broken pavement stones, double-parked cars choking the street. a slope that wouldn’t be considered steep compared to others in the neighborhood. as i walk slowly, i keep looking at the ground, checking for any dead animals. a year ago, when this place didn’t quite feel like home yet, i saw a dead parrot lying on the ground. it stayed there for about a month. i witnessed its decay over time. then one day, it suddenly disappeared. i guess someone took it away. i assume so, but i don’t know for sure what happened. since that day, i often walk home looking at the ground.

seeing a dead animal on the street might scare or disgust some people. but i liked it. i can’t explain why. what i liked most was seeing it there every day. despite not belonging there, it somehow continued to remain in that spot. i thought someone would see it, pick it up, throw it away, maybe even bury it, and it wouldn’t be there anymore. it felt like a secret shared only between the two of us. an abnormal finding in a normal place. despite seeing it every day for a month, i didn’t move a muscle about it.

towards the end, it became almost unrecognizable. it didn’t blend into the soil, but into the dirt and litter of istanbul streets. maybe it was still there; no one had thrown it away. it had adapted so well to the litter that i couldn’t notice it anymore. maybe, even after a year, it’s still there. its beak, claws, a few feathers… it adapted so well to its surroundings that it became invisible.