Jon M. Anzalone
168 Park Avenue
Huntington, NY 11743
917.568.5032
jon.anzalone@gmail.com


About 450 Words

     It was just days ago that I saw her.
     Her, yes, her with flaxen hair draped down about her shoulders, shimmering eyes of silvery blue, and that mouth—that fair mouth I longed to kiss—taking a deep bite of her döner kebab. Was it fate that I too stepped into Ahmet Bey's Taksim Döner & Wet Hamburger just as she was leaving?
     It was noon. I had not eaten yet, and I knew if I were to pursue her now I would surely collapse upon my own efforts at following her. "Quickly Pasha, my shashlik!" I handed him 3 Lira, and shoveling the fine meats into my ever willing jaw I ran out the door after her.
     All down Beyoglu I ran, through the crowds, the grinning Turkcell figurines suspended above me and the taunting of the muezzin from the minarets, they could all find me, what of her, what of her?
     Quickly I approached the Galata Tower standing erect on the hill and saw her again, peering down at me from its 13th floor terrace. I noshed a quick bite of the kebab and darted inward, racing past the stray dogs and oud players, the meal's fragrant gravies staining my shirtsleeves silken from sweat. Into the elevator, and up! up! up, I say! To the topmost floors, around the staircase, and to the balcony. Girl, my darling, where have you gone! I looked down, and upon the ground: her kebab wrapper! I picked it up and tucked it into my breast pocket.
     Fate of fates, as she exited the tower I nearly fainted. Had I only chosen the other elevator, we could have been locked in embrace in an eternal twelve story descent, her, I, our döner, with no onlookers save perhaps some school group of Persian youths.
     I went down and gave chase, but there was little more I could do. Into the crowds beyond the Golden Horn, over the bridge and beyond, the girl with the flaxen hair had departed from me. I touched the kebab wrapper held close to my heart—I knew it may not have even been hers, a girl so fair would have had the care not to drop her wrappers—but I had to believe it just to know that image of perfection existed. Much like the flow of the mighty Bosporus, it shall always be. That moment in Ahmet Bey's Taksim Döner & Wet Hamburger foretold the story of my life, it was a sign that I would always be coming, and her, always going.