“I wanted to drink that freedom in a rakı glass, eat it stuffed in my dolma, smoke it from a nargile pipe. I wanted to breathe it in at the Galata Tower in Istanbul, lick it off from the travertine shelves in Pammukale, smell it at the species bazaar in Çanakkale, laugh it with my friends on a ferry crossing Bosphorus Strait, ride it on a Trojan horse from Ephesus to Antalya, kiss it on a promenade in Izmir, and dance it with the whirling dervishes of Konya, till there was no place in my body and mind that still belonged to Tiger. Freedom—it tasted better than baklava with almonds and honey, better than fresh fruit wine from Şirince, better than… love.”
HAPPY EVER(YWHERE) AFTER, ELENA LEMAN
