A LEAP OF THE EARLY BIRD

Because she found him...

Solitude often becomes an aid to a troubled heart. One might find peace, one might find the answers they were looking for, but one also might find a big bowl of nothing. That is exactly how Can felt. He was alone. He was used to it by now. So how come now it felt like the world was empty, if he never felt like that before?

He was hurt. Deep inside. The fury and anger that ran through his veins just a short while ago had been replaced by saddness. Through all of his adult life he tried his best to become the best photographer he could possibly be. Physical strain was no issue. He grew accustomed to pain and often sacrificed a warm meal in the name of the greater good. He never complained. He never quit. He wanted the photographs he took to speak for themselves. The photoshoots also helped shape his character. They made him stronger, wiser, and more keen in his observations and his view of the world. And the solitude of a lonely photoshoot always helped him find that inner peace. But now, solitude brought him nothing. Nothing but a yearning of how things used to be when he was able to hold a camera in his hands.

The silence within his heart hurt. The sorrow within his soul felt unbearable. He did the only thing he could do at this moment. He escaped. Into nature. Nature made the events of that day less painful. The whispers of the crickets around him, the melody of the leaves of the trees above him, and the gentlest of breezes filled with the scent of nature mixed with the scent of the smoke from the campfire he lit encompassed him as if in the most tender of caresses. It all helped him to ease the tension in his neck. It helped him to think. So he thought. Long, long, and hard. And all he could think was that he was alone again. Alone, hurt, and jobless...

And then, he heard a voice. He couldn't tell if he imagined it. But the voice called out again, and again. Faint at first, as if enchanted somehow, the voice grew stronger, and closer. The voice called out his name. Can Bey. Can Bey. He went to search for whomever it could have been who found him in the darkness and seclusion of the forest. And he came face to face with Sanem. Of course, Sanem. He did not know whether to embrace her or scold her for wandering in the night looking for him. She seemed lost, but so sweetly brave at the same time. The broken stick in her hand seemed like the perfect tool of choice, if he had to describe it. If he didn't know better, he could have sworn she was trying to make him laugh when she asked him what he was doing there. Baffled, he asked her the same question. Her answer hit at his heart. She had to tell him something. She searched for him in all of those woods just to tell him something? His heart skipped a beat. Could it be something that she came to tell him the day before? When she had courage, and hope, and light in her eyes?

He asked if she would like some tea. She couldn't have agreed faster. They sat by the campfire. In silence. Looking at her, it occured to him that he could sit with her even in silence. She made the silence more bearable. She made the silence less lonely. She made him feel less lonely...

She explained that she searched for him by the hut and all through the woods. It surprised him to hear she went looking for him that far. But he listened to her explanation. Why did she need to find him? Though her words stung, he could feel she said them with care. He stood up, no longer able to just sit. With his back turned to her, he already felt she stood up and walked closer to him. Her closeness mattered to him. And she had no regard for the limits and borders of his character. She just barged right through them. Others wouldn't dare to approach him in his current state of mind. But not Sanem. She passed through his walls as if they never existed. And she did not push. She moved passed them with kindness and softly spoken words.

She said the others at the office said that he would leave the agency. She asked if he would come back? He replied he did not know. She asked if it was true that he would go abroad and wouldn't return. He replied he did not know that either. Her next words changed his world. Chaged his mind. Changed his heart. She said for him not to leave. No one ever said those words to him with so much worry, care, and hope. If he ever possessed a gift of photographic memory for one moment in life, he would wish to remember this moment, and how she made him feel. He asked why, why should he stay. He didn't realize that by asking why he should stay and what kept him in Istanbul he not only hurt Sanem, but he made her hopes of his feelings for her dim in light.

She wanted them to go back. Her mission was accomplished. He smiled and replied that they would need to stay where they were until the morning. She relied on his words without a question. And he realized that the loud and confident Sanem was as mysterious as the quiet and caring one. They sat by the fire and enjoyed their time. She asked him about the stones. The moonstones he held in his hand. He kept their story a mystery to others. But felt she would understand and appreciate their meaning. The moonstones were a gift. They held a meaning, though not as Sanem might have thought. He revealed a part of himself in his story, a side of photoshoots no one cared to ask about because all they saw was the glamour of his fame. He was badly injured in Sri Lanka, quite seriously at that. He spent a long time at a hospital. A woman tending to his care gave him the stones as much for protection, as for healing, and as for a path of discovery of himself. There were two stones, as each person had two sides. The darks stone represented the secret and sensitive side of a person, and the light stone represented the real true side a person visible only through the eyes that looked with love.

Laying down next to Sanem, looking up at the stars with her by his side, Can felt grateful. He was an honorable man. He respected her innocence and her personal space. But she asked if she could sleep under the stars outside of the tent, because she would feel safer knowing he was close. By doing so she in turn made him feel safer, and he would not feel so lonely in the coming night. But when she asked him to lay by her side his heart smiled, and it showed in his smile. She would not let him feel lonely, she would not let him feel as if he was alone in his closed off world. He could not describe how he felt inside. But one thing was for certain. She helped him. She calmed him down. And she made him smile, as impossible as it was, in the day that his world fell apart.

The fact that she found him when no one else did was a miracle in itself. His miracle. The fact that she cared enough for him to search off the beaten path and seek him out where no one else thought to look was another. So she cared enough. Or, did she care so much? He hoped in his heart it was the latter. Because she found him. Because he found her...