Ankara

'you need to do it to wash Everything down your throat' the Elders said to me.

'I thought Time would wash up Everything down my throat I would be able to Eat and Drink and Breathe with relative ease in Time'

'that is the lie the youth tells itself' the Elders said. 'a lie as vast and oppressive as the steppes that the city you are heading towards is built on, a lie as hungering as the steppes'

'a lie that will eventually stop gnawing at highway accidents and tunnel darknesses and devour the city and Everything whole eventually, the way Youth devours itself in a single expanded moment after a vague headache here and a single strained tendon there, then? an undeniable lie the city has been trying to raise its solemn-and/or-boring head against at dawn for decades like a low-ranking civil servant pulling up his colorful and dull eighties tie in front of the mirror? the absolute truth?'

'that that that doesn't matter. the absolute truth is irrelevant. it is outdated.' a trace of panic. a failing metaphor. weaker poets would weep and curse their first loves and their fathers. but the Elders are not a child that will sit in grumpy silence after he is scolded for a wisecrack too unchildlike and glorious. 'the only thing that matters is that the only thing Time will wash down your throat is your throat. that is the ultimate truth.'

'and what I have to do is head to the steppes and bow or raise my head before them to wash Everything down my throat, o Elders?

'that's a start. you will have to go to all sorts of places and bow and raise your head before all sorts of things until your throat is finally washed off your throat, and much of it you won't like, much of it will be like sudafed down your throat; but that's a start.

'but the ultimate truth is--'

'go on now'