Taksim Square is not a place that rewards timidity or indecision. The crowds are always thick, fluid, passing. One stitched move, one moment of hesitation, and the crowds run right over you, right past you.

Why? Because there’s always something new: The thump of street musicians, the cries of demonstrators, students passing out literature, the sideline and forefront politicos decrying, housewives, tourists busy buying, possible celebrities, daytrippers and dreamers alike, everything in cantos, at odds, hopelessly out of hand, out of season, and possibly a bomb going off at any time. The journalists, bloggers  and tweeters ready to tweet… In the street, the trolley car snakes its way, regardless of who or what is blocking its way on the hour, every hour. And the police always ready, in case things get too out of hand, to take at least one of the rioters to jail.

This sullen, exuberant march of events doesn’t stand in your way; it has very little time for you: They race on past, on their way to headlines around the world. You have that bracing feeling that anything could happen at any moment; world-shattering, news-making events lie waiting to explode near the Republic monument, or nearby Gezi Par.

Stand up, be counted, or get out of the way.

That winter afternoon, Onur felt this excitement while sitting in a café just off Istiklal. He had come by dolmus from Besiktas. He was a fan of that club, and noticed with some pride the new stadium under construction as the dolmus rolled up the hill. Arriving in Taksim, he walked across the broad, flat square, passing Gezi Park, where all the protests had gone on the year before. The trees were all stark, bare, and the hillsides were bare, recovering from the city’s worst snow in twenty years.

Entering Istiklal Caddesi, with the sunlight glaring over the bobbing heads of the crowds, the smoky scent of chestnuts, Onur breathed a happy sigh. The winter was over, conquered, finished. Something exciting, even revolutionary, was bound to happen on such a day!

An hour or so later, sitting at the café, sipping a cup of tea, puffing scented tobacco from a nargile, Onur was already bored, and thinking about his boredom. He was often bored of late, and longed for action. He listened, taking in Taksim’s grand, histrionic rhythms, as nearby, people gathered ‘round the street musicians, processing desires, singing in strident voices. Usually there were some sort of protest, or commemoration, or celebration. It was the Chinese New Year, and he’d read there would be some festivities, but he couldn’t remember where. It was the Year of the Goat, or Ram, or Sheep. None of that mattered to him; there was nowhere to hang his hat in the Chinese New Year.

He should start something up, he thought. In a bookshop earlier, he’d browsed political texts, his restless mind fishing for some spark that would fly off the shelves, setting the wheels in motion. But nothing jumped out at him. It was a fine, sunny afternoon, with the snow melting and all this energy pouring from the soil, from the busy square, all the expired energies suffusing him, surrounding him. And yet they produced nothing in him, nothing! He felt his energies expelling with the nargile smoke, fragmentary, dissipated.

Sometime later, Onur found himself in a formal, cheerless conversation with an elderly gentleman who introduced himself as a retired sailor.

“May I ask about your education?” the retired sailor asked, with a certain dignity. “Ah, you are a university student. And what is your area of study? What do you hope to do after you have completed your studies?”

Without giving Onur a chance to answer (not that he had much to say on the matter anyway) the old mariner launched into his own story. He had spent many years at sea, even in America, where he’d been to the naval facilities at San Diego.

 “How many languages do you speak?” he went on. “Myself, I can speak English, German, Frances, even a bit of Russian. Do you want to hear me speak Russian? Go on, ask me!”

Onur, who knew no Russian, didn’t take up this challenge. Instead, he spoke with feigned enthusiasm about wanting to improve his English, and perhaps to study abroad.

“Where would you like to go?” the sailor asked. “I’ve been everywhere! Name a place and I have probably been there. Almost every country in Europe, America, the Middle East, the Far East … ah, there’s a whole world out there, young man! It’s all out there, waiting. Nothing is stopping you, if you have the right approach. It all starts here: Here!” He tapped his temple, indicating the interior origins of a supreme mentality.

“I don’t know,” Onur said. Alas! He was bored again. “I think Turkey is the best country,” he said, with a gusting, luminous melancholy.

“Ah, a nationalist!” the old sailor cried. He looked his young compatriot with  hard interest, a renewed skepticism. “Are you one of those who beat the loyalists’ drum to death? Well, it’s already dead, trust me! Which football club do you support? Me, I’m a Fenerbahce man. I bleed blue and gold.” He unrolled a sleeve and displayed a broad, hairy forearm, as if to demonstrate medical proof of his loyalty.

“I don’t like football,” Onur said. “I mean – with respect, uncle, it’s not so interesting to me.”

“Well, now,” said the old sailor, again changing his tone. “So you don’t want to see the world. You don’t like football. Do you have a girlfriend at least?”

“No,” said Onur. Actually this was true, at the moment. They had broken up the night before.

“You’re too young to be so – bored with life!” The sailor said, with some exasperation, some triumph. “Yes, that’s it! Bored! You have your whole life ahead! Why waste time sitting here with your nargile, melancholy, brooding about … your boredom! You must find take some interest in life.”

Nearby, the street performance continued, and Onur was only half listening to the stranger. Instead, he listened as one song ended, another began, and the sound of the drum beating, of shoes and boots striking the pavement, and the chorus of voices echoed in the street.

“I don’t know,” Onur muttered. He rose to pay.

“Well, you’re young, you have time,” the retired sailor said, concluding the sermon, and patting Onur on the shoulder. “Memnum oldum. Iyi gunler!”

Onur walked back out to Istiklal Caddesi. Already the brilliant late afternoon sunshine had passed. It was getting colder. The winter wasn’t done yet.

He walked back out to the square, passing groups of shoppers and tourists. There would be no revolution that afternoon, or so it seemed. Or maybe it would happen later, after he went home to his flat. Anyway, things always seemed to happen when he wasn’t there. Like that time the police killed that boy – the young boy, what was his name? Baris? Yes, Baris. The boy was accidentally struck by a canister of tear gas fired by the police at the protesters while the boy was out buying bread. For days and weeks afterward, people had demonstrated, holding up pictures of the boy and chanting his name … “Baris!” “Baris!”

He wondered why something like that never happened to him. Why couldn’t he pass as an innocent bystander, at least? He could take a stray bullet, if nothing else! Why couldn’t he be there when it all happened?

 But then, Onur thought about the protesters. He didn’t know where he stood. On one hand, he wasn’t a big supporter of the president, but he didn’t like the protesters either. They seemed amateurish in their methods, dirty, camping out in the park with their tents, chanting the same old slogans. Nobody had any great things to say, there were no great speeches.

He needed a great speech to inspire him.

Also, he had to admit to himself that he was timid when it came to confrontation. He was intimidated by the prospect of police and tear gas, and the thought of being arrested terrified him.

All of these strands of thoughts went through Onur’s mind as he walked across the square, leaving the excitement of the crowds, the pulse and prospect of teeming revolution, behind. He looked over at the Republic monument, with Ataturk stretching out a hand, an eye toward his country, and to the future.

 At the same time, he brushed past a pretty brunette, with a smart black scarf and petticoat. He tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t notice him, and continued on. He looked back just in time to see her meeting a friend. She had nice, long legs.

 Onur kept walking until he reached the buses that were going back down the hill to Besiktas.

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James Tressler a writer and teacher whose books, including “Letters from Istanbul, Vols. 1 and 2,” can be found at Lulu.com. He lives in Istanbul.