The package arrives. Thrown onto the sloping staircase. The Halloween kids mocked. Their steps were right-angled, ours nearly a slide. Laughter rang out. An adult hushed them, we might feel ashamed. Softly to the child.
Feels like we’re on a sloppy slide since we fled. Fled our country. The fact we had to flee shows… we lived in a worse place. Worse in one way, better in others. Doesn’t matter. By fleeing, we accept the superiority of the country we sledded to. Home country was sloppy. Like my current staircase.
*
The delivery guy just tossed it here. The package from Mother. Looks like our staircase, but sloppier. Shapeless. Not a box. Thick black trash bag. Survived a rough trip across the Atlantic, small enough to avoid extra charges. What’s nice? The bag wraps tight around its contents, no extra room, no air left. Mom says, when you cross the ocean, weight doesn’t matter—size does. Postal service prioritizes cubic measurements over grams.
To be a little more economical… my mother found a way to save space in packages. Vacuum seal storage bags. Takes whatever can shrink. Mostly new clothes. Knows my favorite clothing store back home. Aware I don’t like fashion here. Fashionable Turkish clothes sealed, air vacuumed out. Then into a big, thick black trash bag. Wrapped with heavy brown tape. Turns into the ugliest package ever, completely hiding what’s inside. When it arrives, looks like we’ve left trash on our doorstep.
*
Whenever Mom’s packages arrive, they always bring back strange memories. The last one I received reminded me of that early morning I spent waiting in line to get my visa for a summer school program in Greece focused on Ancient Greek Drama. Standing in that queue felt like a rite of passage; I was hopeful for permission to step into the world of the ancients. I arrived at the consulate around 5 a.m., thinking I would be the first in line, but I quickly realized I was just one of many waiting there.
A Greek man in a brown suit appeared from the office to distribute slips of paper with numbers—our golden tickets for the day. I was anxiously hoping to get one. Those who didn’t receive a slip were making quite a scene. The officer inside seemed to know each of their stories well and wasn’t shy about sending them away with a firm “no.” It felt like we were all on the edge of a life-changing moment, as if we were contestants in some competition, ready to either win or face elimination. I was asking for a two-week stay, while others were hoping for just a couple of days. It made me wonder which duration of stay would bring the contestant more points.
I noticed a dung beetle crawling across the officer’s suit. Usually, I would have pointed it out, but I was feeling frustrated with him for turning the last few people away and chose to remain silent, watching where the beetle would go. Plus, I knew I had to wait at least two more hours until the doors opened, and I needed something to occupy my time.
Finally, it was my turn to enter the building, where they allowed only a few applicants inside at a time. Inside, another officer was grilling the guy ahead of me about his urgency for a visa. It turned out that he’d just received one the week before for a couple of days. “What’s the rush?” the officer probed. The man, a truck company owner, as I could gather, fumbled through his explanation of a border incident in which Greek police found a stowaway in his vehicle. “He must have made a hole in the tarp,” he said sheepishly. He needed to appear in the court in Athens.
With a laugh and a heavy Greek accent, the officer responded, “Oh, this reminds me of a song I know in Turkish,” and then broke into song with a chuckle, “It dripped ‘plink’ onto my tent!” His laughter was infectious, making the whole situation feel a lot less grim than it actually was. I held myself back from laughing.
*
The political situation in Turkey had worsened significantly. Friends began leaving, one by one. The president tightened his grip on power. One friend casually mentioned that she had lost her passport, but it symbolized so much more. What does it mean when home feels like a cage? All for merely signing a petition.
Another friend planned to escape on a boat across the Aegean, tired of her life. At 40, she was still living with her parents, facing job rejections that piled up like refuse ever since the government began its witch hunt. She intended to leave one night, slipping away with Syrian refugees from a hidden cove, all while worrying about the family she would leave behind.
I started to question my fate. Was my passport safe? Was I really better off? I had a job, but it felt like a ticking clock, counting down to an uncertain future. Was risking everything worth it? My thoughts raced.
I kept remembering the truck driver I encountered in the visa line. Who was hiding inside that truck? What was their story? I had never thought about them before. Where were they now? Invisible. Were they escaping Turkey, or was it another nightmare? What motivated them?
“I can’t do that,” I said out loud one night, waking up from a dream.
*
I stood at the Kreuzberg train station, phone vibrating in my pocket. The call was for my interrogation. I knew it.
My theater troupe and I were on tour, sharing our play that exposed the dark underbelly of human rights violations before Turkey’s 1980 military coup.
