C3 A Different Place, A Different Face
Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was the founder of Republic of Turkey and forefather of Turks. When Turkey, formerly Ottoman Empire, surrounded from all the sides by its enemies, this man showed up and single handedly planned the liberation and creation of Republic of Turkey. Against all the odds, be it obstacles from the enemies, be it the pressure of the Ottoman Government, he went against all of them and with his friends, he started the journey to freedom in 1919. Eventually, he overthrew the Ottoman Government and became the first president of the Republic of Turkey. He reformed the country and its rules all over again. The country that was in the brink of destruction, reborn from its ashes like a Phoenix.
He knew this man and his life because when he became the leader of the organization, he wanted to be a good leader. He wanted to have the impression of a good leader at least. In order to understand leadership and management, he searched for materials about leadership. In one book named “The Most Important Leaders and Military Geniuses in History”, this man’s military career and his achievements were recorded.
He admired and respected every single one of the leaders in the book actually. Compared to this man and the others, who did everything in order to establish a country from the scratch, his achievements were nothing but a joke in fact. His organization, operation of the organization, management, requirements and everything had been handling by his followers.
He was like a Japanese Idol and his followers were the members of the fan club. He was just singing and that’s it. He was a spiritual leader; he didn’t know anything about operations nor management of the organization. Well, it was his own fault actually, who told him to be a lazy pig?
When he realized that it was Turkey’s flag and the man in the photo was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, he vaguely guessed something.
He stood up, walked to the window and started to look at the streets and buildings from above. He guessed that he was in one of the upper floors of the hospital because the size of cars on the road looked small and the signboards of shops rather distant. When he tried to focus and read the signboards, he was so scared that he jumped one meter back and fell on his butt.
'What the fuck?! What was that?!'
He stood up again and walk towards the windows. He looked to the reflection of himself from the window and started to tremble. He couldn’t believe it. Who is this? Me?
The reflection of the man on the window had the features of a European, slightly tall noise, big and black eyes, rather long hair that combined from the back, and unshaved short beard. The man looked rather handsome, but he was a little skinny. His weight didn’t match with his 1.80 tall height.
When he tried to lift his hand to touch his face, he was sure that it was him. He stunned for a moment but later calmed down and started to think. 'Did I have a plastic surgery? Why would I have a plastic surgery? Those guys did it? Were they trying to hide me from the enemy? No! Even if I had a plastic surgery, it can’t change me this much!'
At this moment, the door of the ward opened, and a nurse came in. The nurse’s appearance was rather cute. Currently, her big and watery eyes keep blinking as she looked confusedly to the empty bed. When Long Zhua saw her from the reflection of the window, he knew that she was an intern. Her eyes lacked the maturity of an experienced worker, someone who never been in a battlefield called workplace.
He turned around and look at the nurse calmly. When nurse saw him in front of the window, she momentarily startled, but soon elated.
“Wait a moment, I’m going to call the doctor.” said the nurse and went back to outside of the ward without closing the door.
‘What the hell did she said?’
After a momentarily loss, Long Zhua realized. Realized that he is in a different place. A country called Turkey. The flag, the man in the photo frame, the langue of the anchorwoman and nurse spoke…
Even though he tried to think of thousand different scenarios, he couldn’t understand why he was in a hospital in Turkey and why his face changed. He stood there still and look dazedly to the door. He really didn’t understand what was going on…
5 minutes later, sounds of rushed footsteps came outside of the door. A white-haired old male doctor with a stethoscope hanging down from his neck, and the silly nurse before came in.
“How can this be?!”
When the old doctor came in, he too was startled, he couldn’t believe what he is seeing right know. ‘This patient wasn’t supposed to wake up anymore. What’s going on?’ Thought the old doctor inside.
The nurse looked rather happy. Even though she too didn’t understand how he woke up, she was happy that the patient she responsible for recovered from his previous state.
“Lay down back to bed, boy. Let’s re-examine your situation. Were the results wrong? It was impossible for you to wake up again…” said the old doctor confusedly.
Long Zhua didn’t understand what he said and look dazedly to the doctor. He realized that doctor and nurse was taken aback when they saw him, but he didn’t know what they are surprised about.
