Ses Magazine June 2022 by Ses Dergisi

June / 2022 SES MAGAZINE

CONTENT MAY, 2022, ISSUE 22 June / 2022

I EDITOR PAGE

Ses Magazine

II INTERVIEW Interview with Natalie Morrill. She was the winner of the HarperCollins/UBC Prize for Best New Fiction for her debut novel The Ghost Keeper

Literature-Culture-Art

III

I WILL NEVER SEE THE WORLD AGAIN

NATALIE MORRILL

Interview

The Memoir of an Imprisoned Writer

VI ESSAYS

VII STORIES

FILM REVIEW

Reflection

Richard R

OLIVER KAYA

the film They Shall Not Grow Old, directed by Peter Jackson, shows the true essence and the dark side of World War One.

Moacyr Scliar’s story “Peace and War” is an exceptional example of the negative stereotypes that men and women face that antagonize them.

Contact: www.sesdergisi.ca Facebook: @sesdergisicanada Instagram: @sesdergisikanada Twitter: @sesdergisica www.youtube.com/sesdergisikanada E-mail: sesdergisicanada@gmail.com Adress: Ottawa, Canada sesdergisicanada@gmail.com

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Dijital: www.issuu.com/enesengin

June / 2022

Ses magazine has only been out for about three years, starting in 2019 during humanity’s darkest hours, but the accomplishments it has accumulated since then makes it appear much older. During these three years, it has released 21 issues, each telling the story of someone or somewhere that has violated the rights of the people through interviews, reallife stories, articles, and essays. However, while Ses magazine is bringing human rights issues to light, it is not all it does. At its core, it is a literature magazine. The committee has decided that the magazine should be published as an open-access online magazine. It was also decided that we would endeavor to publish it bi-monthly.

their notice. Her professionalism, attention to detail, and good humour have made seeing this issue into “print” a real pleasure. I also thank the guest editors of this first issue who admirably and with good humour suffered through our teething process as we put in place our workflows while at the same time going into production. This inaugural issue consists of papers written at the Algonquin College, the Professional Writing course, and some new works. Thank you to all the people who worked day and night preparing this magazine by sharing their stories, poems, and time to make this lifelong dream a reality. Thank you to everyone that put effort into helping us make Ses Magazine more accessible to a larger group of people.

To make this change successful, we need people to share their stories so we can build a safe and proud community. This inaugural issue owes much to many people. Thanks are due first to the Ses Board, where the idea originated, for supporting it so wholeheartedly, and particularly to Niki Chatelain, professor at Algonquin College, for her unfailing support. Thanks are also due to the committee that drew up the parameters of the magazine, as well as to Esra Dolunay, Seyfullah Sacit, Zeynep Gur, and Yasin Toksoy, for agreeing to host the magazine and for providing much help in its production. Most of all, thanks are due to my wife, who has so generously given her time and expertise, encouraging me to make this project happen. No detail, large or small, has been beyond

Serif Aydin

Thanks to everyone who contributed images, stories, articles, and book & film reviews for this post. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not belong to the Ses Magazine. While every effort has been made to ensure complete accuracy, the Ses Dergisi Magazine cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions in this journal.

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elcome to the 2022 edition of Ses Magazine, our exclusive magazine for young writers. On behalf of the Board of the Ses Magazine and my co-editor, I am delighted and super excited to announce the publication of the inaugural issue of the Ses Magazine Initiative.

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June / 2022

SERIF AYDIN

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A MEMOIR

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I Will Never See the World Again is Ahmet Altan’s memoir describing his arrest and custody. It is a short book with 19 essays divided into brief chapters, 5 of them are no longer than two pages; each of them gives details about the author’s life in jail. In addition, pages that Ahmet Altan wrote by hand in prison have been translated and incorporated into his new book.

I WILL NEVER SEE THE WORLD

Ahmet Altan Born in 1950, Ahmet Altan, one of today’s most important Turkish writers, was arrested in September 2016 for his work as a journalist. An advocate for Kurdish and Armenian minorities and a central figure in the Turkish cultural world, he is the author of five successful novels. He has been awarded the Grand Prix from the Akademi Publishing House, the prestigious Freedom and Future of the Media Prize from the Media Foundation of Sparkasse Leipzig and the International Hrant Dink Award. In February 2018 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Turkish state.

woke up. The doorbell was ringing. I looked at the digital clock by my side; the numbers were blinking 05:42. ‘It’s the police,’ I said. Like all dissidents in this country, I went to bed expecting the ring of the doorbell at dawn. I knew one day they would come for me. Now they had.” (Altan, 2019, p. 14) The book begins with this impression, which gives an idea about the main subject of I Will Never See The World Again. The author, the book, the country, the arrests, and the prison all

help create the framework of I Will Never See The World. The book was written by Ahmet Altan. Ahmet Altan is a prominent Turkish journalist and author. Brave, intellectual, open-minded, and creative. For more than 25 years, he served in all stages of journalism. Altan also worked in several Turkish newspapers such as Hürriyet, Milliyet and Radikal. He was fired from Milliyet in 1995 because of writing an essay titled “Atakürt,” which presented an alternate history of Turkey. In 2007, Altan began to work as editor-in-chief of Taraf, a daily newspaper known as a defender of democracy. After the failed July 2016 coup, Altan was arrested on September 23rd, 2016. He was accused of sending “subliminal messages.” He describes this incident in his book; “The prosecutor started his interrogation. He didn’t ask me a single question about the military coup the putschists or the ‘subliminal message’

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‘I hold out my hands and they handcuffed me. I will never see the world again,’ writes Turkish journalist Ahmet Altan in his memoir.

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June / 2022 we were said to have given.” (Altan, 2019, p.55) I Will Never See The World begins with Altan being picked up at his home at 5:42 in the morning and taken away by the policemen. Altan shares a profound irony and an interesting detail about this morning. “While the policemen searched the apartment, I put the kettle on. ‘Would you like some tea?’ I asked. They said they would not. ‘It is not a bribe,’ I said, imitating my late father, ‘you can drink some.’” (Altan, 2019, p.15) One paragraph later, on the same page, he shares a memory about his father, shedding some light on his family background. “Exactly forty-five years ago, they had raided our house and arrested my father on a morning just like this one.

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My father asked the police if they would like some coffee. When they declined, he laughed and said, ‘It is not a bribe; you can drink some.’” The phrase “It is not a bribe” actually has a historical background. It was used by Fuzuli, a poet that worked in the Ottoman Empire palace in 1534. The reason for using this sentence in his poem was to explain the corruption in the State of Ottoman. In his book Like A Sword Wound, Altan defines himself as a “novelist living his novel.” But what made Like A Sword Wound so important, and why did he say that he is living his novel? Altan answers these questions in his 11th article titled The Novelist Who Wrote His Own Destiny. In this article, he describes being in a room after his arrest In September 2016, waiting for the verdict. “I am living what I wrote in a novel. Years ago, as I was wandering in that unmarked, enigmatic and hazy territory where literature touches life, I had met my own destiny and failed to recognize it. I am now under arrest, like my protagonist. I am waiting for the decision that will determine my future as he had. My life imitates my novel.” (Altan, 2019, p.102) I Will Never See the World Again is Ahmet Altan’s memoir describing his arrest and custody. It is a short book with 19 essays divided into brief chapters, five of which are no longer than two pages; each of them gives details about the author’s life in jail. In addition, pages that Ahmet Altan wrote by hand in prison have been translated and incorporated into his new book. I Will Never See The World has been translated into many

languages with one exception: Turkish. Ahmet Altan did not want his book to be published in Turkish. His experiences caused him to be embittered to his state. His book is about travelling to many countries, from one city to another, from one hand to another. But the author is between four walls, saying that he will not see the world again. Amazon’s editors selected I will Never See The World Again as one of the 12 best books to read last October.

Source: ALTAN, AHMET, (2019). I Will Never See The World Again. New York: Granta Books

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“The destiny I put down in my novel has become mine. I am now under arrest like the hero I created years ago. I await the decision that will determine my future, just as he awaited his. I am unaware of my destiny, which has perhaps already been decided, just as he was unaware of his. I suffer the pathetic torment of profound helplessness, just as he did.” Ahmet Altan 7

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NATALIE MO R RIL L

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INTERVIEW

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Serif Aydin

“I am in love, absurdly in love, with my wife and with this little boy, and the rest of the country is like a paper model of the world. That there’s all this politicking right now is ridiculous.”

Natalie Morrill: The Ghost Keeper Winner of the HarperCollins/ UBC Prize for Best New Fiction, this powerful, sweeping novel set in Vienna during the 1930s and ’40s centres on a poignant love story and a friendship that ends in betrayal.

like home. But when I was younger, we did live abroad quite a bit. S. Aydin: How long have you been in Canada?

S. Aydin: I can understand why Canada feels like home. Thank you very much. So, let’s talk about Vienna. It seems to be a very important location in your novel. You lived in Vienna, where most of the novel was set. Is there a specific reason for you to choose Viennafor the setting of your novel?

. Aydin: Thank you, Natalie for agreeing to be interviewed.I believe there is a connection between an author’s work and an author’s life experiences. So let’s start at the very beginning. Can you tell us more about your childhood? . Morrill: Sure. I grew up in a diplomatic family, so we moved around to a couple of different countries. I was born in Vancouver. Next we lived in Jamaica, and then we lived in Maryland, and then we lived in Austria. I think that’s probably the time period that’s significant, at least to my first novel, because it is set in a city where I lived. After we lived in Austria, we did moved back to Canada, and I finished high school in Canada. So definitely, Canada feels

N. Morrill: I moved back when I was about 11, so quite a long time.

N. Morrill: Is there a reason I chose Vienna for the novel? I mean, I don’t know that it was really a process of deciding where to set the novel so much as it was that the story itself kind of came out of the place. The

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June / 2022 story is about a gentleman who looks after the neglected Jewish cemeteries of Vienna. And I think having kind of held an image of particularly one of the cemeteries in Vienna that was very poignant to me in my mind and in my heart, I think this character kind of came out of that, and then his story sort of flowed out of him, I guess. So that’s kind of how it came about.

S. Aydin: Do you have any schedule for writing?

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N. Morrill: Is there a schedule for writing? There probably should be more of one. I think the way I typically end up writing is that I really love having a long period of time to write. I think maybe I need to get over that. But I usually look for four times when I have at least a couple of hours of dedicated time. So it’s, I’m not very good at making it work. On days when I have a full schedule of work, I tend to look for moments when I have the whole evening or the whole morning, or if I have some time off, then I could take a whole afternoon or something and write. I recognize that that’s sort of a luxury that I’ve been able to hang on to during a lot of my working life because I had kind of irregular hours. But I think in terms of the sustainability of my writing practice, I realized that I do need to learn to make use of free time. I think, you know, like the halfhour periods or the hour-long periods or waking up half an hour earlier and getting some things done then. It’s a bit tricky, but I do, especially with longer projects; I feel like I almost need like 20 minutes or half an hour to kind of reorient myself in the world of the story and in the characters. So at this point, at least in my writing style, I guess I do prefer to have those longer chunks of time. But I think just realistically, in terms of getting the writing done that I want to get done, I need to learn to

move towards using those more found chunks of time, like half an hour or so.

S. Aydin: I think you write more then just novels, you write poetry, correct? N. Morrill: Yes, I write poetry or short stories.

