The Seagull

by Catarina Dinh (United States of America)

Making a local connection Turkey

She sat on the side of the dock. To me, she was the omnipresent mischief-maker of the San Francisco Bay, pooping on many a beach-goer’s head. To my Bulgarian husband Atanas, she was rare and therefore majestic. She was a seagull. It was a summery Istanbul night. The seagull sat on the edge of the wood, peering out at the dark water. Lights lit up the mosques on the other side of the shore. The bridge joining the European and Asian sides glowed on my right. Two young men sat near the bird. A cat stalked back and forth, sometimes venturing too close. The seagull would open her beak and wings in a threat display, sending the cat running back, and then her head would droop back down, as if she were falling asleep. “That’s not right,” I told Atanas. “Birds don’t lay vulnerable and alone at night.” Atanas knew Turkish, so I asked him to talk to the two men. Apparently, they’d called animal services and they were waiting to receive a call back. “Let’s walk to the end of the pier and then back,” he said. I agreed, and we continued our walk. Men sold sandwiches from their vans. The smell of frying fermented sausage wafted through the air, but I wasn’t enticed by the smell right now. I was feeling something, but I didn’t know what the emotion was. I shrugged it off. We walked back. The seagull was still there. We waited for an hour. Animal services finally called and said they only handled dogs and cats. “Why don’t we take the seagull to our AirBnb?” I asked Atanas. “We can ask our host and ask if we can put her on the balcony.” He agreed to wait with the seagull while I went back to our AirBnb to ask the host. I ran down the pier, past the police station that was merged with a hotel that put on loud party music and neon lights all night. I ran past the fancy vacant restaurant with the palm trees swaying high above, past the humble crowded convenience store with the surprisingly delicious soggy hamburgers, and then I ran half a mile up steep hills and winding cobblestone stairs that led up to the apartment. I wheezed and panted behind my closed bedroom door, then put on my poker face and went into the kitchen to ask the host if we could bring the seagull onto his balcony. “Yes,” he said. That was all I needed. I grabbed some garbage bags from the kitchen, a small box, and ran back to Atanas and the seagull. She squawked once as she went into the box, then was silent the walk home. In the morning, we came to inspect her for a broken wing but she was scared. It took two of us to inspect her-- one to grab her beak and one to spread her wings. My first attempt was too slow and she drew blood from my thumb with her sharp beak. When we finally managed to see her wings, they seemed fine. We decided to leave her on the balcony to see if she would recuperate by herself. She loved fish. She ate five small ones daily. Once I caught her running to the fish, swallowing them whole in big, comical gulps. She saw me and ran back to sit in the corner, quiet and dainty as a lady. I smiled. I felt warm when I fed her. A few days later, I woke up early and went out onto the balcony, and she was gone. I scanned the skies, imagining her flying over the glittering water under the sleepy purple sky. I knew what the feeling was now, I realized. Trying to make a life I loved had been so hard that I’d forgotten I could cause change. Slowly I’d gotten used to expecting the worst. A failed visa rejection here, a lull in work there, financial strain here. I smiled. I’d gone far in the past year. I'd quit the rat race, found love, traveled the world. And somewhere out there, the seagull was flying even further. I hoped she’d take me with her.