The dim light of the morning crept through the murky silk of the room’s curtains onto her eyes. The warmth of the sun began to circulate in the air, and her threads of sleep unraveled. In the light, her brown eyes turned into bowls filled with honey. The pain of old fatigues placed a bitter smile on her face. Recently, the aged hand of time had deepened the lines of her smile. She rolled to her side, sliding her gaze lovingly over her husband’s face. She didn’t know how many minutes had passed when the cuckoo clock shouted out. The purple of the little girl’s eyes gently bloomed like a bud. The man, without taking his eyes off her, silenced the clock with a cold caress and said, “Good morning, Nona!” Tears rimmed in Nona’s eyes, intensifying their sparkle. Something slipped in the man’s heart, just like the first time he had seen her tears.
Nona moved towards the small kitchen of their house with soft, involuntary motions as if dancing to prepare breakfast. She placed butter, jam, a bit of cheese, and two bread slices on their two-person dining table. She poured two cups of tea and waited for her husband.
Jiko washed up, dressed, and buttoned his shirt. While fastening the buttons, he threw a fleeting glance at the bland, seldom-used phone on the small table beside the bed. His gaze then fell on the bedpost. He put on his trousers. As he straightened his clothes, he pondered. They had chosen that bed themselves, but the irrational shape of its headboard still felt alien to him. The perennial mystery revisited his mind: “Who really bit the curve of the bed? It’s as if someone marked this bed with that curve.” Turning off the nightlight, the mystery of the curve sank into the deeper layers of his brain. He picked up his usually empty rectangular briefcase, a mere symbol to others that he was also employed.
He went to the kitchen. Nona, seeing him, danced around him like a joyful butterfly, her cheeks glistening with diamond-like tears for the umpteenth time, stealing Jiko’s heart. From the small window there, the lazy winter sun occasionally touched Nona’s pale skin. Her golden, not-so-long hair flew in the air, as if pleading with him to stay. Her eyes mournful, her lips quivering with unspoken words, fear visible between her delicate trembling fingers.
The man, trying to inject his sweet emotions into the smile he offered, was captivated by the twists and turns of Nona’s delicate, frail body. Moments later, swallowing a bite halfway, he kissed Nona as she was clearing the table and reluctantly left the house, leaving her alone.
The towering buildings, both tall and short, enveloped the gray city streets. Indifferent cars moved continually between the dark geometric structures. He stood by the street, absorbed in the eternal motion of the vehicles. Amid the rush of his thoughts, he couldn’t remember if he had turned off the bedroom light. “Anyway, if I didn’t turn it off, Nona will,” he thought, but this thought remained incomplete in his mind.
He raised his right hand slightly and a car stopped. He got in and, through the car window, watched the hustle of people with dim eyes yet smiling lips. This ridiculous contrast gnawed at the back of his mind. He wished he could take all these people to another planet. A planet far from everything that distanced them from their essence. He smiled slowly but nervously. Playground tales flowed with a bitter smile on the lips of children. Ashamed of the better childhood he had compared to theirs. Workers laughed out of hunger, and he pressed his hand against his full stomach. The formal, feigned smiles of office workers were dried up, just like his own.
Further ahead, a terrible accident had occurred, but the street was wide enough to avoid traffic jams. A car had collided with a motorcycle, and the motorcyclist lay lifeless by the curb, yet with a fixed smile on his lips. Passersby pointed at the accident with a smile, and the car driver banged his hands on his head in laughter over his new misfortune. Jiko thought to himself, “What sins did these people commit to have their fates so entangled with misery?”
It was their own city, but all its citizens felt strange. Ever since the day everything had changed. The hand of death gradually cast a gray shadow over the city, and its pointing finger first always fell on those ravaged by famine. Their land was called Voilà. In Voilà, years passed without progress, and its residents had a future that dwelled in the past.
According to Article fifty-seven of their new constitution, he hummed the national anthem under his breath, completely numb and emotionless:
“Voilà, voilà, voilà, voilà juste ici,
Here, here, here it is.
Moi mon rêve mon envie, comme j’en crève comme j’en ris,
Me, my dream, my envy, how I die, how I laugh at it, it’s here.
Me voilà dans le bruit et dans le silence,
Here I am, in noise and in silence.”
The hum of the anthem could be heard from every corner of the city, but nobody remembered the lyrics before or after. He got out of the car. A group of merry hooligans was visible across the street. One of them shouted, “The greater the pain, the louder the laughter!” The insane laughter of the boys sent shivers through him. It seemed each was trying to show the extent of his suffering as much as possible.
