The Key

E. EZGİ KAYAOĞULLARIAuthor page →

The minibus was crowded. The passengers, the grinding of the gears, the hiss of the automatic door opening and closing, a muffled song from the loudspeaker – it all blended together into a single drone. I knew that drone well, yet at that moment I heard none of it. Inside my head there was not a sound. In the minibus making its way towards Üsküdar, in a window seat, I simply thought. Outside the window everything flowed past, colours and shadows running into one another. Buildings stretched, trees widened, people merged into each other. When we were little, my sister and I used to spin round and round so that our skirts would fly up and we would look like the ballerina at the funfair. Everything looked like this back then, too.

How strange time is. In a mere ten-minute minibus ride I had thought about my sister, whom I had not seen for three years, and had gone over, from beginning to end, those last days that had driven us apart. Our images flashed by as quickly as those sped-up cooking videos. There was a director inside my head who slowed down the important moments. It was like watching an art film for the second time, one I had not understood the first time round. I looked at my own image and grew angry. I was furious with that arrogant woman who never saw what she broke and smashed, who hurt the person closest to her. And really, how could I face my sister now – the sister I had looked down on simply because she was born two years after me, whose every choice in life I had meddled in and criticised? What would I say to her to ease her pain? Had all this happened to her because, on the day she left me on my own and moved in with him, I had said, “See what becomes of you, then”? We had been taught that a mother’s curse always comes true; did an elder sister’s come true as well?

When the minibus reached Üsküdar, I got off along with everyone else. I followed the crowd across the road. Glancing at the clock they had recently put up in the square outside the metro station, I realised I was early. My sister was a nurse, and there was no way she would be home at this hour. It was not dark yet; a sweet coolness, just right for April, had set in. Seeing a park a little further on, I turned that way at once. I could while away some time in the open air. The park, as I call it, was a small, shapeless patch with neither gate nor fence, right beside an old mosque. Out of respect for the old trees they had put up a sign and named it Çınarlı Park. I walked along the cobbled path that entered at one end of the park, wound its way through and came out at the other.

Right in the middle of the path stood a green rubbish bin bearing the municipality’s logo. It was full to the brim. The litter that would not fit inside was scattered all around. Among the brightly coloured wrappers, the plastic bottles and the paper cups, something shiny caught my eye. A small, brass-coloured key. It had no ring or key fob attached. It just lay there on the ground, all on its own. I bent down and picked it up. A little way off, a black stray dog with a plastic tag in its ear was dozing. As I bent to pick up the key it opened its eyes for a moment, then went back to sleep. Just as I had spotted an empty bench and turned towards it, a bicycle sped past in front of me. Was whoever had dropped the key now in my hand looking for it, I wondered? There was nowhere around where I could leave it, either. I thought of my own key, and the moment I sat down on the bench I took my bag onto my lap and felt the zipped front pocket from the outside with my hand. My key was there.

The little key I had found might have belonged to a bicycle lock, or to a letterbox. The metal letterboxes in the entrances of apartment blocks came to mind. There were plenty of old apartment blocks round there. Why had I picked it up? It was a key with no one, a key all on its own that had forgotten where it belonged. I wondered which locks it had slid in and out of, what it had opened. It was worn, its surface covered in scratches. I thought of my own scratches – and of those I had scratched and worn thin.

Just then there was a sound from the tree above me. Something was moving in the branches over my head. A flock of pigeons took off all at once, as if by prior arrangement. Together they headed for the street across the road and split into two. The first group carried on and disappeared down the street. The others landed in front of an open window. At the window stood a grey-haired woman in glasses. It was clearly she who fed the pigeons. Their little beaks bobbed down and up, down and up. Whenever their tiny feet met empty air, they would suddenly flap their wings and find somewhere to land again. Though they could barely squeeze onto that narrow ledge, not one of them thought of going in through the open window. I loved the sight. Every one of them knew where to stop. Even when they had the chance, they did not just barge into a place they had not been invited. The pigeons’ good manners reminded me of my own shamelessness. I felt like a pigeon that had flown into her private space without so much as asking and fouled everything. I really had done that. I had forced every one of her doors, meddled in everything of hers, never managed to keep quiet and listen. Her way out had been to run away to the home of the first man she fell in love with.

While I was thinking all this, someone sat down at the other end of the bench. A young lad. Without taking his eyes off his phone, he slipped off his rucksack and put it on the ground. Holding the phone in one hand, he rummaged in the front pocket of the bag with the other. He took out a half-eaten sandwich wrapped in white paper. He began to eat it, biting from the edge. He noticed me looking at him. So as not to unsettle him, I quickly asked, “What time is it?” “Five forty-five,” he said. I thanked him and gathered myself. I raised my head and looked across at the window from before. The pigeons had gone, and the window was shut.

I took off my sunglasses and put them in my bag. Time had passed while I dawdled, and the sun had long since set. The sky had now turned exactly the colour she loved, a little lilac, a little blue. Soon it would deepen to navy and grow dark. Something stirred inside me. I remembered the walks we used to take at this hour simply because she loved it so much, the evenings we spent sitting on the benches by the sea eating sandwiches we had made together at home, the lovely days when we came back and watched series on the sofa. I thought about what I was about to say. The young doctor she lived with had been stabbed last week by a patient’s furious relative. I had been out of town and had missed even the funeral. How hard it is to say I’m sorry for your loss. A short, ice-cold, meaningless sentence spoken over the phone. Saying sorry is harder still.

Did something terrible have to happen to my sister for me to realise how much I loved her? I looked at the little key I had picked up off the ground. If only I had found the magic charm that would break the curse on us – if only, say, I could take back these three years. Sadly, life was not like the storybooks.

As I left the park I saw the flower seller on the corner. She had squeezed her enormous frame onto a tiny stool and was making up bouquets where she sat. Whenever she touched the water-filled tins in front of her, the scent of freesias, carnations and stocks spread all around. If she were here now, she would never be able to decide which to choose; she would insist on having those ready-made bouquets taken apart and want a stem or two of each. Then she would be as delighted as if she had picked them all herself, one by one. I had a mixed bouquet made up, just the way she liked it. I held it in my arms and breathed in its scent.

I quickened my steps towards the address I had walked past countless times before, but had never once found the courage to knock at.

This story received the Jury’s Special Award in the Tahta Gemi International Short Story Competition (2026). Translated from the Turkish.