S. Aydin: Well, it’s a fact that writing poetry needs to be emotional; on the other hand, being a writer needs more creativity. Can you describe Natalie to our readers as a writer and a poet? N. Morrill: I don’t know it. I work well. I can describe myself, I suppose, but a reflection on that. I mean, it’s interesting the way that writers who work in different genres kind of get typecast or something. I think it is interesting to me. I do have a bunch of friends who are poets who seem to understand one another in particular ways because perhaps there is some element of personality or something that, that comes with love and poetry and wanting to immerse oneself in this I mean, I don’t want to say thankless art, but like definitely one that you’re not going to make a lot of money doing like with poetry. You’re kind of aware that you’ll have a fairly small audience, but it’ll be very intense artistic work. But at the same time, if I think about my friends who are poets, they’re quite diverse in terms of their interests and personality types. So where I would kind of place myself in all of that, I don’t know. I mean, I think there are things about the technical aspects of poetry and the challenges that come with a form that is so interesting and so much like puzzles kind of in a way that that it’s just very stimulating and interesting to work in that form. Honestly, I don’t think I’m very good at it, that I do a lot more. I’m glad that I’ve had a few poems

that were quite successful. But, in terms of fiction, I think for me, it is just loving a story, right? Like just loving hearing stories, coming up with stories, getting to live inside somebody else’s story. I think it’s what I’ve always looked like since I was a kid.

S. Aydin: Awesome, thanks! I’m just wondering, when you wrote your novel did you use your poetry skills? N. Morrill: It’s interesting. I mean, I used probably everything that I had at my disposal, I guess, to get that novel done, because on the one hand, exactly as you say, it does deal with the historical subject matter and not just historical subject matter, but the very fraught historical subject matter. Like episodes in history that are very high stakes and that are still within living

memory… So, that was very significant to me in terms of being able to get the facts right and being able to tell the story that didn’t kind of confuse the issues of what had happened to people. But at the same time, it’s something that was very significant to me in writing

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From the book

S. Aydin: Well, Ghost Keeper! An interesting name. Why did you choose this name? Why The Ghost Keeper? N. Morrill: The Ghost Keeper. So there are sort of two answers to that, and one of them is kind of the more disappointing answer, which is that it’s kind of that my publisher chose it. I mean, the entire time I was working on that book, I didn’t have a title for it. So we kind of got to the end of the

I’ve walked away from this for a while, and I’ve thought about it, and I find the whole thing hinges on a moment: this final conversation with Friedrich Zimmel, years after the war, years after I came back to Vienna. It begins in the night, with Friedrich under the yellow light in his kitchen. He’s called me here very late, after many nights of wanting to call me but sitting alone with his drink instead. And now his face is purpled, and his eyes are yellowed, and his fingers wrapped round his drink are shaking and he says to me: “You’re going to hate me.” Because I love him, and because by then I’ve made a kind of peace with his betrayal that followed the Anschluss, I say to him, “Never. Please.” And he, looking dark beyond dark, says, “You know about my Lena.” From The Ghost Keeper by Natalie Morrill ©2018. Published by HarperCollins Canada.

figure out how to tell a story. And it just struck me that this might be one of the kinds of mental tricks that he would play on himself in terms of if something, if he was having a really hard time telling a story, perhaps he would try telling it as if it happened to somebody else instead of as if it happened to him from the first-person perspective. So, it does sort of have this, this flipping effect which definitely, I don’t know, maybe comes back to the sort of more poetic side of things and doesn’t deal strictly with the history.

actually, the very opening is more or less what it was when I first wrote it, but very often, I mean, I would write whole chapters and then delete them, like they were just not good so I started again. So that was definitely part of the process for that book. And I think it’ll probably always be part of my process unless I, I don’t know, gain some skill in terms of being able to write something. Right the first time. It seems doubtful.

revision process, like, more or less. My editor had kind of signed off on the book, and we still didn’t really have a title. And he was like, “Natalie, could you please come up with a title for it?” And I couldn’t think of one. So I think I sent him a few ideas, and then he emailed me back and said, “Okay, well, here’s a list of ideas that we thought of, like at the publisher, the big list.” I think of about like eight or ten different options, and then I emailed him back and said, “Okay, I’m kind of deciding between these two, and I

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S. Aydin: Did you type the same page more than one time? N. Morrill: If I typed the same page more than one time? I probably end up writing each page multiple times. I read at various points. I like it. I mean, I guess it depends on what you would consider rewriting a whole page, but they go through so many revisions or at least minded that there are very few sections that I did not rewrite in that book. There are maybe a few, and

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that book was, I guess, finding a voice and a form that made it work. So one thing that is probably pretty noticeable to people who read that book is that the narration sort of flips between first person and third person, which is something that if you’re teaching creative writing, you tell people to never do. Like, it’s a mistake, kind of. But, in this case, I was trying to figure out, well, I was trying to access this character who was himself trying to

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Winners of the 2018 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards. From left, Sandy Fainer, Pierre Anctil, Kathy Kacer Max Wallace, Jordana Lebowitz, Daniel Kupfert Heller, Rebecca Papucaru, Natalie Morrill and Seymour Mayne. (Barbara Silverstein photo)

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had picked two options on the list.” I said. He emailed me back and, I think, said something like, “Okay, well, we’re deciding between one of those and The Ghost Keeper. And I sort of was like, I think they want me to pick The Ghost Keeper. So I said, “That one!” And he was like, “I’m so glad you picked that one. I think it’s the perfect title.” So that’s sort of the disappointing kind of publishing behind the curtain answer to that. But, actually, I am pleased with that, with that title, and I think it’s a good title for the book. It’s, I mean, I think the idea of ghosts, even though this isn’t, it’s by no means a book about the supernatural, really. It’s a book about memory and about contending with death. I think so. Of course, in the context of the book, not just death in a natural sense, but death in terms of like mass murder, unfortunately. So it does deal with these questions of memory and death and grief as well as this the idea of the possibility, I guess, of remembering, which I think it was, you know, this idea of keeping something comes back into it. And I also like the idea that whereas the certainly the protagonist of the

book, Joseph, is himself someone who has this mission of kind of keeping souls or remembering the death. He, the book itself, kind of also has that effect. Like it’s so I guess the conceit in the book is that he’s kind of trying to set down these memories, so he doesn’t have to hold them, sort of personally anymore. So, in my mind as well, sort of feels like the book itself is kind of the keeper of these things. So I do like the title, and I think it’s a good title for the book, but it does have that sort of slightly disappointing answer as well in terms of my publisher picked it.

S. Aydin: What about the characters? Are they based on real people? N. Morrill: Based on real people? The individual characters in the novel are fictional, so there’s no character with that name. There’s no character who had exactly that life. But I try it as much as possible to make the lives of the characters in that book reflective of real experiences at the time. So I read a lot of memoirs from people who lived in Austria right before the Anschluss

who perhaps had to flee Austria during the Second World War or just after the Anschluss, particularly memoirs of Jewish people in Vienna and what that experience was like. So as much as possible, I tried to have the experiences of these characters reflect that, and I guess to the best of my ability, have them be realistic lives, if not real lives. That said, the particular things that happened to these characters specifically are not, as far as I know, exactly like the experiences of people who lived at the time.

S. Aydin: I want to talk about the main character. Your book follows the life of the main character, a Jewish man, Josef. Can you tell us about Josef? N. Morrill: He’s the main character of the book. He’s the character from his perspective; the whole story is told. He is a Jewish man who was born in 1909. So before the First World War, it kind of raised up during the First World War. And then kind of comes of age in the interwar period and at the time has a very ordinary life like he has. He works at the same company that his

S. Aydin: How did you create this character? Josef? Have you been inspired by any stories of people around you or any stories from real life in Vienna? N. Morrill: Oh, I mean, I did read a lot of personal testimonies of people who had to flee Vienna after the Anschluss or who had to go into hiding or various

things. A lot of people, thankfully, who survived that period wrote memoirs about their experience, which was very helpful to me, especially since, I guess, in the 21st century. It’s very easy to kind of find things online and order stuff. And anyway, I got my hands on a whole lot of different memoirs and personal testimonies of various people, even videos from survivors who were you know, telling their stories orally. So I did have access to a lot of those. And, I think to a certain extent, those shaped the characters’ experiences in my book. I definitely wanted to be faithful to the real experience of people at that time. I think maybe this character specifically kind of came about more in me asking, like, what kind of person would be devoted to these spaces? Like these sort of, I don’t know, liminal spaces of that are the cemeteries and particularly. From a Jewish perspective, since you know, there might be a very specific sense of what it means to take care of the dead in that.

S. Aydin: An American writer argued that Jewish people separated into two groups after Holocaust: Dead Walkers and Survivors. The first group, Dead Walkers, said that there was nothing to do from now on and gave up, but the second group, Survivors, didn’t give up, and they kept working to save the people from the bad situation and they did it. I know that you read a lot while writing a novel. Is he right? N. Morrill: My goodness. I mean, I think I hesitate to kind of claim the authority to be able to speak to that. It’s a really interesting idea, which I guess, to a certain extent, just resonates with my sense of how different people respond to events that traumatic I guess, right? To events where not only an individual person has experienced something devastating and traumatic,

but in a sense, they might feel that their entire people or that their sense of identity or their sense of security in the world is taken away. You know, a state more than a state. A state and various peoples have been so nearly successful at eradicating their people from a continent, without a great deal of, I don’t know, immediate kind of intervention from other countries. So I think that would be deeply deep. I mean, I don’t even have to say I think that would be, deeply traumatic, and people, as you say, like to respond so differently to that. I mean, I think one thing that I was trying to deal with a little bit in my book, again, without having the kind of firsthand insight into it that perhaps some Jewish writers might have, was to somebody who was almost a generation removed from the tragedy. So, for example, the protagonist has a son who is very young during the events of the Holocaust and who kind of comes of age in the decades afterwards like his experience is very much that his family did survive, that the Nazis didn’t win, basically like that, you know, they survive, that they can have a life. But he is at the same time dealing with the fact that his parents or his, specifically his father, I suppose, is so haunted by all of these things. And perhaps he was very held back by them. And he’s also very devastated by the fact that people like survivors that he knew died by suicide and things which to him seems so counterintuitive that like why would fight so hard to survive and then kind of let them win in a way, like take your own life kind of thing. And I think all of that, in ways that I probably couldn’t fully articulate or understand just yet again, speaks to how deeply devastating and traumatic those events were. I guess people do not really know how they’re going to respond to an event like that. And I certainly don’t know I would have coped or responded.

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father worked at. Gets married, has a child and doesn’t really get involved in politics in any meaningful way. But one thing that is perhaps unique about him is his devotion to the neglected Jewish cemeteries of Vienna, which at the time that he first becomes invested in them, are perhaps not as neglected as they would be after the war and after the kind of decimation of that community. But sort of in his discovery of his own spirituality and his kind of reclaiming the faith aspect of his Jewish identity, which his family is not really invested in; he comes to have a relationship with the cemeteries in Vienna and becoming very devoted to them. And that kind of impacts what happens through the rest of the story. Because first of all, when the Angelus happens, when Nazi Germany kind of annexes Austria, Josef and his wife are separated in their attempts to flee Austria, and both are only able to escape the country thanks to his friend Friedrich, who is not a Jewish man and in fact, ends up joining the Nazi Party, which is kind of a conflict, obviously, that they face. But he does help them both escape. And then, later in the book, Josef has to kind of contend with what his friend has done and what his friend has become kind of over the course of the war. And in returning to Vienna after the war, largely due to his relationship with the dead and his need to kind of come back and make sure someone is remembering these events, he ends up in a situation where he has to confront these betrayals that happened.

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Aydin: Do you think that you have a role as a writer in society, in the country or in the world? N. Morrill: Do I have a role? I think so. I don’t want to overinflate the sense of the significance of my writing about the Holocaust in Canada. In 2018 or whenever the book came out, compared to say like the way it would have been 50 years ago or 75 years ago or something. But certainly, first of all, it gives me an opportunity to keep memories alive in a way that’s certainly one thing that I think the book can do very effectively. To keep memories of a time alive that is very quickly fading from living memory. The people who lived through those events and can recall them are dying. They’re becoming older and most of them have passed on by this point. So to kind of keep those memories alive, even in fiction, I think, is a worthy goal.

