High Mountain Passes Into Oblivion

I wrote this story in the Autumn of 2017 when I was traveling throughout Southeastern Turkey...

The southeastern Turkish towns reel off the tip of your tongue in to oblivion: Mus, Molozgirl, Palnos, Agri, Igdir, Dogubayazil, Sarikamis and Kars. Many a wide expanse of rocks and dirt, as the bus vibrates and heats, a journey into the heart of what was once the former Kingdom of Armenia.

Hills and hills of dust block in the roads traveled, flakes of sunlight glint hard off the tumbled rocks... and beyond the heat and dirt and sun pouring down, there is pasture. Cows, sheep and wild horses seem to run free, nibbling at the barrenness. I see soil not grass or foliage and yet they all seem to be contently eating of something...and there are tractors and plows, and if not mechanical, then hitched horses for the poor to cultivate the soil and soul.

Fiddling with the bus cooling fans control, wishing more of the semi-frigid air would reach me, but it is a weak stream as the bus zooms by the outer world, zoom is too quick a term to describe it, all the Turkish buses seemed to stay well under the speed limit as they progressed forward to the next town, rumbles not in the jungle but from the bus braking, taking sharp turns or the driver trying to pass even slower vehicles.

An idyllic daydream in the haze of the heat and monotony of an endless landscape, but for the most part, the bus does not let you doze off, as you are just about to fall asleep, some sharp movement shudders your head into the side wall and you are re-awakened.

Held hostage to the bus movements, landscapes and frequent stops in numerous towns, the names of which roll off  with difficulty from an American tongue. You watch as an elderly couple, wizened in their grayness and wrinkles climb aboard, the man with a cane and pointed black shoes, the color matching the rest of his outfit, and his partner, in similar dark enclosures and long skirt, she wears a black hijab over her head.

The elderly couples never seem to go far and park themselves by the side seats waiting for the next stop. The bus rolls on for a short while, then another stop in the middle of nowhere arrives upon us, a village in the distance, a tiny settlement, the houses of adobe, stucco or even rock, they mix and match with the spare concrete if there is any.

The more wealthier encampments proliferate with solar collectors (for electricity?) and satellite dishes, but this couple's house is simple and functional, some type of adobe, broken rocks scattered in the foreground, smoke wisps from the chimney, some type of pasture in the back, I think I spy a fence line far off in the horizon, and power lines sticky like a spider web dotting the various homes.

They leave the bus in slow motion, if the bus driver is kind, he helps the man and woman out the door safely, and your last glimpse of the proud couple is them crossing the highway, walking very slowly and proudly to their home, in a place that is just a hiccup on the map, but a moment captured...


Image Credit: https://society6.com/product/mountain-pass534734_print