Once Upon a Time (A Short Story)
Ayse Kulin
Language: English
Pages: 87
ISBN: B00M4CS3A6
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Güllü, a married woman living in poverty, refuses to extinguish her dreams despite the cruelty and violence of her husband. She convinces him to allow her to work outside the home and takes on a job working for psychologist Gül Hanım. The two women form a true friendship, and Güllü sees for the first time that a woman can choose her own life, even while living in a place where man’s word and man’s fist are the law. But, after a long and unexplained absence, Gül Hanım’s estranged husband returns. He wants something she can’t give him, and he won’t give her something she desperately needs—her freedom.
Once Upon a Time is a story of interweaving lives, bound by threads of deception, the desire for control, and hope in the face of powerlessness.
Güllü fell onto the sofa bed. She lay there, motionless. She heard the door shake on its hinges. She counted the footsteps going down the stairs . . . to the janitor’s floor . . . the floor above street level . . . now almost too faint to be heard . . . the street door . . . and he was gone. Gone. Gone. She tried to get up. She had shooting pains, everywhere. She was dizzy. She gave up on getting to her feet, sank back onto the sofa, put her head on a cushion, and heaved a sigh. There was a
his turn to sit on the sofa. Pointing to the stain on his trousers, he says, “See what that lowdown did? It peed on me.” She bites her lip to keep from laughing, not bothering to respond as she gets straight to the point. “Let’s get this done immediately, Halil. It’ll be worse for us both if we don’t.” “Oh really?” he sneers. “Yes. I’m divorcing you whether you like it or not.” “Oh, no you aren’t!” “Yes I am!” “That’s what you think, sweetie.” “Can I find out why you don’t want a
never done. If I’d been lucky enough for a free-spending madman to attach himself to me, how was I at fault? Anyone else would have grabbed all that money and made a run for it, I told myself . . . I even started asking myself why I hadn’t done just that. I tried to get in touch with my father so that I could tell him it wasn’t at all what he thought. But he wouldn’t see me. I’ve appreciated the destructive power of slander ever since. I was hurt and upset. I was angry. I’d been wronged and
once, the grasshopper jumps twice, and on the third jump . . .” I unclenched my fist so that the imprisoned grasshopper would fly away . . . but it doesn’t. It’s looking at me with the glinting eyes of a cat, the life I once held in the palm of my hand! ABOUT THE AUTHOR One of Turkey’s most beloved authors, with more than ten million copies of her books sold, Ayşe Kulin is known for her captivating stories about human endurance. In addition to penning internationally best-selling
in the little mirror hanging from the nail above the faucet. “You did wrong,” she told her reflection. “He’s got the right to beat you. Woman, you’ve got a big mouth!” “What happened to you?” Gül Hanım asked. “How did it happen?” “I was on my way home yesterday and I slipped on the stairs, and because I was carrying things, I couldn’t get ahold of anything, so I rolled all the way down to the bottom of the stairs.” “Oh, really!?” “Really.” “Oh, dear. Well, I hope you’re more careful