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At the same time, a lot of the kind of rhetoric preceding the events of the Holocaust. Before those events happened, as I was researching the book and as I was writing - it was eerie to me how much of it seemed almost familiar. Almost as if I would hear that kind of rhetoric in politics, even in North America sometimes. Maybe not in mainstream politics but conversations would be happening in various social circles that struck me as weirdly similar to the kind of conversations that were happening in the decades leading up to the events of the Second World War. So I think, even if somebody were to read that book and kind of have this moment of recognition of the things that people were talking about in 1935 sounds weirdly like the kind of things that we’re talking about now. So let’s please, please make sure that we don’t go in the same direction that it went at that time. I think that that could be a very useful thing to just kind of like awakening that sense of those were not totally different times. People are the same now. Politics is certainly

capable of producing similar results now. We’re not immune to these things now. So can we think about that and then also think about what it feels like for individual people, which is certainly something that I think a big fiction can accomplish, like awaken that sense of it didn’t just happen to statistics, it didn’t just happen to nations, but it happened to individual people. And you can kind of put yourself in their shoes.

S. Aydin: Wonderfull, thank you very much. The last two questions. N. Morril: I passed. S. Aydin: Almost :) You are a professor at Algonquin College in Professional Writing. Do you have any advice or message for young writers? N. Morril: I guess the first thing would be just with relation to the amount of work that goes into becoming a writer. It’s a lot of work. And again, I don’t say that to discourage anybody. I say that hopefully to encourage people because young emerging authors do often come to me and show me work and ask this impossible question: “’Do I have what it takes?’ ‘Can I be a writer?’ ‘Should I give up on all this?’ ‘Am I crazy for thinking I can do this?’” It’s not a question I can answer. I have to say, I don’t know. Regardless of what I read, when you give it to me, I don’t know. It really depends on you.

S.Aydin: Once, an artist of the Ottoman Empire decided to write a poem. After he completed his poem, he asked one of the famous poets to criticize it. The poet took a quick look at it, then gave it back and said, “Keep painting!” So my question is, you have students who want to be a writer; they may send their craft and ask your opinion. And you see that he/she

doesn’t have writing skills enough. Can you be so straight when you give your feedback? N. Morril: Brutal. But you know what? It’s so interesting because like, somebody could give me a piece of their writing and ask me. And even if I was totally harsh like they say, I read something, and you know what? “Don’t quit your day job. This is not very good. You don’t have it.” Like, some people, they’d be like, “Oh, I guess I’ll never be a writer.” And that would be the end of it. And for other people, they’d be like, “I’m going to show you!” And that would fuel their journey and then that would be like the story they told when they were a famous author would be like, “Natalie Morel told me I didn’t have it, but I showed her.” So, I don’t know what kind of person somebody is. Some people take that to heart, and some people feel fired up and challenged by it. So it really depends.

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Natalie Morrill: The Ghost Keeper

Literature-Culture-Art

In the years between the two world wars, Josef Tobak builds a quiet life around his friendships, his beloved wife, Anna, and his devotion to the old Jewish cemeteries of Vienna. Then comes the Anschluss in 1938, and Josef ’s world is uprooted. His health disintegrates. His wife and child are forced to flee to China. His closest gentile friend joins the Nazi Party—and yet helps Josef escape to America.

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When the war ends, Josef returns to Vienna with his family and tries to make sense of what remains, including his former Nazi friend who, he discovers, protected Josef ’s young female cousin throughout the war. Back among his cemeteries in Austria’s war-shattered capital, Josef finds himself beset by secrets, darkness and outward righteousness marred by private cruelty. As the truth is unearthed, Josef ’s care for the dead takes on new meaning while he confronts his own role in healing both his devastated community and his deepest wounds. The Ghost Keeper is a story about the terrible choices we make to survive and the powerful connections to communities and friends that define us. Here is a finely accomplished novel that introduces an exciting new voice to our literary landscape. Source: h t t p s : //c re a t i v e w r i t i n g.u b c . c a /a l u m n i publications/natalie-morrill-the-ghost-keeper/

Canada

June / 2022

Marsha Masseau

How To Create a Vibrant PleinAir Painting: Ses Magazine

With A Smile on Your Face!

ART

Literature-Culture-Art

Some landowners act like the media has descended to cover a sensational news story — on their property no less! They’ll call over the neighbours, and together observe and offer commentary, “Yup, I always thought they were a handsome cluster of oaks, if I were a painter, I would paint them,” a neighbour will say.

Figure 1 https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18204481/

To save you the headache of getting paint on your car seats, being bitten alive by mosquitos and needing to pee with no washroom for miles: here are some things my failures have taught me. First, lower the bar. That’s right; keep your expectations nice and low — it’s unlikely you will drive home with a masterpiece in your trunk, so let’s take the pressure off from the start. Now before we go any further, understand that pre-planning is your friend. Spend some time scouting for locations that have the type of scenery that speaks to your soul, and have access to shade and a washroom if you intend to be out for more than a couple hours. Keep in mind, if the perfect vignette is on private property, you’ll need permission to loiter. That said, expect an audience when stationed on private land. Curiosity is human nature. Some landowners act like the media has descended to cover a sensational news story — on their property no less! They’ll call over the neighbours, and together observe and offer commentary, “Yup, I always thought they were a handsome cluster of oaks, if I were a painter, I would paint them,” a neighbour will say. “You know who would be a good painter? Bill. I bet that guy would be a natural,” another will add. Some painters don’t mind background chatter. Personally, I prefer the music of crickets. So, know yourself. It will save you from being set up near the loveliest oak grove freshly touched by October’s paintbox to find your mind can’t function creatively with an audience. Next, prepare your kit: Think ahead to the terrain, the

weather on your chosen day, how long you intend to spend on location, the style of painting you’ll do, and how you will travel there. If you are commuting by foot, pack a sturdy daypack. If you are getting around by bicycle or vehicle, you’ll have ample space to carry supplies for contingencies. Canvas panels or primed boards sized 9”x11” to 16”x20” are ideal for field sketches in — acrylics or oils — because they are inexpensive, as well as puncture-proof. Include three of your favourite brushes — reliable ones. Keep your paint selection minimalist: primary colours in both warm and cool temperatures and a few earth tones should be sufficient. One good palette knife, a rag or two, and a mixing surface will do. Also, a portable windproof easel -the type with widespread adjustable legs is a worthy investment. Nothing is as deflating as having one’s embryonic masterpiece blown off a hill in an unexpected gust of wind. After you have packed your chosen art supplies, please add to your kit these essentials: snacks, drinking water, toilet paper, bug spray, sunscreen and sun hat, lip balm, a couple of plastic bags, binoculars, and anything else you think will be useful. The point is, have what you need to do the creative work and tend to a few creature comforts and safety as well. Keep your mind focused on the experience and worry less about how well the painting turns out. Plein-air paintings can be the inspiration for more developed studio pieces in the future or enjoyed for the time outdoors. Don’t just spend the day en-plein-air — make a day of it!

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hrough several catastrophic failures at plein-air painting, I’ve learned that there’s a fine art to it. One simply doesn’t find the ideal vista or perfect weather conditions all at once. The French Impressionists began their masterpieces en-plein-air; art history books describe their method as capturing the light. Because of this, I kept hauling my gear out to green fields. Although, I confess I found the process to be: un gross maux de tête! The problem? I had been idealizing the process, believing that all I needed was a brush, a canvas and a creative mind. Wrong. What I needed was a strategy.

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

England

June / 2022

Aısha Khalil

Ses Magazine

Life as a Refugee Artical

Literature-Culture-Art Figure 1 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-greece

June / 2022

Some people dislike that term, and they argue that it refers to something voluntary, and should not be applied to people fleeing danger. A UN document recommends that “The term ‘migrant’… should be understood as covering all cases where the decision to migrate is taken freely by the individual concerned, for reasons of ‘personal convenience’ and without the intervention of an external compelling factor.” However, millions of people have been forced to leave their homes because of similar reasons— safety, health, war, or political issues. No matter which reasons have pushed these people to flee their countries, it is clear that this journey wasn’t a personal convenience. According to UNHCR, “At least 79.5 million people around the world have

been forced to flee their homes. Among them are nearly 26 million refugees, around half of whom are under the age of 18. At a time when 1% of the world’s population have fled their homes as a result of conflict or persecution.” (UNHCR, 2020) The World Health Organization (WHO) argues that refugees and migrants can face challenges in accessing health care for reasons including their legal status, language barriers and discrimination. (WHO, 2019) Let’s look at the refugees’ lives, how they migrate from their country, and what kind of challenges they face during this journey. ‘A Safe Country’ Among a group of Turkish refugees in Ottawa who work as Uber drivers, I found Ali and Osman from Istanbul. They worked as journalists in a national newspaper in Turkey. But, Ali said that he had been targeted by the government to be arrested because of political issues, so he had left his wife and the fouryear-old daughter behind to make this journey. “It was very difficult,” said Ali. “It was cold. There was no food, no extra clothes, nothing to drink, and no money. I left my home in the middle of the night, and I had to travel from Turkey into Greece.” Ali has spent $15,000 and 15 days in jail in

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‘safe A Co unt ry’

he word “migrant” is defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary as “a person that travels to a different country or place, often to find work.” It is still used as an unbiased word by most media organizations including the BBC - but there are some who critique the use of the word. AlJazeera is one of the news organizations that has decided not to use migrant and “will preferably, where appropriate, use refugee.”

Literature-Culture-Art

“no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well” Warsan Shire (British-Somali poet)

June / 2022 Greece to get this far. He says, he can’t give up now because he left his family behind him. “I am working as an Uber driver and cleaner in a company; I have to work as much as I can because my wife is in danger too. She is a teacher, and she is targeted by the government as well. Nobody can understand us if they didn’t live under the dictatorship. I am thankful to Canada for welcoming me, but my whole life is full of stress. I can’t sleep after I call my daughter and my wife. Every night I promise them that I will work harder to bring them to Canada and live together. But...” Ali began to sob.

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Greece is one of the stops for all refugees from the Middle East. Life in refugee camps is very tough. “Especially in the winter, if you are living in one of these camps, you may face more challenges,” said Osman and showed a picture. “Look a short distance away, at the official border crossing, there are large tents with heating systems, but they stand empty. There are a couple of facilities like providing hot food and showers with hot, clean water. The weird side to these tents is there are no migrants there. Right now, they (refugees) don’t have the opportunity to use these facilities,” said Osman. As a humanitarian, you can say that this is clearly unacceptable, but it is what it is. Greek police are keeping all refugees away from these camps, these tents, perhaps to prevent it becoming permanent. In 2019, Routers reported that Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, said she had seen people lined up for food or to use a bathroom for hours at refugee camp in Greek. Mijatovic mentioned that the people she had met were living in terrible conditions and an unacceptable isolation. (Papadimas, 2019) It is a fact that the refugees are struggling to cope with overcrowding during their migration process, not only overcrowding but also lack of shelter, poor hygiene conditions and poor access to medical care. Think about the children without parents or guardians who are at risk for both health and social problems in the refugee camps. Because of the lack of security, risks for abduction and trafficking for sale and exploitation can be increased because border controls are weak. Osman argues that one of the biggest fears of parents and the most serious issue is that the children are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, and

experience higher rates of depression and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in refugee camps. Who knows how many more Alis and Osmans from any part of the world are waiting for a smuggler to help them sneak into Greece? “It’s just a question of wait and try, do not give up, wait and try, wait and try,” Ali says. “Be awake and never get down, take every opportunity you have. You may find the thing that you lost in your hometown; you can change something in your life.” There is no real strategy to deal with the refugees’ problems and stop the reasons force them to flee from their home. But increasing numbers are seeking to pass and reach their dream. May be a safe country, a healthy life, or a job to survive—no matter which one it is. A dream is a dream. And winter has started. When the weather gets warm, more may try. The best term to define these people is refugee, not migrant. Sources “MIGRANT: Meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Cambridge Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ migrant. “World Have Your Say, North Korea ‘Ready for War’, Why the BBC Uses the Word ‘Migrant’.” BBC World Service, BBC, www.bbc.co.uk/ programmes/p030bn5m. Supporting social movement struggles against free trade and investment agreements, et al. “UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights 53rd Session.” GRAIN, www.grain.org/ article/entries/2085-un-sub-commission-on-human-rights53rd-session. “10 Things to Know about the Health of Refugees and Migrants.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/ detail/10-things-to-know-about-the-health-of-refugeesand-migrants.