Smiling in pain, he walked towards the large red tent. As usual, he didn’t remember if he had paid the taxi fare or not! He entered his office. In front of a mirror surrounded by lights, he sat down. He took a thick brush and drew sad, drooping lips over his smile. With blue paint, he added three teardrops under each eye, and placed a soft red circle on his nose. The gray dust on his hair, hidden under a curly black wig, disappeared. Finally, he put on baggy clothes made of sackcloth and wore shoes larger than his feet. Everything seemed in order.
A knock on the door and it cracked open. Mr. Ed Lavi poked his head in. Jiko saw him from the mirror. Ed Lavi with a ridiculous grin said, “Good afternoon, young artist! The crowd is waiting for you.”
Artist? Despite not remembering what art he possessed, he tried to compose a polite response.
“Good afternoon, boss! I’m ready,” he said quietly.
The boss nodded. As always, he left the circus’s administration to Jiko. He left the door ajar and exited the tent. Jiko passed through the relatively dark corridors and stood behind a curtain. He could hear the noise of the crowd after his name was announced by the presenter. His heartbeat outpaced the commands of his brain. He took a deep breath and stepped onto the stage with feigned courage.
A white spotlight fell on him. He bowed. The sound of whistles and clapping filled the air. He felt the scene was familiar, but couldn’t recall when or where he had seen it. Maybe yesterday, maybe in a dream, maybe for the first time. He took a few steps. Unconsciously, he began performing a play.
It seemed as if he had been performing this show dozens of times a day. The well-dressed, wealthy people paid a hefty price to enter the ‘Cry’ circus.
Jiko spun on stage like a Sufi and occasionally struck his imaginary drum. His performance was a shadow of the regret of their shared past choices, engaging everything in him except his tongue. Initially, he played the role of a laughing leader, then transformed into sad people facing that leader, listening to his promises and foolishly cheering him on. He was invisible in every role of his unseen story, but the scenario was more visible to the audience than the clown. With each bitter movement of the clown, the cries of the audience rose and fell.
With his actions, Jiko showed that some people take the power to cry away from ordinary people and deliver happy humans to society. But gradually, everyone became dissatisfied with that ‘Laugh Revolution.’ People were looking for ways to cry, but the revolution was a one-way, irreversible path. The clown became beside himself. With hand gestures, he depicted a circus taken over by a monster. A god who held the cure for crying in his clutches. Then he played the role of the audience who had paid a lot of money for a temporary experience of that cure, showing a god who claimed to spend that huge sum on the needy but had anyone actually seen a poor person who got a full night’s sleep because of it? The people stood and applauded him with teary eyes. All of the clown’s body cried except for his eyes. He waved at the spectators; he bowed and disappeared into the darkness behind him but truly remembered what his role was in that performance?
The air was growing darker. Heavy rain pounded on the street surface. Soon, dragging his feet, he entered his home. Nona was sitting on a polished chair under a thin blanket, reading a book. She looked up and said, “Welcome back, dear!” The man grinned, showing his teeth. The TV was on: “The death toll from looking has reached forty-six today.” As he heard the news, his smile grew wider and wider.
He didn’t remember if he had responded to Nona or not. He wandered around the house, regurgitating all the laughter he had swallowed from people’s lips with a mad cackle. Finally, while his body trembled, he fell onto one of the sofas.
Every day the girl witnessed this state but still couldn’t bear to see so much turmoil in Jiko. From her distress, a smile sat on her lips. She threw the thin blanket over Jiko’s body. They went to bed, having barely touched their dinner.
In the midst of that black and hilarious revolution, they had paralyzed people’s ability to cry, but Nona’s purple eyes were immune to those ‘anti-sorrow’ vaccines. Injecting that drug only shifted her laughter and tears. When she was happy, her tears broke the light like diamond beads, and when she was sad, her laughter was more delightful than untouched natural sounds and sweeter than all the jam-filled cookies in the world.
The deep voice of Jiko echoed in the room: “Nona!” He paused and continued, “Do you feel it?” The woman’s heart trembled, and she tried to feel something. She concealed the trembling in her voice and asked, “What?”
Jiko didn’t remember what he was feeling. With a muffled voice, he said, “I don’t know.” He called Nona again and fell into thought. He wanted to reminisce with her. He thought about their first meeting. Nothing came to mind. The first kiss, the first picnic, the first night. He found nothing. Reluctantly, he said, “Good night, dear!” Nona’s eyes smiled, and with a smiling voice, she said, “A starry night, Jik!”
