An Excerpt from “Once upon a Time in Turkey”

Our Delicious Wall

“What do you have in your mouth, darling?”

Not a peep from me. All the guests stopped talking and started to look at me.

“Sweetie, are you eating something?”

“No, Dad!” (It was no lie. I really wasn’t eating anything. I was only licking something.)

When Dad approached me, I moved my hand behind my back, trying in vain to hide the chunk of lime I had dug out of our largest living room wall. It had not been painted over yet. My secret was out!

“But Sweetie, that thing is not good for you.”

“Dad, this is so delicious!”

I was very little then. My father told me years later that I had a serious calcium deficiency since my birth. My mother was there when he shared with me the background of her pregnancy: her mother was suffering from late-stage ovarian cancer when Mom found out she was pregnant. While their first-born, my brother came to this world as a very healthy, fully developed baby, I was delivered pre-maturely, barely grown. Just like throughout her pregnancy with me, also during my grandmother’s illness, Mom was not able to eat properly.

The only exposed unpainted wall in our living room had all I needed, apparently . . . to meet my little body’s cravings for calcium.

~ ~ ~ ~

This short story is from my pending book of autobiographical fiction/fictional autobiography, Once upon a Time in Turkey . . .