Ses Magazine

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

Figure 1: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Old_Man_of_the_Sea

Ses Magazine

Literature-Culture-Art

STORY

20 YEARS ALI ALKAN TURKEY

June / 2022

y MOTHER WAS ALWAYS WRITING ME NOTES. She put them in my bag whenever she left me somewhere. I never understood what these notes meant. I remember the first note was on my first day of school back in 1982. How old was I, six years old or younger? The playground was filled with students, jumping and running around. I was holding my mother’s hand, as a teacher in a black suit formed lines in front of the teachers. I didn’t know why, but I was feeling alone; something was bothering me; I would be by myself for a couple of minutes later. No mother, no father, no brothers, just me in a strange crowd. While I was thinking of my loneliness, I saw other mothers kissing their kids and stepping away, and what I was afraid of happened. I started crying. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” my mother asked. I tried to talk but couldn’t. Why do lips quiver before you cry because of nothing to say, or many things to say but can’t? Just two words: “Don’t go!” “I’ll be here when you come out.” said my mom.

I lost the first word, replied with the last one. “No!” “It’s OK. I’ll be here,” my mother said. “What if I can’t find you, mom?” “You will, sweetie, I promise.” “What if I lose you, mom?” “You will not lose your mother, Joe,” the teacher said. The teacher wanted to walk with me to my class. I ignored them. My mother smiled. She opened her bag, took a small envelope, and handed it to me. “Listen to me, sweetie,” “Here,” she said. “If you need me or miss me badly, you can open this.” She wiped my tears with a tissue from her bag, then hugged me with great compassion and said goodbye. Now I am 26 years old. I can still see her walking backwards, leaving me kisses, her hair swept up above her ears. That was my mom. I waved goodbye with the letter. No more news from her for 20 years. I didn’t know what happened to her. I remember that I was just starting school and didn’t know how to read, how to survive. It was now 2002, March 21st. Inside my mailbox was an envelope. Should I open it? Could it be my mother? Would the 20-years nightmare be finally over? I had a lot of questions, and it just went on and on—I thought it would never be over! I opened it rapidly. “This is the last message they’re letting me send. Please send $. They’ll kill me.” Fear ran down my spine as I read the note, “What should I do?” I repeatedly ask myself, “Should I call the police?” I frantically read the letter one more time in search of a clue that could help me find out what was happening. Still, there was nothing, only the place to leave the money. I decided to sleep on it, hoping that in the morning, I would have a clear mindset. It was not long before morning came. I barely got any sleep, all of that thinking of what would happen to my her was starting to kill me, I started thinking of what to do. The anxiety was building up; I couldn’t pick up the phone to call the police; I was afraid that she would be harmed. This kind of thing only seems to happen in movies. But then it hit me: why capture my mom? I was not all that rich or famous, so what did these people want from me. The more I thought about it, the more it puzzled me, but this was no time for thinking! I had to take matters into my own hands. “How much money do they want and by when?” I replied to the envelope. I was hoping for a reply. While waiting, I reread the letter and look at the address on where it was sent from, I then went to go find that

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“No mother, no father, no brothers, just me in a strange crowd. While I was thinking of my loneliness, I saw other mothers kissing their kids and stepping away. It happened to me what I was afraid of. I started crying.”

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

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address. After a long drive to the address I finally arrive, and unlike in the movies, the meetup point took me to a lovely looking house. I had a funny feeling about this why just put the address on the envelope if I could just call the police. I suddenly start to hear car horns and then realized that I was in the middle of the street. I park my car and begin cautiously walking towards the house. The next thing, when I get through the door, the house was empty, the only thing left was a bag of flour with a note that said: “If you want to see your mother again, come to 178 Basketball Street!” After another long drive, I finally got to the address. I then took a long breath and looked around as if it was my last day on Earth. Ignoring my fear, I got closer and closer to the building. This one was not-so-friendly looking. I push the giant gate-like doors open. There she was, my mother whom I had not seen in years. When I opened the door, my eyes took some time to adjust to the darkness, but when they did, I first saw my mother right across from me, right next to her was a 3-foot 5 middle-aged man that was wearing a black mask on his head “Did you bring the money?” he asked in the deepest voice I ever heard. “Yes,” my voice trembled with hesitation. “Had it over!” I threw the bag at him, and as soon as he got it he sprinted out of the room like he was escaping the zombie apocalypse. When he left, I rushed toward my mom at full speed with my arms out, the warm hug reminded me of when I was young. Slowly the room darkened around me. I could hear my mom’s voice getting louder and louder, even if she wasn’t right in front of me. “Common Joe, it’s time to wake up,” I woke up rubbing my eye. Only to see the sight of my mother sitting next to me, “Where am I?” I questioned. I was trying to get a hold of what had just happened to me. “You fell asleep when we were having a conversation. I guess you’ve had a long day.” “Mom, I want to tell you something,” I said, almost crying, “I LOVE YOU!”

Ses Magazine

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

Alex C

The County of Void Ses Magazine

STORY

Literature-Culture-Art

Hey Voidian, one is Alive?

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till alive.” “Alive ... again,” yelled Drudgen warrior. “What did happen here, why is Alisa breathing so strange?” asked Madam Rose. “Be quiet, please, and turn the light off, Madam. We are under attack,” said the warrior. Madam Rose has blown a lantern candle out and crossed to a sheltered place under pine trees. “Talk to me, warrior, what happened?” asked Madam Rose again, and again. Her eyes were turning a strange, scary colour. “It was a terrifying night; many warriors were killed by unknown forces, some were lost. I don’t know where the others are. Just, just me, yeah, just me, I, I, I am...” The warrior was struggling to talk. Madam Rose was in her late-40s and was a beautiful woman with a wild appearance that went hand-in-hand with her wild personality. She was Merkaantian. She was one of the farmers has been selling Groscht in the middle of the town. The most common day-to-day meal in the city of Void is called Groscht. It was a meal consisting of stale bread, softened with hot water that is then mushed together with butter, and commonly seasoned with salt and pepper. Because of her delicious food, she was well-known by the Voidian people. It was interesting to see his eagerness and hesitation to speak of strange forces. The warrior took a deep breath and whispered, “They came to with thunder and lightning, and I had never seen anything like it. It was terrible. I had never seen anything so horrifying.”

“Who? Who?” asked Madam Rose. Warrior gazes keen-eyed at the forest as shadows pass, raising a tankard in salute. Quickly, something behind the pine trees catches his attention. Huge pine trees were a symbol of the town. Void sat in a clearing just beyond the pine forest. Here the ground was rocky, uneven, and putrid in some places due to a pile-up of human waste. It was a challenge for the warrior to defend the night. “Pig Men! Pig Men!” yelled the warrior. “I saw him! Look, look over there, behind the trees.” The Pig Men creatures are half-human, half pig. It was believed that they used to belong to a farmer on the outskirts of Void. These farmers would save their starving pigs during particularly harsh winters by feeding them their children. The Gypsum cursed these farmers to become the monsters they truly were and forced them to feast on the flesh of children for all time. “How could it be? The Pig Men are legends.” Madam Rose replied, sarcastically. “Trust me, Madam Rose, they are the Pig Men,” said the warrior. When he turned back, he saw that another warrior was gasping, shaking with the force of effort. “No doubt Madam Rose, it is they,” said the warrior. But when he turned around to face her, she was nowhere to be found. “Madam Rose! Rose! Where are you?” “No, no, no...” “You are not Madam Rose, you arrr, yo- “The warrior screamed. The warrior screamed. He smelled the burning and heard a horrible crackling as the fire singed his hair and eyelashes. The Pig Men were singing. He screamed again.

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

ENES AYDIN

Ses Magazine Literature-Culture-Art

FEAR and BRAVERY In this woman’s eyes, I could see both the bravery and trama. Looking at her felt strange. I had never seen anyone of her nature before. “She later came and settled here,” he continued. “This tired old city?!” I exclaimed, trying to keep my curiosity in check but failing miserably at it. 28

June / 2022

I retreated back to my seat as Mr. Kaan continued his boring lecture about some historical topic I couldn’t care to understand. Why did everything have to be so bland around here? School ended, and I was so late for the bus that it left without me. “But, not to worry, I am a big girl, and thus I will walk home,” I thought. The fierce heat of Mardin’s weather was cooking me under my uniform. It’s nothing but fields, sand, and broken-down dreamers out here. Nothing really ever happens around these parts; people force you to go to school, make you drop out when you’re like 13, then you work your life away in a tiny little kitchen. It was the same for my great-grandma, Grandma, Mum, and older sister. Heck, even my older brother was sick of this system. I think the heat must have gotten to me because the only thing I was doing was thinking, not walking. I tried my best not to think but couldn’t seem to conceal the disappointment of my life. Reaching my hand out, I signaled to the drivers on the road waiting for a good Samaritan to take me home. Finally, this little red Tofas, a Mardin classic, drove right up to me. “My girl, what are you doing on the side of the road in a literal desert?” He exclaimed, “Tell me about it, sir, I am trying to get back home.” I replied, sweat dripping down my face. I could hardly speak.

I pulled my hands together and clutched my fists in embarrassment. What was I really thinking when I went outside? In this heat, much like this city, I would have turned into a fossil. As we treaded home, I noticed a flag on his dashboard; it was an Armenian flag with an old lady and two little children next to her. Huh, guess that history lesson seemed to pay off after all! I must have been so concentrated on the picture because the next thing that I heard was, “You are probably wondering what this picture is about, huh?” I looked over to him, startled out of my train of thought. I nodded hard, eagerly waiting for an answer. “This is my grandma. She was a refugee from Armenia, one of the few people who survived the genocide by the Turks, more than a million people” He took his hands off the wheel and then dusted them to signify that the people were killed “Just like that, they were slaughtered. My grandma’s parents had to leave her behind as a baby. They probably don’t even know that she would grow up to be a strong, determined woman. She is the bravest person I know,” He explained. In this woman’s eyes, I could see both the bravery and trauma. Looking at her felt strange. I had never seen anyone of her nature before. “She later came and settled here,” he continued. “This tired old city?!” I exclaimed, trying to keep my curiosity in check but failing miserably at it. the man chuckled, “Yes, this tired old city!” Before I could ask my next question, we had already arrived home. “Well, here is your stop!” I jumped right out of the car, thanked the driver, ran up to my room and flipped open my school books. “If this old lady’s story is like that...” I wondered to myself, “How many other people are out there just like her...?”

“Well stop waiting in the sun, come in, come in!” Still trying to pull myself together, I launched my

Literature-Culture-Art

I had to respond, or else this kettle called Mr. Kaan would erupt on me. “I-I don’t know...” I replied embarrassingly. His face went from unimpressed to angry “That’s it, Ms. Fatima you have one more shot at this, Tonight I am assigning you homework for you to finish. Bring it back to me tomorrow and I will forget about what happened today...”

body into the tiny sedan. “Thank you so much sir! I don’t know what I would have done without you,” I thanked the man. “What kind of stupid idea was going through your head when you decided to walk outside?! It’s plus 40 degrees, not even Maraş Ice-cream would survive in this hell of a weather!” The man chastised me.

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apping furiously on the board, Mr. Kaan was expecting a response to his dull question. “Well young lady, I’m waiting...” The tapping increased along with my heart rate. What did I care about Armenian history? They don’t even live in Turkey.

June / 2022

Marsha Masseau

Ses Magazine

Where I Write: Exotic to Mundane

non-fiction

Literature-Culture-Art

n a creative writing class, we were asked to describe our ideal writing space. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, my answer didn’t come as effortlessly as I expected. I’ve been driven to get an A+ in that class and I needed — really needed — to find the perfect answer. So, the question has been swimming in my mind all week. Where is my ideal writing space?

