Fiction from Sarp Sozdinler

Photo: Aaron Burden

Pebbles

I’m five and I find a dead sparrow in our backyard. My father screams at the TV after a missed penalty kick, muffling the intensity of my cries. I’m six and misplacing the letters in a schoolbook. I’m seven and diving headfirst from the lid of the Brighton pier, saltwater crusting the underside of my toes. Later, I’m scolded by an elderly woman in a blue swimsuit for blocking her sunlight. I’m scolded by my mother for forgetting to bring the sunblock. I’m twelve and think the right word breakwater is waterbreak. I’m fifteen and striding along the beach with Ada, priming myself for a first kiss. I’m seventeen and sitting crosslegged in the shade of the pier, grieving after the loss of first love. I’m eighteen and on a bus to London, where I’ll try to make ends meet so I can start over in a few years’ time. I’m twenty and missing one half of my favorite socks. I’m twenty-two and getting the first chip on my front tooth in a bar fight. I carry it like a badge. I press my thumb against the broken contours whenever I feel low on confidence. I’m twenty-four and unable to find my passport on a trip to Antalya. I’m twenty-five and missing some significant digits in my bank account. I’m twenty-six and my lips are smeared with dabs of caramel gelato, which betrays the hair on my recently shaved mustache. I’m twenty-seven and back home and scouring the beach for pennies that never were. I’m thirty and thinking the end is nigh. I’m thirty-two and already losing my humor. I laugh at some half-baked lies and well-hid half-truths. I’m thirty-four and I win my first plush toy at a Christmas fair. I’m thirty-five and losing my father to an unseen, unheard-of, uncalled-for autoimmune disease. I’m thirty-six and I bump into Ada no farther than a mile down the dent where I first kissed her, half a lifetime ago. I’m thirty-seven and celebrating our one-year anniversary with her at one of those fish-and-chips booths facing the sea. I tell her how I used to watch her out of the corner of my eye at school, how she wouldn’t even once turn to look in my direction. She tells me she was only recently coming to terms with her Scorpio side back then and that was one of the reasons why things just wouldn’t work out between the two of us anyway. I’m thirty-nine and acutely depressed. I’m forty and welcoming our first baby in my arms. I let her hold my thumb every time she cries, wipe her powdery back when she’s incapable of doing it for herself. She doesn’t yet know her name has an honest typo in it because of me. I’m forty and I already have nightmares about a future where she’ll blame me for everything and nothing. I take these long walks by the sea in the middle of the night and wish my father were still alive. I’m forty-one and already wearing my father’s favorite brown checkered sweater. I’m forty-two and I make a habit of calling my mom every morning. I’m forty-five and taking my wife and daughter to a picnic up in Whitehawk Hill for the latter’s upcoming fifth birthday party. I excuse myself and forage the woods at one point and come across a squirrel that looks too lethargic and gray for her age. I pocket the walnut-shaped nothing she dropped on the ground, then tinker it into a locket for my daughter once we’re back home. I’m forty-seven and I already think the end is long behind me. I’m forty-eight and listening to my doctor going over the results on the phone with just the wrong voice. I’m forty-nine and listening to my mother cry over the regression of my treatment. I’m fifty and lying in a hospital bed, one that’s facing a mounted TV on which a handful of rugby players are chasing after an invisible ball. My reflection on the screen already looks like Bruce Willis at his worst. I sigh and bask in the sallow Sussex sun, looking back at Ada who’s looking back at me from the corner of the room. I daydream of a new decade of going strong. I look forward to another half a century, together.
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A writer of Turkish descent, Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, DIAGRAM, Normal School, Vestal Review, Maudlin House, and American Literary Review, among other places. His stories have been selected or nominated for anthologies (Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Wigleaf Top 50) and awarded a finalist status at various literary contests, including the 2022 Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction Award. He’s currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.