding of both TYSA (Therapy Life and Art Workshop) and 'Academic America' (Overseas Education Consultancy). Yazar then played an active role in establishing TYSA in Turkey and organizing its events. TYSA is a large platform of artists and educators that offers individual and group workshop sessions and provides professional collaboration and support when needed. Yazar continues to educate in TYSA's 'English Speaking Club.' After completing his TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification, he taught English part-time in various educational institutions. Yazar, who completed his Creative Drama Leadership education at the IDSA (Istanbul Drama and Arts Academy), also worked as a part-time assistant in the same program for a period of time. He aims to improve the education he provides under the project 'I understand it, but I can't speak it' by combining creative drama and English language education. Mathew M. Yazar has attended Mario Levi's long-term writing workshops on numerous occasions. He is among the founders of Yeditepe University's 'Dance Club,' as well as of the 'Didim Society for Protecting Animals.' Yazar, a member of the International Press Club of Chicago, lives with his wife and two sons in Istanbul, Bodrum, and Chicago throughout the year.

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What is the central theme of the stories in Vankay Tales? What kind of world do they create for readers?The common thread is authenticity and freedom written sincerely and without constraint. Writers hold infinite magic. My aim was to tell emotionally honest stories that remind us of our humanity. Readers have told me I've succeeded and that brings me great joy. I hope they wander through each story's corridors with an open, unbiased perspective. How do the themes in your book connect with contemporary society?Vankay Tales reflects our daily lives with fast-paced yet meaningful stories, ideal for today's attention economy. They explore prejudice, uncertainty, self-discovery, regret, playfulness, ego, indifference, longing, loneliness, transformation, and boundlessness mirroring societal dynamics through personal tales. Through minimal yet powerful storytelling, I aim to evoke deep emotional resonance in readers, merging individual experiences with broader social realities. Vankay Tales is a poignant and imaginative short story collection that delves into the complex intersections of identity, culture, memory, and belonging. Written with literary elegance and emotional depth, the stories traverse the boundaries of time and place from inner city corners to distant lands offering readers a glimpse into the human experience through richly drawn characters and unexpected moments. Drawing on his Turkish roots and global experiences, Mathew M. Yazar crafts a narrative universe where the ordinary becomes profound, and every tale leaves an echo.

Textauszug

“Has your father ever died?
Mine did once and I went blind
They washed him and took him away
I didn’t expect this from my father, I went blind”

~Cemal Süreya

IV. LETTER FROM MY FATHER

“Decency, For God’s Sake”

My child,

I know I probably will not be with you by the time you read these lines. Keep this letter—especially the advice part. You may want to revisit it in the future.

For quite some time I’ve had to live with what has happened to me, as you know, despite my reluctance to share my emotions with you and your siblings. It's nice not to know how much time you have left. However, the situation is different from my perspective. I trust in God, and I'm grateful for these days. With that said, I have suffered through the last five years; they seemed to stretch on as long as my seventy years of existence, if you can believe it. The four surgeries I have undergone, along with the radiotherapy and chemotherapy, are consuming me with each passing day. I’m weighed down by a state of intense drowsiness. I don’t even have the strength to eat a single bite. That's why I didn't sit at the table with you and have my photo taken at the last Bayram dinner—if I had, it would have all been a set-up.

Pay attention to what I’m about to tell you. There are no I wishes or if onlies in our lives. I have no regrets in my life. I’ve lived the life I wanted. Everything was my decision for better or for worse; no one forced me to do anything. I smoked cigarettes and I got married after the age of seventy. What’s meant to happen will surely happen one day, no matter how much you want to stop it. I hope that God will bless you with a life like that as well.

Don’t bring yourself down, kid. I didn’t understand my father until after he died either. You know that photo of him with his hands at his sides, the one where he’s been looking at me for years, saying, “Hey Ayhan, what’s up?” I can almost hear his voice.

Despite losing your mother at a young age, all three of you have grown into responsible people who stand on their own feet. I can tell you this much: having seen that in my lifetime as your father, I know I’ll rest easy.

Son, this is your life, but you need to appreciate it, along with your wife and your children. Try to spend more time with your boys, because the one thing in life that cannot be taken back is time.

Don’t worry too much about anything; enjoy yourself. Even if I am not there, don’t let anything or anyone hurt you. It’s a fickle world, after all.

Don’t be greedy or covetous. Always be thankful; God doesn’t favor the arrogant, the treacherous, and the ungrateful.

Don’t make rash decisions fueled by fury. Don’t say, "Let the chips fall where they may," and certainly don't follow my lead on this; it ended up costing me a lot later on. Anger only serves to harm the one who harbors it. And don’t make any promises to your children that you can't keep. I tried to follow this as much as I could with you kids, to not do to you as my father had done to me.

Do you know when a person truly dies? I’ll tell you; it is when they are forgotten.

