"Olacakla öleceğe çare bulunmaz" - There is no remedy for what will be and who will die

Altan whimpered. He'd woken up again - it was 4 am. He never found Ms. Evans... Edith... yesterday. His first idea had been to go to the library of course. That proved impossible - there were people, so many people, blocking the way, and the crowd grew thicker and thicker the closer to the library he got. He saw flames over their heads and sobbed. What was happening? Where was she? Where did the fire come from? So was the library on fire too? Ah, the mosque was on fire! Where should he go? What should he do now?

Altan tried to push through the mass of people, but he was too old and weak to do so. No one even noticed him and his pleading to pass through. Altan felt powerless and empty, especially without his cart. It was back in his apartment because it would have been foolish to bring it out with him, like he was going to try to sell coffee in the midst of this crisis. But with it he felt important and purposeful, and it would have made a decent battering ram. For hours Altan yelled, pushed, pinched, and tried to squeeze through the crowd with little success. He got just close enough to see that the library itself wasn't on fire, but was that a bonfire of books in the street? Where was Edith? How could this happen? Who'd done this?

Back in his bed, Altan slowly fell back asleep, determined that he would see Edith today. As soon as the sun rose, he'd call upon her in her apartment. He'd have to hurry though, she left early for work... if she even made it back to her apartment.

At 9 am, Altan woke with a start and then jumped out of bed. He was late! The sun had just peeked through the overhanging clouds for a minute, and the brightness had woken the old man. He was so tired from the day before, but he had felt sure his strong will and desire to see Edith face to face would have woken him with such energy and adrenaline that he could have done anything. But it was already 9 am and she'd frown upon his tardiness.

Altan rushed through his apartment getting ready then hobbled down the stairs. Dejá vu he thought. Out on the street, he hurried past Jedediah, still chanting the hymn that had filled the town the day before. Police cars and an ambulance rushed by Altan and he wished he could move that fast. He had to see Edith, talk to her, relieve his guilt.

Upon arriving to the library, Altan noticed the restless, noisy crowd - had they stayed the night? What did they want with Edith and her books? A library was a place of peace and knowledge, not of ignorance and harassment. Altan joined them, again attempting to push through.

"-dead!"

"What?"

"They said she's dead!"

"Who's dead?"

"Some old lady."

"The librarian."

"The librarian?"

"The librarian."

"Dead?"

"Yes!"

"Shame."

Dead? Dead? Altan seemed to sag, weighted down with bitterness and grief, more so than normal for a 70-year-old man. He fell away and drifted back into the cruel landscape of the city. The mosque was gone - was Allah gone? Edith was gone - was his dignity gone? Was his heart? His kahve cart was still around - he could continue to sell his coffee, make money, spend money, provide for himself...

Battered and maimed, as one is when one experiences a great loss, Altan shuffled back to the tower with this knowledge. The simple idea of materialism was the only thing that tied him to humanity now.

"Gülü seven dikenine katlanır" - Who loves a rose will endure its thorns

Altan was late to get up this morning. It was the weekend, it was rainy, and he ran his own business, so there was no need to worry. Though he did feel guilty about missing the first two prayers of the day. So he bowed his head, asked Allah for forgiveness, then shuffled across the room to poke around in the kitchen and perhaps find something to eat.

Shouts, the sound of breaking glass, and other odd noises floated up Wilshire Tower and played about the windows of the residents inside. Altan didn't think anything sounded out of the ordinary from the usual back alley commotion. The rain deadened the noises anyhow, and Altan settled down to peruse Heating and Air: A Beginners Guide. It occurred to him the other day that he lacked in this area of maintenance, and rifling through a few old boxes, he found the solution to his problem.

As soon as he turned to the first page, something in his mind clicked... Ms. Evans! It came flooding back now, that she asked him to fix her heater, him not knowing how, his forgetting their appointment, and now he feared for his life. People say many more things around a person who they think can't understand them than around someone who they think can. Atlan, being Turkish and old, heard a lot of things of that sort, some of which were about Ms. Evans, none of which were good (being chased out of the library by a white-haired midget with a letter knife was a common one). Altan sat frozen for a long while, deciding whether he should face her or flee the country. A bright flash and a sharp crack broke his trance.

Immediately the screams from the street grew in number and volume. Altan turned his head toward the window, but before his gaze reached the crowd below, his eyes caught a sea of brilliant flames dancing in the sputtering rain.

"Bok!" Altan cursed in his native tongue, "No, no, no, Allah not now..." Altan fell to the floor, in prayer before he hit the ground. Within seconds, he was up again moving as fast as he could toward the door. He grabbed his coat just before he slammed the door shut and rumbled down the stairs. Oh, his legs hurt, arthritis was painful, but there was no time to wait for the elevator - the mosque was on fire and the only conclusion that Altan could come to in his hasty thinking was that the world was about to end!

Flying through the exit of Wilshire tower, Altan landed among chaos. Ragged men, naked women, and Asians pushed past him hurriedly, some shouting, some shrieking, some with cameras glued to their faces, clicking away. It was like one of those bizarre dreams where nothing going on makes sense, yet that wasn't important; the dreamer's mission and purpose unified and organized the nonsense so that it wasn't distracting. At this point in time, surrounded by madness, Altan's mission was to find Edith E. Evans before it was too late.