The café is a drafty perch for spying on the nearly vacant city. Crows tap dance on the metal plates over the rooftop terrace.

A boy with an accordion embraces his friend and they wander together into the fog. Men gather in circles, break into smaller groups, reconvene, pace one or two steps in and out of conversations. Their shoulders are high in the wind and cold, their cigarettes ever-present on lips or between fingers. They watch a single set of tourists–a woman with dreadlocks and her bearded companion.

Two young boys skip after a cop who totes a box of sugar cubes. Two others, entrusted to the task of buying four loaves of bread, strut home with their jackets unzipped and their shoulders tossed back. The wind blows their lapels up and the jackets blow off of them like capes.  Glancing at each other, they don’t dare to shiver or bundle up, but they do silently agree to walk faster.

Everyone awaits the still-distant summer.

–Selcuk, Turkey.