The answer came in slow drips in tandem with the perking coffee. I grabbed a mug of java and shuffled to the living room, where I always start my scribbling. I landed on a sunless lump of cushion on the loveseat (bought off Kijiji), which seemed a more fitting beginning to my day than the sun-filled office on the east side of the house. Depending on which way the stars align, I wake to find my house is either the perfect setting for writing or nothing but a structure on which I rely. The answer to my ideal writing space — has got to be more exotic than the solitude of these four walls. So, I searched my memories and my dreams for something esthetically satisfying. Soon I found my pen didn’t move fast enough. Inevitably, I relocated to the office. I passed the kitchen and got food. Thinking. Paris could be the answer. That café in Montmartre where I sat at a small circular table facing a group of painters in the park. Yes, that could be it. The Paupers Press journal; the black ballpoint pen; the strong, bitter petit café that lasted an age. The croissant (which tasted infinitely more

waterfalls to which monkey species travelled the canopy and which birds sang those high-pitched songs — all of it a humid tropical bath for a writer’s soul. Riding shotgun is an exemplar of the adventurous writing space. Of course, my ideal writing spot could be a place I’ve not yet been. A treehouse in the Olive Groves of Italy or a yacht anchored in the Caribbean Sea; both possible. Then again, the answer may lie closer to home. The family camp at Lac Antoine. Peaceful and secluded, on a blue hammock strung between two narrow conifers swaying in the breeze with the smell of sundried pine needles permeating every breath. The brim of my hat shading pages of notes, my parents arguing over something trivial in the background. Simple and comforting. Entirely plausible. As I weigh the choices, I notice an edge of a yellow sticky note has come loose. I pull on it. I am sucked, inadvertently, back into my literal surroundings — a black vinyl chair, a widescreen monitor propped up on two fat books: House of Leaves and Under the Dome. A long white desk inhabited with islands of sticky notes, pens and markers, a hot cup of tea halfway gone and downtempo beats taking the edge off the solitude. On the wall, a string of lights twinkle. Next to them hangs a framed print of a quote that says: find your voice. And it strikes me that where I am hardly matters so long as it allows me to find and express a voice wholly my own — it’s not a glamorous answer, but it feels right.

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Of course, my ideal writing spot could be a place I’ve not yet been. A treehouse in the Olive Groves of Italy or a yacht anchored in the Caribbean Sea; both possible.

decadent, en Paris!) flaking all over the pages as I sketched and wrote and wrote. Tellement parfait. That could be it. Or it might be fifty feet from the Mona Lisa. On a two-hundredyear-old window seat at the Louvre overlooking a courtyard and bathed in the sounds of a multilingual crowd snapping pictures, drunk on the scent of old wood and da Vinci. I remember how the ink flowed silky, like crème caramel. Oh, the pages I filled, as the crowds changed, the shadows deepened, and the day slipped away. In public, I’ve found I can be a writer without drawing much attention to myself and pass as an average Joe if the place is adequately busy. I get a coffee or tea (again, I think this is relative to the stars) and sit on the edge of a chair at an inconspicuous table. Slipping a laptop out of my bag with seeming indifference is easy enough. I might be a student (which I am, actually), an office worker perhaps, nobody worth talking to. If I forget myself and appear interesting, someone usually reminds me by asking, “what are you writing?” which happens to be my cue to leave. Truthfully, that rarely happens. I’m still thinking about my question — what is my ideal writing space? A better answer than Paris may exist. What about that spot in the front seat of the tour bus rushing through the mountains of Costa Rica — legs jammed between travel bags and my fingers salty from plátano chips; scrawling reflections between stops, putting my pen down only for photo ops and nearly losing it out the open window. Interviewing the driver and the tour guide in my rudimentary Spanish. Detailing every kilometre of the journey through the rainforest from lush foliage and rushing

Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

Jasmine K

BABOON Ses Magazine

STORY

Literature-Culture-Art

There’s nothing better than a plate filled with bones and a warm place on a cold, snowy night. All was quiet at the Raccoon family house. Hnnnk, shhhs, hnnnk, shhhs. Two raccoons were asleep for tonight, snoring and dreaming in their leaf beds as fluffy snow fell outside of the house.

T June / 2022

Mama Raccoon and Brother Hazel Raccoon did everything they could to help Little Baboon Raccoon fall asleep but didn’t work. Baboon didn’t want to wait for a cup of warm milk or a two-three piece of chicken bones. And she didn’t want to hear about the jumpy game, either. Just then, Papa Raccon woke up. Hnnnk, snort! “Can anybody explain to me what all this noise is?” he asked. Baboon told Papa she was hungry, and that’s why she was wide awake. Papa Raccoon stayed silent for a while then, “Maybe we can help you fall back to sleep, Baboon,” Papa Raccoon said. “A warmer blanket might do the magic.” “A warmer blanket and a softer pillow might make Baboon feel warm and sleepy,” Mama said. “Or hugging me,” Hazal said, hugging a furry-filled Raccoon cub. “That always helps me sleep and feel cozy!” They talked on and on about ways to find some food in this cold and snowy weather. “What do you think, Baboon?” they eventually asked, glancing around the

Baboon thought that if she stood deeper in the doorway, he would be out of the wind a little and wouldn’t shiver quite so violently. Baboon was waiting to be seen by the people eating inside. The people were eating and talking; they were very happy because they were served with full plates of delicious food and drinks, a warm place. Standing there deeper in the doorway, he was not seen so easily by people going by, and if he was not seen, he could not make eye contact with anybody who might give him a piece of bread or meat. He saw a lady coming up the street. Well-dressed and smiling to herself as though somebody told her a joke, or she just decided what to buy for her boyfriend for his birthday. Twenty-seven, twenty-nine years old. Nice shoes. Fantastic haircut. What were four pieces of meat or a bottle of milk to her? “She is my fortune if she sees me she will help, so our hunger will end tonight,” Baboon thought. Baboon stepped out into the wind to be seen by her. Damn. The owner of the restaurant opened the door. Coming this way. He knew if the boss saw him, he would be sent away. Big guy. Thick white moustache. Long white and black hair. “I can’t take any food tonight, no way!” He stepped back to the doorway. “I need to take a chance,” said Baboon. “Any leftover?” Baboon asked the big guy with fur collar as he passed him. Baboon startled him. He averted his eyes from Baboon’s eyes, dropping them to his dirty feet, then away again. Maybe he smelled Baboon. “I know I smell; I can’t help it. I live in the street, some of the day in the forest. I don’t wash enough, that’s what happens.” Baboon wanted to explain to him, but he kept walking, not missing a stride. Tw o 33

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But nothing to do, maybe Mama could help. “Mama,” whispered Baboon, “are you awake?” Mama Raccoon jumped out of bed with a start. “When? Who? Where?” “I can’t sleep, Mama, I am hungry,” said Baboon. “Baboon, it’s too early to wake up!” Mama said. “I’ll find food, some milk to help you fall asleep, and maybe we will go to the jumpy game, but need a couple of hours.”

room. Hnnnk, shhhs, hnnnk, shhhs. Baboon was already outside walking fastly in the street… Murmuring and dreaming and quick steps. Mama and Papa went out to find Baboon. It was just after two o’clock, and the wind came up, carrying the rain and snow with it. Cold February rain that was certain to become ice raining by morning. Baboon stumbled against the doorway of the restaurant. Bad news: the party at the restaurant would be longer than usual this night. So she would wait until the end of the party, but how? Should be some ways to be seen by merciful people. “I need four pieces of meat or bread. I need it more than a warm blanket and a soft pillow,” said Baboon. “One for me, one for Hazal, one for Mom, and one for Papa.”

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here’s nothing better than a plate filled with bones and a warm place on a cold, snowy night. All was quiet at the Raccoon family house. Hnnnk, shhhs, hnnnk, shhhs. Two raccoons were asleep for tonight, snoring and dreaming in their leaf beds as fluffy snow fell outside of the house. Little Baboon Raccoon, moved beneath his covers. She wanted to sleep, but she couldn’t sleep anymore. She wanted to eat something. “Wake up, Hazel,” she said to her brother, pulling on her black and white pyjamas. “Can we eat something together?” Hazel yawned. “Baboon, it’s too early!” said Hazel, scratching her back. But Baboon couldn’t sleep, because she hadn’t eaten for two days. And Hazel’s dirty hair looked so foolish; she started to laugh. “Try telling your mom you’re hungry,” said Hazel, putting down her head on the pillow again. Baboon looked at Hazel, wanted to tell her something. “I need food, not advice.”

June / 2022

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hours to te beg four pieces of bread or meat. One piece to him, one to his sister, one to his mother and one to his father after two days of starvation. Four pieces. This was all his dream. If he could get food, he would sleep well. The rain was getting heavier; the sky greyer and the air colder. Here came a woman, older than the first woman, with a sweet face, a nice hat. Baboon thought to be cute, maybe remind her of her own cat or a long-lost dog. “Women are more generous than men,” said Baboon. He forced a smile to his face. It almost hurt. Why? When did it start hurting to smile? This was Baboon; a Raccoon was looking for four pieces of bread, begging for o bottle of milk, and maybe after that, be able to fall asleep. The year was 2020. Baboon was one year old. Two days away from being sick and one week away to die because of starvation. Five days away from hugging Hazel. Six days away from been kissed by his Papa...

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I woke up from my awful nightmare. I had a sharp pain on my chest and a terrible headache. My body was covered in sweat, and my pillows and blanket were damp. I looked around to check if there was anybody in my house or the garden, but it was empty. There was no one except me. I was alone in my house, breathing fast. I tried to keep my breathing under control, knowing that it was just a nightmare. I tried to sleep again, and closed my eyes, but I would only have the nightmare return. I decided to go down and find something to drink. As I walked down the stairs, I felt something strange. “Where is this coming from?” ı asked. There was sound in front of the door. I quickly walked to the door and opened the door. A little raccoon was standing in front of the door, looked cold and need help. The Raccoon showed up at my back door yowling loudly to scare the moon out of the sky I quickly rush to the kitchen and found warm milk and biscuits. “Here you go, Baboon.” I slid a plate of biscuits and a large bowl of milk in front of him. Steam rose from the bowl, creating little shapes in front of the door. “Sorry, It took me so long,” I said. Baboon is not just a raccoon but also is my home mate now. I welcomed her into my home and showed affection and obeyed her. I was happy because Baboon was happy. I am not sure what brought her to my house that night, why not my neighbour, why me? God brought 34

Baboon into me. I remember, when our eyes met for the first time that night, there was a feeling familiar, in spite, we had never seen each other before. I saw in Baboon’s eyes something broken, something in need of redemption, but something also full of hope. I got down low next to her and just sat in silence. I have never said much, and at this moment, the silence was all we needed. He began leaning on me. I began leaning back on Baboon. …. That day, after warm milk, we walked out of my house side by side — the beginning of a beautiful friendship. In the street or in a forest under the trees somewhere at this very moment is one animal waiting. Four pieces of bread or meat. For sister or brother. Not just to be saved, but to save. Let’s be their hero. Let us pull them out of whatever conflict they are going through. Please help. Pleased adopt. No doubt, it will save a life, and that life might be your own. You might be Papa or Mama, or Hazel and Baboon might be your son or brother… I am happy because Baboon was happy…

“Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” George Orwell

Response to Steven Pinker’s talk on “Good Writing”

inker’s speech was a thoughtful, clear, and valuable discussion on how to make our writing simpler and clearer by avoiding muddy, confusing prose. Short but effective. I want to discuss one of his arguments that I defined it as Embrace Simplicity (not simplism). Good writing, like verbal presentation, results from clear thinking and an authentic effort to communicate in a way that is as simple as possible without being oversimplified, insignificant, or thoughtless. “The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth,” Pinker said in his speech. Most people confuse simplicity or cannot define what it is or it’s not. Sophisticated language is known as an essential step to being a good writer. Of course, this does not mean that sophisticated language cannot be used; to communicate simply does not mean dumb down, but we should choose words carefully in our writing. “Never use a long word where a short one will do,” says George Orwell. He also says, “If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out” and “Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.” Simplicity does not only concern choices of vocabulary or sentences. It is crucial to know that simplicity refers to the structure and our decisions about what to include and exclude. No one can say that cutting the extras is easy absolutely; it is one of the hardest things for writers to do. It is like killing your love. But clear communicators consider what is essential to include and what is not during the preparation stage. Good writers know that if everything is necessary, then nothing is necessary.