A documentary piece. In the final scene, I narrated the story of characters herded onto trains, shadows cast against cold white mountains, discarded in the dead of night.
No, this wasn’t a dream; it was a summons. Called back to Turkey to explain why I had the audacity to advocate for peace and demand retribution for those who violated it.
Sometimes I pondered how much easier life might have been if I had understood when to keep quiet. Yet, I was born with a relentless monster of conscience within my ribcage, screaming through its bars day and night.
The voice on the other end of the phone wasn’t negotiating; it was threatening me to be there immediately. Impossible, I said. Even if I wanted to. I’d be back in two days anyway. Called my lawyer: “It has started. Let’s prepare for what comes next.”
My friends, hosting the cast with me in Berlin, asked me to stay. I explained that I couldn’t. Family back home. Didn’t want to leave as if a fugitive. Needed to return. Be with my family. Dignity in the situation. Even if I had to leave, I had to leave with dignity.
*
I went back. I didn’t back down. I shouldn’t have. I fought as hard as I could. But eventually, I had to agree to leave—this time by my own choice. That made it even more difficult.
*
The night of fugue was tense. Our luggage was packed, and my mother and mother-in-law guarded it as if it were gold. My husband, my son, and I were at the hospital, where my son struggled on an oxygen machine, battling whooping cough. I was torn, worried it might be croup, meaning we couldn’t leave until he could breathe properly again.
Maybe this was a sign, a reason to stay. But then the doctor reassured us, saying after about an hour that we could go.
When we returned home to pick up the luggage, the grandmothers were anxious, their eyes filled with worry. They would have preferred a moment to clink spoons against tea glasses before sending us off into the unknown.
As we exchanged glances filled with uncertainty, I wondered if we had made the right choice. My mother fretted over a toy my son had left behind—did he want it? She’d also packed some medicine for his motion sickness. Was it safe for him to fly? Should we postpone?
Then I spoke sharply, “Mom, is this what we’re worrying about right now?”
My husband chimed in, “He’s not motion sick; he has a cold. We’ll take everything we can. Thank you.”
The moms stayed behind. Had they not, the pain wouldn’t have lingered on either side. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law came along. No one asked what was next. Silence. We all wished we could pass through security without our passports being confiscated. Dreaming of a safer future.
Finally passed security. Unthinkingly wandered to the duty-free shop. Packages of Turkish delight. For people we didn’t yet know. Our flight was late. Time stretched. A moment to sit down. Start worrying. About the future.
*
Our tickets were prebought by the rescue organization. No changing seats. We were lucky to sit together on the first flight, and we hoped for the same on the second.
We landed in Frankfurt late. They were calling our names—last boarding calls. As we rushed, security chased us down. They took us to a corner, swiped our clothes, collecting DNA samples.
Boarding the plane felt worse than Istanbul. All eyes are on us, like we chose to be the last ones there.
We are all assigned different seats. The hostess insisted we sit down for takeoff. I explained, our 4.5-year-old couldn’t fly alone for 10 hours. It might have made sense, maybe.
They moved my husband somewhere else and asked a passenger at the back if she could swap for a seat in front. I got to sit next to my son. Window seat. Man in the aisle, deep into his movies, as my son fell asleep, breathing heavily. There was finally no one to notice me. Finally, I could have a moment to feel afraid and unhappy.
In Turkey, we pour water after the departed for safe journeys. Mothers didn’t have time to do that for us. My tears dripped onto my son’s head, farewelling our own journey over the Atlantic.
We had almost two hours before we landed in Newark. My son woke up, puking everywhere. Panic. I wanted him to go to the toilet, but the man in the aisle seat was still asleep. I pressed the call button above for the flight attendant. No one came. Grabbed the sick bag, pushed it to his mouth as he coughed. My husband must’ve heard—rushed over. Asked for the bag, the one with the motion sickness pills. Too late, I said. He nonetheless peeked inside, found freshly washed clothes. We must have woken the man up. He headed to the bathroom. We changed my son quietly.
*
I look forward to receiving my mother’s packages a couple of times a year. Vacuum-sealed plushies and dresses, books, magazines, dry candies from home. No matter how messy the package looks. Indecorous. They remind me of our journey—shapeless, bandaged, souls sucked out. But always carrying a pinch of dignity and a taste of home.
Burcu Seyben is an asylee academic, playwright, director, and writer of creative non-fiction from Türkiye. Since 2017 Seyben has been rebuilding her life and writing in the US. Her creative non-fiction has appeared in The RavensPerch, The Brussels Review, Door is a Jar. Synkroniciti, and The Manifest Station literary magazines.