“Are there still any problems with his brain functioning? The patient looks in trance. Child, come, lay back to bed, so that we can check your situation again.” Doctor said again while waving his hand to his face, trying to attract his attention.
When Long Zhua realized that doctor waving his hand to him and waiting for his answer, he didn’t know what he supposed to do. He didn’t understand their language and didn’t know whether they knew English, but he had to try. His first priority was to understand the situation he was in right now.
“Sir, I don’t understand what you are saying but-“
“AAAAAAAAH!”
Suddenly, Long Zhua started to scream while holding back of his head and crutched down to floor. His entire body started to tremble, and his face started to distort. He looked like he was in intense pain and agony.
“What happened all of sudden?! Hurry and call the others here! We need to interfere as soon as possible!” Yelled the doctor to panicky nurse next to him.
“Right away!” Said the nurse and rushed back to call the other doctors.
Long Zhua didn’t know how long but the intense pain he felt from the back of his had made him want to die. However, the pain he felt from his head slowly faded down after a while. But when he felt relieved and thought that it was over, a more intense and burning pain came from his insides.
He couldn’t describe this burning sensation at all, he never felt a pain like this before. But he was sure one thing, this pain was not related to his body. He didn’t know how he aware of this, but he knew that this extraterrestrial pain was not related to his physical body parts.
After this intensive and terrible pain for who knows how long, everything calmed down. He wanted to faint, he wanted to die, but he couldn’t because something inside of his head kept him awake all the time. He too realized that if he lost his consciousness,
everything would be over for him. But he didn’t give a fuck! It was better to die than feeling this fucking pain! But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t occlude the sound coming from his head, which kept him awake all the time.
After everything calmed down, some images and voices started to come to his mind. Like watching a movie in a cinema, he kept watching the movie about a boy’s life. Everything the boy went through, every moment he lived, all the feelings he had was so vivid and lifelike that at some point, Long Zhua started to doubt his own identity. Nevertheless, this was a sad story.
Kaan Özkan, 22 years old, a 3rd year student of Computer Engineering department in Marmara University. In his childhood, from the memories he can recall, he was happy. He had a father, a mother and a little sister that 2 years younger than himself. His parents care and dote on them very much. His studies had always been good. He also very obedient and hardworking kid and he didn’t cry to his parents like other children would, nor he did have the period of his puberty rebellion.
His teachers and neighbors had always praised him for his understanding and calm personality. He was much more mature compared to his peers. Everything had been going well, and life was beautiful. In the 1st year of high school, he started to slowly shape his future life and career.
He worked hard for his goals and his own future. When one day, came back to home from the school, he saw an unfamiliar middle-aged man dressed in a police uniform. He was sitting on a chair and beside him on the sofa, his sister was crying. The man looked solemn and the atmosphere in the house was heavy and gloomy. He had a foreboding of something really bad.
The policeman looked at him quietly for a while and sure enough, he gave the news which will going to change everything in his and sister’s life.
“Your parents had a traffic accident 3 hours ago on the way of E5 road. We tried our everything to save them but… My condolences, boy…” Said the policeman solemnly.
When the words the policeman said crashed his ears, he felt like the world is spinning and he is going to faint for the first time in his life. But he didn’t, he didn’t faint, nor he cried like his sister. He took deep breaths to calm down and started to think about their future life.
He knew the principle of living and dying. Everyone is going to die. This was an unchangeable fact. He tried to think further ahead, and thought, ‘what if I spend more times with my parents and when they die old, wouldn’t it feel more miserable?’ He was consoling himself with these scientific facts and reasonable scenarios.
He mustn’t cry, he mustn’t cry in front of his sister. Their father never cried in front of them, even if his own brother’s death, he never cried in front of them. When he asked his father how he can hold on and don’t cry like others, his father answered his life motto, his life philosophy;
“A man must never cry in front of a woman.”
It sounded rather cool at those times but later on, it sounded childish a little honestly. But he knew the fact that a man must stay strong in front of a woman, lest they sink in despair, lost the feeling of security.
Be it a lover, mother or a sister, men must stay strong in front of women. That’s why, no matter how childish his father’s words sounded, he made those words his life motto and act according to it. And even in this utter despair situation, he didn’t cry and try to think calmly.