Literature-Culture-Art

Serif Aydin

Ses Dergisi / Sayı 17

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June / 2022 Haziran / 2021

June / 2022

FOR KING AND FOR COUNTRY They Shall Richard R

Not Grow Old

Ses Magazine

I Reflection

Literature-Culture-Art

f one lived in 1914, they would hear people saying when going into what is now known as World War One. Nevertheless, this was far from the truth; the film They Shall Not Grow Old, directed by Peter Jackson, shows the true essence and the dark side of World War One. The movie is made from footage once locked away in the Imperial War Museum in Britain. First, the footage was colourized. Then they got lip readers to read what the soldiers were saying, and finally found the right voice to match the soldiers. Overall, this movie is a real eye-opener in many factors; primarily, it allows people in the modern-day to see what trench life was like, the perspectives of the enemy, and what happened at the end of the War. The lives of soldiers who lived through war do not come to the mind of the average everyday person. When asked what they think of the life that the soldiers fought in the war, one would likely think of a clean trench with everyone vigilant. People take turns standing guard. The people who are not on guard drink tea, play cards, tell stories, and have proper places to sleep. But what they would think was unfortunately very wrong. The truth revealed is that the trenches are not clean; in fact, they have mud and human excrement everywhere. The trenches are littered with blood, the dead

June / 2022

Under the circumstances that these people have been through, it is a shame that they were not treated like warriors. But even to this day, the government isn’t doing much to help war veterans in general. Thankfully They Shall Not Grow Old helps to show the torment that these people have been through. The film also reveals the filth that soldiers had to live through. And the fact that the government and generals saw these people’s lives as so expendable should have never occurred in the first place.

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During the war, the British and the Germans were not best friends. This hatred was in full effect at the beginning of the war, and the motive for many British soldiers who joined the war was “I want to kill some Germans.” The British did not see the Germans as much of a threat primarily because of the mentality that “Britain could never lose.” The hatred towards the enemy was reflected on the battlefield; even though they had never seen a German before, this didn’t affect the war. If a German ever broke into the trench either over the trench walls or through the ground, they would kill on sight or even if a German felt into their trench of poked their head or any other part of their body over their own trenches the British soldiers would fire. This was the same on the German side; if the saw a British soldier they would fire. Remarkably a large amount of this hatred faded a little as the war went on. The most significant representation of this new-found perspective on the enemy was shown during the final push. When the British and the Allied Forces invaded the enemy trenches, most people would not kill the ordinary soldiers or Germans who surrendered; however, when the machine gunners surrendered, they were killed because of their mass kill. After the prisoners of their own will help bring the injured back to get treated to add to this, around this time, the hatred faded away; one soldier quotes, “They looked like us, I would assume it would be us against the Russian and French” (find timestamp). This marked the end of the British and German soldier hatred.

mental or physical disabilities, and at that point, the public did not know the truth of war. The footage and photos were locked away in Imperial War Museum in Britain and only recently revealed to the public primarily through the film They Shall Not Grow Old and other forms of media. When they got back, it could be seen that no one wanted to hear them, so they were left without jobs. To add to this, most job application posters wrote that no ex-serviceman needed to apply. Even to this day, veterans of any war are not given the care they deserve. Now, it is better than it was in 1918, but unfortunately it has not changed much.

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body of a soldier shot, and human body parts exploded by explosives. The soldiers most often slept in the trenches without beds and in the very bloody and rat-infested trenches that they fought in, and only every four days would they be able to get cleaned, but even then, their life was no fun in that a large majority of the suits would have lice in them since lice like to live in wool and that is what their uniforms were made out of. So, the only thing that was right in the previous narrative is that everyone remained vigilant, and soldiers took turns standing guard. Life is not easy even when off duty; you still fear bombs and mortar shells falling on you. This is only the life inside the trenches; to get to the trenches, the soldiers had to carry 109 pounds, which is about how much a hawksbill sea turtle weighs (13 Items That Weigh about 100 Pounds, 2020), and they brought this weight for 100 miles, to add to this most of the people who joined the war were not in shape. Therefore, they were struggling when doing the 100-mile trek.

The average person would think that the soldiers were rewarded when they returned to their homeland after the war. The footage and photos showed could not be farther from the truth. In fact, they were not treated as people when they got back because most of the people that returned had

June / 2022

PEACE AND WAR Oliver Kaya

Ses Magazine

Review

Literature-Culture-Art

Moacyr Scliar’s story “Peace and War” is an exceptional example of the negative stereotypes that men and women face that antagonize them. The examples of the main characters’ wives and themselves and other male characters around them all build up this puzzle of genderrelated stereotypes and the issues surrounding them.

June / 2022

The very first instance of the author using stereotypes to antagonize the wives is with the main character’s friend Walter. Since Walter and the main character are friends, he is shown as the second protagonist in the story. The audience agrees with Walter’s words, such as the food being worse and worse by the day, his gun breaking down because of the war and most notably, his relationship with his wife. Walter comes off as a moody person, but his interaction with his wife antagonizes her fear of losing him. “What a pain that woman is... Even here she won’t leave me in peace.”

The second instance of the author antagonizing the wives with stereotypes is with the main character’s wife. After the audience is doused with Walter’s ranting about his wife’s behaviour, they get a sneak peek into the main character and his relationship with his wife. The issue with the main character’s wife is that she does not believe that he is at war and alternatively spends his time at a hotel. The author uses the stereotype that men cheat on their wives to show the wife as the bad guy in this scene. The audience can follow the character around as they react to the events around them, but the main character’s wife does not; she can not, and therefore has to assume what he has been doing for the last 15 years because there is no evidence of a war on her husband. Nevertheless, the audience assumes that she does know this because they follow the character around rather than looking at the situation from her perspective. The third instance of the author antagonizing the wives with stereotypes is with the setting that the protagonists are in. Once someone reads the story a couple of times, they can quickly realize that there is an absence of females in the war. Moreover, even if there were women in the war, the author never mentions any such thing. Furthermore, the generally perceived understanding that only men serve in war antagonizes the behaviour of the women in the story. When a woman in the story says something negative to the men in the story, the audience perceives this as an attack because that woman is not serving in the war. “They are attacking the men who are putting their lives at risk” is what they might have going on in their heads, and the stereotype only makes it worse because it also makes the women look like they are not helping out. The wives of Walter and the main character are not the only ones to be antagonized due to the stereotypes placed on them. Walter and the main character, as well as other male

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oacyr Scliar’s short story “Peace and War” is a story that is told through the shoes of a soldier who has been serving in a war that not even his country understands. The audience follows the character as he interacts with the people around him. The story portrays the role of men and women during a war, and some pretty compelling arguments about the behaviours of men and women are antagonized using stereotypes. This is unmistakable through the stereotypes that Walter and the main character’s wife have to contend with and The stereotypes that Walter, the main character and other male characters in the story have to deal with. The more the story goes on, the more insight the readers have into the main character and Walter’s relationship with their wives. The story uses common stereotypes to antagonize the wives’ behaviour, thus making them look like the issue and not the war.

In this example, the author uses the stereotype that only women get worried about death and have to make sure that their loved ones are ok. To put it simply, Men are fearless, and women are not. This reaction of Walter makes the audience think that his wife is the wrong person trying to prevent the main character from doing their job. Walter’s wife has a case of Thanatophobia, Which is a phobia of losing a loved one, and this is very reasonable in wartime and can happen to anyone. However, the story only shows the women having this phobia and not the men.

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ROSA S.

June / 2022 figures in the story, are also antagonized because of the stereotypes and their behaviour against those stereotypes. The first instance of one of these stereotypes antagonizing the two main characters is in the scene with the trench. At this point in the story, Walter and the main character are out on their lunch break. They are served with green salad, rice, roasted meat and “Tasteless” pudding. Being fed up with what he has been offered, he complains. “This is getting worse and worse,” but an officer asks him if he was in a restaurant, and Walter precedes with silence. The author uses the “if he was in a restaurant” to antagonize Walter relies upon a negative stereotype that men are supposed to suck it up.

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Even after 15 years in the battle, he is still expected to do that. And it is so backwards because it is a natural human right to speak up about things that you think are not fair. The second instance where the main characters are antagonized because they did something against the stereotypes placed onto them is with the main character. During the beginning-middle part of the story, the audience learns that the main character’s son has requested a shell from a bullet. But the main character can not get this thing that his child has asked him because he is in battle. The stereotype that antagonizes him is that he is supposed to “man up” and go into the battlefield fearlessly and retrieve a shell for his son. However, in doing so, he also risks being shot at. “a problem for me: My son wanted an empty shell cartridge, which I had not been able to obtain. The boy kept asking for it; I could do nothing. This negative stereotype antagonizes the main character because, in the eyes of society, he is supposed to go and get it, but he cannot because he has been told was “not to get out of the trench,” or he might risk getting killed. In addition, and partly due to this negative stereotype, the son may see his dad as a person who does not care and is always scared. This severs the relationship between the boy and his dad, which is the worst thing to a parent. The third instance of this happening is the background characters. Most prominently with the official who conducts the investigation about the war. He appears towards the middle of the story and complains that his car is not reliable. The stereotype that men have to serve in war antagonizes this character because he is not serving in the war. This toxic stereotype also prevents this character from

accessing a reliable tool that he needs to do his job correctly, thus antagonizing him even more for not helping out in the war effort. Moacyr Scliar’s story “Peace and War” is an exceptional example of the negative stereotypes that men and women face that antagonize them. The examples of the main characters’ wives and themselves and other male characters around them all build up this puzzle of genderrelated stereotypes and the issues surrounding them. As a result, a simple story such as “Peace and War” highlights society’s deep-rooted stereotypes during war and peacetime and exemplifies how humans still have a long way to go before stereotypes end up in history books.

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Literature-Culture-Art

June / 2022

WORLD BUILDING

Serif Aydin

Literature-Culture-Art

C r e a t i v e Wr i t i n g

Ses Magazine 42

June / 2022

Geography & scope:

The occupied universe.

Worldbuilding is the part of the writing process that sets up where your story takes place. When you build a world, you include the landscape that your characters will inhabit, the tone of your story, its major preoccupations and themes, as well as the nature of its morality. Worldbuilding lays the groundwork for your characters to develop, providing the stage for where your creations will perform. It’s okay if you can’t answer every question there is about your world, but setting down the basics will help you start writing and building. So here is a sample I created when I was a student in the Professional Writing Course.

ABSTRACT The year is 2030; though COVID is over, there is still no vaccine for it, and countries are scrambling to find a cure for it before it happens again. There is big money involved; Russian spies discover that Canada is very close to finding a cure, and if they do, Canada will be rich. And Mother Russia does not want anyone but itself to find the cure. Once Canada learned that Russian spies were trying to sneak into the country and steal the treatment. They have one option: Acadia, a small Canadian mars colony with just enough of a budget to keep itself afloat. When Commander Hadfield learns about Canada’s plans to give the vaccine research to Acadia, he and his robotic helper Daniel embarks on a journey to stop Russian spies from getting their hands on the study. Still, along the way, Commander Hadfield learns something about Daniel that will change everything.

