Aksu Yildiz

The shutters creak when I raise them each morning, as if they, too, feel the weight of these times. My shop sits on a side street behind Kızılay Square, Ankara, where the tram bells used to compete with the chatter of customers. Now the bells echo off empty pavement. Shelves once packed with cotton towels from Denizli look like missing teeth; I fill gaps with folded paper so the place won’t seem so bare.

I am sixty-nine now, born in Istanbul but married here decades ago, and the number feels heavier than any crate I ever lifted. Lira notes arrive faded and go even paler in my till. Last year a sack of rice cost 120; today it is 480. People count coins before asking the price of soap, then leave without speaking. Even tea, the last refuge, is being brewed thinner.

Every day I rewrite my chalkboard. Prices rise faster than the chalk wears down. A young man with a university badge came yesterday, his eyes darting like birds. He needed notebook paper for an exam but only had half the cost. I slid the bundle across and turned the chalkboard so the shortage looked planned. He thanked me as if I were giving him a loan of oxygen. When he left, the bell over the door rang once, lonely.

After closing I sit on a stool behind the counter, counting silence instead of money. The fluorescent light hums overhead, a private requiem. I picture my daughter in Berlin, messaging me links about online sales platforms. She says the internet is a bazaar without borders, but my hands prefer coin edges, handwritten receipts, the smile when someone chooses a towel by touch.

Tonight I lock the door and stand in the street a moment longer than usual. Ankara’s wind carries roasted chestnut smoke and distant traffic. I tell myself that tomorrow one more customer will walk in, and the bell will ring twice, and the shutters will remember how to groan with hope rather than worry. Until then I will keep the lights on, because someone has to remind the dark that we are still here in Turkey anyway.