Tea glasses are not that fragile...

… Late in the afternoon, Auntie Zeliha stepped outside into the garden. Not wanting to enter the house, Aram had been waiting there for hours, having long since finished smoking all his cigars.

"I brought you tea," she said. The spring breeze caressed their faces, carrying from far and wide the sundry smells of the sea, growing grass, and the yet-to-blossom almond flowers of Istanbul.

"Thank you, my love," Aram replied. ""What a lovely tea glass."

"Do you like it?" Auntie Zeliha rotated the tea glass in her hand as her face brightened with recognition. "This is so bizarre. You know what I've realized just now? I bought this set twenty years ago. So strange!"

"What is so strange?" Aram asked, feeling at that moment a drop of rain.

"Nothing," Auntie Zeliha said, her voice lowering. "It's just that I never believed they could survive this long. I always feared they would break so easily, but I guess they live to tell the tale, after all. Even tea glasses do!"

  

Elif Shafak, The bastard of Istanbul

 

Allah´ın irâdesi!

ONE
Cinnamon

     Whatever falls from the sky above, thou shall not curse it. That includes the rain.
    No matter what might pour down, no matter how heavy the cloudburst or how icy the sleet, you should never ever utter profanities against whatever the heavens might have in store for us. Everybody knows this. And that includes Zeliha.

[...]

    ...Before she was done swearing, however, she abruptly paused, lifted her chin as if suspecting someone had called her name, but rather than looking around for an acquaintance, she instead pouted at the smoky sky. She squinted, sighed a conflicted sigh, and then unleashed another profanity, only this time against the rain. Now, according to the unwritten and unbreakable rules of Petite-Ma, her grandmother, that was sheer blasphemy. You might not be fond of the rain, you certainly did not have to be, but under no circumstances should you cuss at anything that came from the skies, because nothing poured from above on its own and behind it all there was Allah the Almighty.

[...]

Elif Shafak, The bastard of Istanbul

*The title of the publication means "By God`s will" in Turkish.

"А в тишината, светлина"

     Разказваше: събудил се рано, по покрива - колебливата траектория на котка, а облаците - посети сред светлината, разпилени безразборно, като случайни мисли. Разказваше: по гърба му - тръпнеща линия, очите вперени в тавана, а ръцете малко вяло хвърляли сянка върху възглавницата. Встрани, разхвърляните чаршафи, като следа от битка, или като следа, която просто говори за нещо. По пода, разпръснати слънчеви петна и тишина, някакво неопределено усещане за преходност. Цялата къща покорна и неподвижна: кораб на морското дъно, потопен в отмала, в утринен унес. Поглеждаше ни и продължаваше: сутринта, по-особена може би, лежал си в леглото, изпаднал в летаргия, с натежало тяло и клепачи, и очи. Каза, че се чувствал странно, сякаш мислите му били някак тромави, като животни под товара на слънцето, лениви от толкова спане. Погледнал известно време тавана, а сетивата му - зареяни по вятъра, сред клоните на дърветата, след поскръцването на колело надолу по улицата. Вятърът затихнал и скърцането станало потропване, а после шумолене и накрая необичаен покой, който се слял с тишината. [...]

Алехандро Бадильо, от испански Мария Георгиева-Монтеро