Yekaterinburg is 1,274 KM wide on Mars. It is 40 clicks North-West of the Valles Marineris (AKA, the valley of many secrets). Also, not terraformed; it looks like environmental. There is a giant dome made of thousands upon thousands of hexagons; the dome is the strongest thing ever made; it could stop an asteroid. Only one way in and out; once you pass the massive steel door, you are greeted by a massive arch that has the words. Добро пожаловать в Екатеринбург (welcome to Yekaterinburg)written in and Russian. The streets resemble Moscow’s streets; every house is different; some look like palaces while some look like skyscrapers. The reason for this is that it helps with homesickness. After you walk 30 meters from the gate, you can see the park. It has a hedge that is perfectly trimmed around the perimeter of the park. There are trees here and there; furthermore, the trees are around the west and the east of the park, is a beautiful stone path that looks like the one leading to a fancy castle; it goes through the mouth of the park and ends at the south. There is a beautiful gate on the north and south of the park with rose vines around it. The rest of the city is basically like that, but there are trees in front of every building.

GOV 2: right in the middle of the Orcus Patera. The habitat modules are cylindrical objects with stabilizing legs at the bottom. They have stairs on the right-hand side of the module with airlocked doors with large airplane windows on the right side. And four on the left side. At the ends of the cylinders are connectors and doors to expand the size of the habitat modules. The agriculture modules are glass domes with a cylinder coming out of one side and an airlock door at its end. There are 16 habitat modules, and they are all Arranged in a suburban house style. Each pod has a gate that connects each pod, allowing the crew to go to different pods without

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What Is Worldbuilding?

GOV 1

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orldbuilding is an essential step in fictional works. Whether you’re writing a book, a film, or a video game, the imagined world you build should still feel like a real-world, which means it must function with its own set of rules. Figuring out these rules takes time and attention to detail, but they will ultimately establish the basic structure of your universe.

Galaxy: Milky Way, the Galaxy has a blue mist around the outside; it gets more purple; the closer it gets to the center in the center, there is a black whole holding everything. Also, there are stars scattered all over the galaxy. Galactic Neighbourhood: Andromeda Star and Planetary systems: our solar system

June / 2022 going outside. All of the habitat modules have a rectangular box on the outside called an Oxygen scrubber, removing carbon dioxide from the pods and taking it to the agriculture pod. The Agriculture modules are very important to Acadia because they produce Oxygen, food and medicine. On the outside of this “suburban complex” is a dome-shaped building with a tower on its side.

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The building is called the M9. This building is where the MRARV stay and gets their maintenance. M9 is also where the SR - the 80s and 90s remain, Land, take-off, refuel, and restock. The building extends down underground, where all of the resources that the MRARVs bring back are used to produce something usable such as iron and uranium. There is a towner in the middle of Acadia that is the command center. It also has a dome on the bottom of the tower. The whole of Acadia is surrounded by a supermassive building they like to call the spaceship, but its actual name is called the infinity belt. It contains all of the necessary scientific equipment that they need to do their work, such as investigating rocks. Build and test things, Heavy Machines such as CNC, Laser Cutters, Sand Blasters, 3D printers and a Daniel. But it also includes things like a cafeteria, 24/7 cafeteria, GYM, sports fields for soccer and hockey and basketball and repair areas.

Demographics:

Automotive, Interior design) and 16 Drives, also Known as MCASs, 1 Inspector RQAO and 1 Commander.

Politics/governance:

GOV 1: Commander Chris Hadfield, since it is a colony, citizens cast their votes for Acadia’s mayor/commander. The colony is a Democratic, and everyone has got to cast their vote, even the representatives.

GOV 2: Cashmore Putin, the city, is democratic with a bit of communism in it. He was elected because of his father, Vladimir Putin, and his success in Russia. The communism part of the city comes from its ties with Russia

Resources/economics:

GOV 1: Mines Uranium, Plutonium, iron, gold, Natural Gas and Oil

GOV 2: Mines Urainuim, Iron, Gold, Solar

GOV 1:

Language(s):

There are 940 caretakers (take care of the habitat modules and the Life modules; such actions can include cleaning, vacuuming and wiping the desks), 9,483 Engineers(agricultural, electrical, Biohazard, architecture, software and hardware, Automotive, Interior design) and the president Cashmore Putin. Ranks: novice (the lowest position of a citizen), apprentice(could be the third-best class of citizen) Pro (second-best) and Master (the best) Culture: anything food-related has got to have toasters involved. They love the art of space dancing(Northern light), a sport that is enjoyed is called Foot hockey it is as its name suggests, it is hockey but played with feet and on ice on mars with two teams and each team has 12 players, the field is 130 yards and by 90 yards. GOV 2: There are 20 caretakers (do the laundry, clean, vacuum and wipe the desks of the pods ), 156 Engineers(agricultural, electrical, Biohazard, architecture, software and hardware,

GOV 1:

Russain with some English phrases like Good moring and bye

GOV 2: English but with a mixture of other languages and slang. such as Arabic, German, Jamaican, British phrases like Darling and bloody, Ukrainian and Spanish

Science:

GOV1 / GOV 2: Energy/power sources: use many solar panels that orbit the planet. they transmit the power down to mars using mirrors to reflect the sun’s light down to a heating element with gallium inside. The pad heats up as the sun’s rays are

June / 2022

GOV 1:

Weapons:

Holographic computers with air hand gestures. Artificial intelligence; ATI is the name of artificial intelligence. There is one of these AI in every house and vehicle.

GOV 1:

GOV 2: Computer: Brick Sized Toshiba and Lenovo Thinkpads for the scientists and engineers and the MCAS, there is an arm computer with a 9.7-inch touch screen panel connected to sensors all over the driver’s body that read life signs and the condition of the vehicle ( the reason why there is such a big difference in tech is that they had a calculation error with their money leading them to believe that why had more money than what they had) Artificial intelligence: A robot Called Daniel looks like a cardboard box with a coffee mug heater for ahead. He helps the crew around, he has kid-sized rollerblades for wheels and has a thirst for breaking down and burns a part of his cardboard body as he tries to heat ONE cup of Coffee( Often leading to a fire inside the habitat modules) (he is about as smart as a doorknob when it comes to war. later on in the story, Daniel is the place where the health Canada put all of the COVID research, and the reason why he was so useless was to make people dismiss him for anything useful

They have 300 starships that are named the Iron Destroyer. It is the length of 30 football fields, and it resembles the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit within ten football fields. Ii has the best engines in the market and runs on pure plutonium 25 Titan cargo ships.

GOV 2: 40 SR 80 Space Birds, 3 Titan cargo ships and one bow and arrows that are rockets.

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Technology

Blackbird for Space travel called SR-80 Space bird. Transports: cargo ships that look like the titanic only with rocket engines and cabins suited for space travel called Titan. They will usually use SR-80s stripped from their military components to add seats for civilians for Intersystem travel.

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reflected onto it, and gallium goes through the heating element’s pipes. This heated galium turns into vapour and moves a turbine inside the habitat modules, making electricity.

Transportation:

GOV 1: Transport Interstellar travel luxury self-driving SUV rover that has a panoramic view and some LEDs make it look cool, to get to the base Soyuz rocket, hover cars, jet packs, state of the art no hands bathrooms(you don’t have to touch anything)

GOV 2: MRARV: a rectangle off-road SUV Sized 8-wheeled vehicle with floodlights on top of the vehicle like the ones on a Ford F-150. A trapezoid-shaped window on the front and commanded by a single pilot with a joystick. Adapted SR-71

June / 2022

Hayat Akarsu

Literature-Culture-Art

C U L T U R A L

Ses Magazine

KIZ Maiden’s Tower KULESİ

June / 2022

Despite the strong wind, one stormy night, Leander decided to swim again. The waves he saw crashing on the beach could end their love. It was a crazy decision, but there was no other choice, so he swam. The wind blew out Hero’s light. Leander was stranded in the middle of the sea. A lover’s hopeful trip turns into a terrifying test of survival. After a while, Leander became completely lost. High waves raised and dropped his body, sending Leander crashing through the water.

Mural of the princess legend “Leander, Leander!” Hero yelled and cried into the dark night. “If you are not coming to get me, I am coming!” said Hero. “I am coming!” Leander shouted back. Shortly after that, sounds died, and Leander drowned. The wind continued to rage, driving Leander farther out to sea. After hours, when Leander’s body reached the Tower, Hero decided she couldn’t live without him and took her own life to be with Leander. The Maiden’s Tower Another myth speaks of a Byzantine princess, who an oracle prophesized would be bitten by a snake and die before turning 18. The Emperor (her doting father), frightened, sent her to the Tower to shield her until she turned 18. Her father visited her to celebrate this birthday, bringing a basket of fruit. But, unknown to him, a serpent lay hidden inside and bit her, causing the tragic prophecy to come true.

The tower became something of a star internationally, with many film and television roles in the last years. Kız Kulesi was most famously starred in the 1999 Bond film, ‘The World is Not Enough.’ How can I go to the island? You can take a boat from either Kabataş or Salacak (on the road between Uskudar and Harem). It takes 10 minutes from Kabataş and less than a minute from Üsküdar. Make sure to check the time schedule of the boat service in advance.

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Leander’s Tower The Tower has several myths and legends related to it. The two most famous stories are about love. According to the first myth, the Leander’s Tower legend tells of two star-crossed lovers, a priestess of Aphrodite called Hero, and a young man named Leander. They fell in love. Every night, Leander would swim from the mainland to the island to see Hero. Hero would light a fire at the Tower’s top to help him arrive at the island safely.

Literature-Culture-Art

ız Kulesi is one of Istanbul and Turkey’s most iconic pieces of architecture, known as Maiden’s Tower, Tower of Leandros, or Bosphorus Tower. The Tower is on a small natural islet in the Bosphorus, which creates a beautiful sight and an exciting story. What is the history of Kız Kulesi? Let’s have a look at the history of this fantastic place before telling the story. During the 5th century, the first Tower here was designed by an Athenian commander to monitor ships passing through the Bosphorus and collect their taxes. When the Ottomans took over, it began to be used as a lighthouse.

June / 2022

Serif Aydin

Literature-Culture-Art

Half-naked to the waist, the bottom is like tree roots, A middle-aged woman with serious eyes gives milk from her breasts.”

C U L T U R A L

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KUBAI

https://madalyonklinik.com

KUBAI Altai Turks believe that the “great mother” lived in a tree and gives milk to the heroes from her breast. The Yakut Turks agree that Kubai lived in a tree but they believe she was the birth goddess. Special water (or the water of life) flowed from the roots of her tree and grants immortality to those who drink it. The Er Sogotoh saga depicts this tree as follows: “Half-naked to the waist, the bottom is like tree roots, A middle-aged woman with serious eyes gives milk from her breasts.” Often in Turkish myths, the tree is associated with the idea of light. In shaman prayers, Kubai’s tree is referred to as the Blessed Beech and has seventy golden leaves. According to Sakkaoglu, the black pine is as important as the beech tree in Altai and Yakut mythology. A tree motif is seen in the epic of Er Sogotoh of Yakuts. “If I came from one of the south, north, east or west directions, then I would have traces of trees and meadows, which would be blown away by the wind. If I had come from the deepest part of the earth, then, of course, I

would be covered in mud and dust!” “The first man thought about where he came from and started getting tired day by day. He always thought and asked himself ‘how was I born, how was I born?’. Now one day, he started to say to himself: ‘-If I fell from the sky, then I would be a man of ice and covered with snow and ice. If I came from one of the south, north, east or west directions, then I would have traces of trees and meadows, which would be blown away by the wind. If I had come from the deepest part of the earth, then, of course, I would be covered in mud and dust!” These were the thoughts of the first man. After pondering these ideas for a long time he came to the conclusion that the Great Mother Kubai (Kübey Hatun) might be his mother. Kubai could be the one who gave him life because of the life-giving milk that flows from her tree. For this reason, the first man travelled to see the Tree of Life and said: “You must be the mother who gave birth to me! You must be the one who made me!” The tree looked at the first man, and the first man looked at the tree, and finally the man realized that this tree was his mother and said: “You raised me when I was an orphan child! When I was a little boy, you made me a big man!” [Sakaoglu, 1992] In my opinion, the story is interesting but untrue. One reason for the emergence of such myths could be the lack of scientific advancement in the ancient world. The story seems to be an alternate explanation for what we now have scientific evidence to prove. When people cannot reach to the true faith and real science, they make up legends. Kubai is the hero they are looking for. The ancient people were searching for a sense of protection and that made them need a God. Source Saim Sakaoğlu, “Bir Efsane Motifi Üzerine”, Efsane Araştırmaları, Selçuk Üniversitesi Yay., Konya, 1992, s. 30-31.