Again, the hanging dust particles of the sun settled on his eyes and he woke up. Before the cuckoo clock rang, he turned it off. He thought surely the clock was broken since it always rang after he woke up. Again, Nona danced around, setting the breakfast table. Jiko dressed for work and prepared his empty briefcase. Fear ran in Nona’s eyes. Softly and trembling, she said, “Can you stay home?” The man paused for a moment. He approached her, kissed her forehead, and said, “I’ll be back soon, dear!” A pleading smile sat on Nona’s lips, but Jiko had forgotten that her distress appeared with a smile. Jiko swallowed a bite and reluctantly left the house.
By the street, he couldn’t remember if he had turned off the bedroom light. But his heart was warm with Nona’s presence at home, and there was no need to worry. From the taxi window, he saw people. Children, workers, and office employees whose hum of the national anthem flew through the city streets. It seemed his compassion was also part of everyday events
. Every face he saw, he thought, “Maybe this one will be among today’s casualties! Maybe that man in a suit, maybe that child with a dinosaur-shaped backpack, maybe even me!”
He found himself in front of his office door. The door was half-open. With caution, he entered. Unbelievably, he saw Ed Lavi, box in hand, busy with something, humming unknown melodies and drawing some faint light from the box, adding it to the clown makeup colors.
He took a few steps forward and was able to read the writing on the box: “Pandora”
The humming of Ed Lavi strangely penetrated him, echoing right behind his ears. Pandora, that familiar yet strange name! The boss, seeing Jiko in the mirror, was taken aback. Time passed for a few moments without exchange between the hands of any clock. Jiko’s eyes were full of questions, and Ed Lavi’s tongue lacked answers. Finally, Lavi broke the silence: “Oh, young artist! You arrived early today!”
He didn’t remember what time he used to arrive, and all his mind was occupied with that light. Without a word, he moved forward and looked inside the box. He grabbed a bit of the light and sniffed it. Murmuring to himself, he said, “This… this smells like hope! Hope…” Ed Lavi let out a terrifying laugh. The clown’s eyes twinkled. Suddenly, that familiar yet foreign name became clear to him. With anger, he shouted, “I knew you were a thief! Whose Pandora’s box did you steal?” Ed Lavi firmly yet calmly said, “I made it myself!” Jiko’s face flushed; he tried to control his emotions. He said, “That box was made by the malevolent Zeus. The one that caused miseries to spread on earth with this box because he had given it to the thoughtless Pandora!” Ed Lavi growled through his clenched teeth, “I am not malevolent, you careless man!”
As he bent down to put the box on the ground and punch him in the mouth, Nona’s photo fell from his pocket in front of the clown’s feet. Zeus, now more visibly real with each passing moment, panted more furiously. His nostrils flared rapidly and restlessly.
Jiko gradually pieced together the puzzle. He felt he had found the answer to the curve mystery. His half-open mouth awaited a word to say, but at that moment, Zeus, grabbing a fistful of hope, struck it into his eyes. He felt as if he had opened his eyes in a vessel full of milk. Gradually, the image of the room became clear again.
He didn’t remember how long he had stood there or why. He saw Ed Lavi in front of him. Stammering, he said, “Hello, Mr. Boss! I’ll be ready in five minutes.” Ed Lavi with a mysterious smile said, “Good morning, young artist! The crowd is waiting for you.” He truly didn’t remember what art he had.
He surrendered his movements to his unconscious wind direction. Again, the white and blue colors and the red circle on his nose. Again, the narrow and relatively dark corridor and again the noise of the crowd cheering.
He thought these wealthy people were like free slaves in a headless mansion, turned into toys by the government. A government that, like a leech, quietly and slowly fed on their property for nothing. It seemed health no longer played a role in living longer. The more money they had, the longer they lived. He thought to himself, “I have hope! Surely someday someone will come to rescue the people…”
A hand rested on his shoulder. His unfinished sentence was forgotten. A vague voice said, “Hurry up!” He swallowed his saliva and prepared for the usual stage performance.
Once again, that light, that scenario, and the same pantomime. His body involuntarily told the story of misfortune to the people. During the performance, he momentarily became conscious and remembered Ed Lavi, who never attended the circus to see the show, but the cry of one of the spectators once again submerged him in his performance.
After completing his eighth performance, he went to a small room to rest. One of the circus staff came to him and said, “Jiko! You arrived early today, you can leave earlier.” A wave of vague thoughts assaulted his mind. Fragmentedly, he asked, “Me? Did I come early?” The old man smiled and said, “Yes, son! Go home and rest. You’ve had a tough day.” Jiko gratefully smiled at the old man. He washed his face from the makeup. He dressed in his outer clothes and left the tent with his always empty briefcase.
He felt that night was extraordinary. He bought some jam-filled cookies from the bakery near their house. It didn’t take long before he stood at his home’s door. As he
tried to remember whether he had brought his keychain or not, the disgusting laughter of a man from the open window of the house reached his ears…
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