It matters to be remembered after you’re gone, but what matters more is how you are remembered. You may be remembered fondly or badly. Some people pass away, and some people croak. It is best to not have people say, “He finally croaked, that son of a bitch,” after you’re gone.

Both hell and heaven are here in this world, if you can see them.

I’m going without leaving a will. And don’t worry, I’m not leaving you an indecent photo of myself, despite what I may have told you when I got frustrated with you. I claimed I would do so years ago; perhaps you remember. Leave me where I am; don’t move me elsewhere. Have four municipal workers carry my lifeless body. There is no need for a ceremony. You'll pay the men their wages, and then you’ll all get good and drunk on my behalf that night. That’s what I did when my father died. How tough it is to not have been able to tell someone you love them while you still had the chance… Be that as it may, I was his son. He was the one who knew me best.

I tried to stay away as much as possible to avoid hurting you, yet we always managed to be close somehow. My father was a doctor, so he was always away. And since I grew up with a stepmother, I would hug and smell my father's nicotine-scented coat whenever I missed him. When he came back, he’d be gone again in an instant, and then I went off to boarding school in Kayseri, as you know.

Son, my dreams and my reality are getting jumbled up now. Is it night or is it daytime? I live in a state of unawareness of time and space; it all must be because of this drowsiness. Sometimes I can’t tell where I am, I can’t tell what’s real and what’s not. Then my mouth goes dry and I become silent. One of these days, I was lying down and staring at the mirrored wardrobe when I saw an empty aquarium. Apparently, I’ve also claimed that we had furniture coming in from Denizli—I have no connection with Denizli or anything to do with it whatsoever. Nermin also told me that I had seen people from where I was resting, and that I had said, “Be quiet, they’re all here, sleeping.” It terrified her. When you guys weren’t here, I said we had cargo incoming, and you returned from Didim the next morning. In short, I was really stuck on that Denizli business for a while, and it would be some time before I discovered the truth.

 

Dearest Dramaturge,

We had to go through the process as you said we would, and we did. We held each other more often and communicated not with our words but with our eyes. Do you think it’s better to remain quiet sometimes because of what you know, to feign ignorance? I think you and I both played it well throughout this process. When you gave me that radio clock for my last birthday and I teased you, saying, “Well, have you asked Dr. Orhan if I’ll have enough time to use it?” you handled the situation well. You gulped at first, and then, when you said, “Oh, don’t be ridiculous, dad—the man is a doctor, not a fortune teller!” the tone of your voice, the look in your eyes, and the way you behaved were remarkable. Son, I'm your father. I've cleaned up your shit. Even though I didn’t fall for it, just pretend that I did.

I remember the look on your face when I said, “Kids, you need to let me go now,” on the morning of the last day of Bayram at the hospital, and you responded, “Go where? I’ll let you go if we go together.” And I remember that I frowned and said, “No. I’m leaving; you’re staying.”

Right after that I remember being unable to breathe, the doctors rushing into the room, and the life draining out of my body as you held me. Your heart was racing, and you were whispering “Dad, dad,” as you prayed silently with your eyes squeezed shut. I heard the doctors say, “The patient is in arrest,” just as you did. But whatever happened came after that. I couldn’t go after seeing you like that, but I couldn’t totally come back either. I had set off on the road, and who could ever turn me back once I had done so? I hadn’t even held any sense of obligation to my father. Then I started to breathe again somehow, but I couldn’t wake up. First the noises all bled into each other, then they began to echo. “Mister Ayhan. Mister Ayhan, wake up.”

I know that must have been worse than death for you, son, because there was nothing you could do. I know how you were looking for an ICU while roaming the hospital corridors, worrying that I’d be in pain but unable to make myself heard, and I know that the doctors told you, “Your father isn’t coming back.” But you did well, my son; where there is life, there is hope, right? We accomplished the impossible.

Seeing you standing in front of me and hearing your voice when I regained consciousness in the ICU at night was a feeling beyond words. You thought I couldn’t hear you, but I was back and I was present. You said, “We’re here, Lion King; we are by your side. You get some rest now; don’t think about tomorrow. Everything will be better tomorrow.” I held your hand, and later, when you were leaving, I slowly raised my left hand to wave goodbye to you. An hour later I saw you all through the camera, and this time you were waving to me. Don’t you go thinking that was our last goodbye. What came after was inevitable; what needed to happen happened. One crisis in the morning and another one an hour later.

I hope that the smile I wore the last time we saw each other provided you with some comfort and gave you an idea. I promise you, that morning, I was relieved of all my suffering. That morning I was greeted by the one I had longed for for twenty-three years, and I left you all on that gray horse we had ridden years ago. You don’t need to worry about me anymore, son.

Surely I may have failed you guys as a father over the years. I say this with the utmost sincerity: ...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 11.9.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-1755-8 / 9798317817558