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ubai is one of the most i mpor ta nt figures in Tu r k i s h my tholog y. Kubai is the protector of children and chi ldbir t h in Turkic mythology. She was the daughter of Kayra and was depicted as a middle-aged woman. Her duty was to protect and educate the children. When a baby starts to cry during a dream and sleeps restlessly, Kubai was said to have left them. When the child reached six months, a shaman was invited for a specific ceremony in the name of Mother Kubai. When all the attendances gathered together, the ceremony starts, and during that time, all attendances ask Kubai to protect the baby.

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June / 2022

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From Everest’s lights

D I A R Y

Literature-Culture-Art

Enes Aydin

don’t think you typically hear stories from anyone else but a human. Here’s the thing, anyone can be a storyteller. I think of this word, storyteller, every time we come by Daniel’s university. Today’s daily dose is to pick up his friend from the university and drop him off at home. A mission that I am frankly not a fan of but have come accustomed to. As we approach the figure waiting and waving in the distance, I wonder how he will react this time.

“Bro, wassup!” The figure yells as he opens the door and drags his dirty shoes into my cabin; what a mess was the only thing I could think of at that moment, “Bruh, thanks for picking me up; whatcha think about that assignment?” he continues as we slowly start to accelerate back to where we came from, “I didn’t have time to read it, What is it about? Somethin ’bout writing in some journal?” Daniel rebutted. At this point, I think my microphone’s widened as I was completely away from the road and deep into their conversation. “Yeah, We are supposed to write a journal about how we feel every day and sort of comment on it, y’know what I mean?” the friend responded back, “Yeah, I know what you mean, I’d probably go on and off about how my dad wouldn’t let me get a Toyota Supra, I mean bro, that car is simply just amazing. Axl got one, and the acceleration is WILD; simply W.I.L.D.”

June / 2022

Daniel had left his phone in the car, so there was no shame in using his phone while it was here. I can’t write because I have wheels, not hands, so I improvised using the silly “voice command” button that BMW installed. Nobody ever really uses it, but it is perfect because I can read out words with the system… Here went nothing.

TUESDAY APRIL 17 —I just started this thing and have absolutely no idea what I am doing right now. So I guess I can talk about Daniel and sorta rant on him.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 19 —Daniel was looking at some of the pictures of the cars that his friends have, and you could sense the jealousy in his eyes. His friends’ cars are no different from mine, albeit newer. I can’t seem to grasp why he likes those cars so much. When he first got me a couple of years back, you should have seen the smile on his face, but now it’s all just frowns and sadness. In fact, I’d bet he’d be happier on public transit than riding me.

—Today, I got my daily dose of Oil, the fourth bottle in three weeks: I am a BMW. It is just what I do. Not happy with it, but it is a reality that I have to live with. Daniel failed to acknowledge this as I heard him mumbling to himself about how another car wouldn’t do this. Yeah, Another vehicle would have done better, But I am not another car, I am a BMW, and this is what you signed up for.

FRIDAY APRIL 21 —It was a pretty sad day today. Daniel took me out on track to race, It was fun racing against other BMWs, but as luck would have it, I lost to the other cars, And was left out in the rain while Daniel took hot laps with his other friends. I genuinely feel betrayed. If only I could explain what I really feel, then he might understand that I might not be good at racing, I might not be new, and I might not look the way that he wants me to. I seriously just wish he could change his ways and finally accept me for who I am, A BMW that likes to travel and wants to take time and enjoy its surroundings. Maybe this Utopia of Daniel accepting me for who I am is far away or doesn’t even exist at all…

SATURDAY APRIL 22 —Not much to report today, Spent the whole day in the driveway while Daniel had his exams kinda boring… Why do exams when you have a BMW outside dying to get onto the country road?

SUNDAY APRIL 23 —Still, where I was 24 hours ago… Alone in a driveway… On the upside, I think it might rain today. Better than having my cabin be fired by the sun. MY CABIN GOT FIRED IN THE BLAZING SUN TODAY, OH THE INDIGNITY, WHY DOESN’T DANIEL CARE ABOUT ME???? I mean, other than that, it went pretty boring.

MONDAY APRIL 23 —THIS MAY HAVE BEEN THE MOST BORING WEEKEND OF MY LIFE, NOT A SINGLE BIT OF

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Why can’t I? Why can’t a car write a journal every day? I’d reckon there are hundreds of cars just like me who could say a million things if they could, but nobody asks them to. Once we had dropped Daniel’s useless human friend off, we headed back to home base and parked in the driveway outside again. This boy has no respect for an orange-coloured BMW M3. I started to really consider documenting my experiences in a journal. Maybe this could be my chance to be a storyteller like I’ve always wanted to be.

THURSDAY APRIL 20

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Having access to Daniel’s phone, I wondered what this assignment was about because these two dim wits wouldn’t stop comparing me, A BMW M3, to this lousy Toyota Supra. The project was simple; you had to document in your journal every day about things that have happened throughout the day. Seems easy enough. “Bruh, I am too lazy to write every day,” said Daniel as we were banking into a roundabout. “Wish I could make this car write it,” he continued “too bad you can’t.” His friend replied.

June / 2022 DRAMA, NOT EVEN A BIRD POOP ON MY WINDSHIELD. If I were a student probably would have gotten an F by now because, as we all know, teachers mark assignments, not excuses.

TUESDAY APRIL 24 —I may be a BMW, but I sure know how long a test should take. I did those kinds of things before being shipped off to the dealership. Something about this test seemed suspicious. He came outside to take pictures of me briefly and then headed back inside. Not sure if that is what your math teachers

FRIDAY APRIL 25 Ses Magazine

—Today, I went on a drive with a stranger behind the wheel with Daniel in the passenger seat. He seems like a really good fellow, but I couldn’t understand why he was driving and not Daniel. I guess time will tell.

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From Daniel’s eyes I got a text from Liam asking if I could pick him up. Like the good person I was, I agreed. Obviously, this guy is my friend. This was a fantastic opportunity to take Everest out for a spin, boring him. I pushed the ignition button; quiet but mighty would be how I could describe the sound. Whenever I think of Everest, I think of when I first got him. I was not only driving to my university but also aimlessly driving down memory lane, knowing that one day these moments would come to an end. If only I could tell my story with this car; too bad I’m not a storyteller. Approaching the intersection that merges the main road with my campus, I could see a small figure in the distance waving at me. This guy never fails to find a solution; I chuckled. He opened the door and then shoved himself in, dragging his muddy legs into the cabin. Three hours of work went down the drain. “Bro wassup!” Yelled Liam, “All good here, brother!” I replied, feeling that brother connection with someone who isn’t even in your bloodline feels surreal, a warm surreal. “Bruh, thanks for picking me up; whatcha think about that assignment?” he continues. My heart shoots up, “I

didn’t have time to read it; what is it about? Somethin ’bout writing in some journal?” I replied; I was so busy cleaning out Everest that I had lost track of time. “We are supposed to write a journal about how we feel every day and sort of comment on it, y’know what i mean?” Said Liam, “Yeah I know what you mean, I’d probably go on and off about how my dad wouldn’t let me get a Toyota Supra, I mean bro, that car is simply just amazing, Axl got one, and the acceleration is WILD simply W.I.L.D.” I responded back, dreaming of my own Toyota supra, driving down the street, not caring for the outside world. Snapping back to real life, “Bruh, I am too lazy to write every day,” I said as we were banking into a roundabout. “Wish I could make this car write it.” “Too bad you can’t,” Liam replied. I like to relate my things with myself; I don’t view myself as a storyteller and don’t think that any of my things can be storytellers either. We dropped Liam off at his house and headed straight back. This assignment would bring the end of me. Not only do I not view me as a storyteller but also, What would I write about? Nonetheless, it is still an assignment I thought to myself, Here goes everything…

TUESDAY APRIL 17 —Why does the professor make me do this UGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH, I can’t think of anything, and my midterms are coming up, which is double stress…

WEDNESDAY APRIL 19 —My friends sent me pictures of their cars, Smooth styling and aggressive racing lines with heritage badges stuck on all of them. Yet, I have this burning jealousy that everyone else’s car is simply just better than mine, and it doesn’t help that they are sending me pictures of their wealth. Just wish I could get over this… Why can’t my car be just as cool as those kids?

THURSDAY APRIL 20 —I went over to the local Canadian Tire for the third time

June / 2022

—I got invited by a couple of friends to race on a local track in Cornwall, A city I have been dying to visit. I put in the best effort I could, and so did Everest. Still, those rich boys with their stronger, better engines pulled away faster, and I ended up coming 4th overall. Honestly, it really hurt because I love racing, and I loved racing with my dad when I was younger out on the track and here I was, barely scraping the margins of what I used to come in. The disappointment, combined with the jealousy, made me not want to look at Everest like a stranger I dared not to talk to. One of my friends invited me to his car to show me how it worked. I was impressed but also felt a tingle of anger. Why couldn’t my own car that I bought with my own money be like this too?

SATURDAY APRIL 22 —I had exams today, and though they were difficult, they weren’t impossible. So I felt really confident about them going forward. Part two happens tomorrow.

SUNDAY APRIL 23 —I was researching the average price of my BMW, and it seemed like they were in the market at a reasonable price, compared to some of the other cars that my friends had, which skyrocketed wild prices. Of course, I mumbled to myself, of course, they are.

—I got a call from someone really interested in Everest, stating that he was the prettiest looking BMW he had ever seen…wow, I thought to myself…wow…Pretty? That was a new one. When I met up with the stranger, He was so enthusiastic that I had a one-of-a-kind car. I felt a tingle in my heart as if the colds that the frustration and jealousy were being melted away by the gratification of hearing someone else say such words to a car, to my vehicle; typically, I don’t get that. It’s always my friends who get those compliments. “You really have something in your hands kiddo. Why did ya want to sell it? It is so beautiful I would hardly ever want to see a car this well taken care of just be slipped from the hands of its owner,” said the man, questioning my choice to put up my car on Kijiji. I explained to the man my situation, and the man’s eyebrows rose, followed by a smile, “Think of this car as your child in this vast open world, he isn’t going to be the best out of all of them, there will always be someone to one up him but he isn’t also the worst, he is racing in his own league. Everyone is unique in their own right and when i see parents comparing their kids like that I get all the gross feelings, Like what does the kid want compared to what the parent wants? Does the kid have some talent that the parent is refusing to hear? Your race with your friends was a really good example of this. You have a beautiful road car, I mean look at these seats! He is amazing for long adventures and taking you where you need to go, Ultra quiet so you can hear the outside world already outperforming in the race of his own but what you have done is taken him to a place where he doesn’t belong and then judged his worth only by what he was capable of on track. It shouldn’t be like this. Those kids may have fast cars but I reckon those cars aren’t as comfortable to drive in as this one, Comparison only leads to suffering,” he said…

SATURDAY, APRIL 26 TUESDAY APRIL 24 —The jealousy and frustration took their final shot at me, and this time I really just couldn’t take it anymore. So, I set up an ad on Kijiji and then went outside to snap some pictures of Everest to put it up.

I was chatting about the price with the man from yesterday and thought about what he said. He gave me a price wayyy higher than the market average, “Isn’t that too much?” I texted back, “for such beauty, I could pay a million dollars if I could” that text struck a chord with me…all that was left of this deal was to finish off with the two-sentence word “I accept.” Then, this story would be over, all those memories would be gone, and I would lose a storyteller…

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FRIDAY APRIL 21

FRIDAY APRIL 25

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this week. It’s a BMW. This is kinda what I signed up for, but boy, is the Oil just expensive on these BMWs. I reckon that was a month’s worth of paycheque gone down the oil filler cap.

June / 2022

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