Before Lunch

I left home at about half past eight with several tasks that normally had enough power to destroy an entire day. There was military paperwork, a telephone and internet account to close, water to cancel, electricity to cancel, and a friend to reach afterward.

The first office was for the military procedure. I went in with the necessary papers and came out with one item removed from the list. There was no celebration. I simply moved to the next place.

Then came the telephone and internet office. Another counter, another short conversation, another account closed. So far the morning was behaving suspiciously well.

At the electricity office, the system finally remembered that it was bureaucracy.

They needed the meter reading.

The meter, of course, was at home.

I crossed part of the city again, entered the apartment, read the number from the wall, wrote it down carefully, and left. The apartment had become a temporary branch of the electricity company.

After that came the water office, then electricity again. I carried papers and numbers from one building to another while Ankara moved around me: traffic, pavements, offices, people waiting at counters, doors opening and closing.

Nothing dramatic happened. That was the miracle.

No one said, “Come back tomorrow.” No document disappeared. No clerk sent me to a building on the other side of the city because I lacked one photocopy. Each task ended, and I moved to the next.

At about one o’clock, I reached my friend’s place.

I looked at the time.

Four and a half hours.

Military procedure completed. Telephone and internet cancelled. Water cancelled. Electricity cancelled, despite the unexpected trip home. And I had crossed enough of Ankara to feel that I had completed a small urban expedition.

There are achievements that sound ridiculous when explained to another person. Nobody gives you a certificate for cancelling utilities efficiently.

Still, I was proud.

Adult life contains victories that are too small for a ceremony but too difficult to ignore. That morning, before lunch, I had defeated every counter placed in front of me.

For Ankara, I considered it a record.