Values

Sevval Sengul

Bahcesehir University

Sometimes itís really hard being honest about our own families, so we choose to lie about the one thing we have all our lives because itís among those things that canít quite be understood by a few words but Iíll try anyway. It is one of few things that can kill us but also give life. Through our eyes, they begin and end with us but when we stand behind a camera, we look through every eye that shined before and will shine after us. Years have passed and all you once knew are behind so many days. Youíre sitting on that armchair that still smells like the old days. Once in a while you like to get up and stare at the bookshelves mindlessly. You put your finger on one of the books and drag it with closed eyes. You stop whenever your arm gets too heavy. Usually, it ends on one those books that you swore youíll read but never did however that day your arm took itís time until it stopped. You grab the book off the shelf and weight it with your hand, still eyes closed. You open one eye then the other, itís an old copy of Albert Camusí ìThe Strangerî and you remember reading this. You shake the book to see If anythingís between the papers, something falls out and lands on the floor upside down. You pick it up, and sit back to your armchair. Itís an old photo. A family portrait. The faces start to come back from memories. You look closer and take all the detail in, how wide your aunt smiled or how your cousin mid-blinked. It was for some class in the college days. The whole family was like children in kindergarten, they wouldnít sit still If you didnít get their attention. After you promise them to send a copy of the photo, they applied. It was no more than five seconds until it lasted but you felt it, that all was forgotten and forgiven. You sit back and close your eyes to give the photo colors and play them in your head like a clip. You never stop until you can. That one simple family portrait means so little now but after so many, it