Tevfik Hürkan Urhan

Tevfik Hürkan Urhan holds a degree in Economics from Middle East Technical University (METU) and a master’s degree in Social Sciences from Humboldt University. He is currently engaged in independent journalism and publishing activities

NUMBNESS

He felt nothing. Standing outside in a Northern European city in the middle of winter, dressed only in a sleeveless undershirt. Yet he felt nothing. Not even the cold.

And this wasn’t about existential crises or nihilistic emptiness. Just five minutes earlier, he’d done two lines of speed and one of keta. Probably it was because of that. Though he wasn’t completely sure; perhaps it was heartbreak—unlikely, but possible. He took a few steps and quickly understood. Yes, yes, he was just high. It wasn’t anything tragic.

A few rats ran out from an old silo with a small, tilted entrance. One of them gently touched his shoulder and asked:

– Are you alright?
– I’m fine, he replied. I feel nothing.

“Is that good or bad for you?” asked the rat, his closest friend.
“If I could feel at all,” he said thoughtfully, “I guess it would depend on exactly what I’d be feeling.”

– Wanna dance?
– Sure.

And so all the rats went inside to dance.

Halfway in, one rat stopped and looked back at the silo. She had overheard their conversation. The air was terribly cold—she could still feel it sharply. And for her, sadly, that was a bad thing.

12.2021- Burdur

PATHETICNESS

Have you ever lost all your friends and your lover in just one day? Well, I have. And it’s not like I did anything in particular. In fact, I did nothing at all. On January 23rd, suddenly, everyone around me stopped talking to me. It wasn’t exactly that they were offended; they just completely stopped caring. Since that day, they’ve been acting as if I don’t exist.

At first, it was a bit tough, but now I’m gradually getting used to it. In fact, to be perfectly honest, I secretly take a kind of pleasure in it. Then I realize the pitiful nature of that pleasure and get angry with myself. I’m pathetic. Even more pathetic is the fact that I enjoy how pathetic I am.

When my lover was leaving the house, I said, “I don’t think I’m doing well lately.” She didn’t even respond. Frankly, I hadn’t expected her to. Then I called my closest friend; he didn’t pick up. I hadn’t really expected him to, either. So, what else could I do? To protect my mental health, I forced myself to go on my daily stupid nature walk.

An old woman walking in front of me fell. I tried to help her up, but she snapped, “Get your filthy hands off me. I can handle myself, I don’t need help from someone like you.” She was right. Who the fuck am I to try helping people?

I passed by a playground full of children; they didn’t even have the manners to laugh behind my back. They made fun of me straight to my face, right there, looking me in the eye. I barely held back my tears and quickly walked away.

I sat down on a bench. I was so insignificant that I began to wonder whether I even existed in this world. And that’s how things are. So, why did people suddenly stop caring about me, you might ask? I don’t have the courage to find out or figure it out. I’m just going to keep on living like this. As I said, I take a mild pleasure in it.

23.02.2022 – Charlottenburg, Berlin

STUCKNESS

She was an immigrant. The rental contract had one month left, the employment contract two, and the residence permit three.

To find an apartment, one needed proof of steady income. To secure a job, one needed a sufficiently long residence permit. And for a residence permit, one had to have a rental contract and a registered address.

Consequently, none of her problems could be solved. A bureaucratic-flavored, paranoid, unsolvable puzzle. Such things are possible if you are an immigrant. Stuckness is a periodically recurring state of existence.

A home, a job, and the right to stay in a city… “How basic are my problems,” she thought. Yet, simultaneously, guilt crept in: “Am I asking for too much?” These two thoughts coexisted shamelessly.

No matter what she did, she would feel guilty. Welcome to the 2020s. During this decade, we find ourselves drowning in our stuckness, and in return, we feel burdened by guilt for our own sense of being lost. Ours is an age of stuckness and guilt. Our illusion of collective progress and development was shattered by an earthquake, magnitude 19 on the corona scale, burying an entire generation beneath it. We found ourselves trapped under the debris of the previous century.

Every breath feels heavier, residence permits expire, rents climb relentlessly, and in the merciless momentum of the digital age, the immigrant becomes trapped in digital survival, fighting for the crumbs of remaining opportunities.

Long story short, life didn’t flow; she was stuck.

24.02.2022 (Doomsday) – Berlin

Tevfik Hürkan Urhan
@hurkan.urhan