{"id":8375,"date":"2026-06-26T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/?p=8375"},"modified":"2026-06-04T15:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T06:14:10","slug":"baris-noah-episode-16-ulus-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/baris-noah-episode-16-ulus-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Episode 16 \u2014 A Morning Toward the Station in Ulus, Ankara | The Day He Still Couldn\u2019t Decide Whether to Go Forward or Turn Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\n\n

Old places have a way of holding feelings that haven\u2019t yet settled.
Morning in Ankara seemed to have a different age depending on where you stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u0131z\u0131lay woke early, already stirred by the movement of people. But as Bar\u0131\u015f drew closer to Ulus, the city\u2019s time seemed to slow a little. Stone walls, old signs, shutters half-open over shopfronts. A new day had begun, yet something older than yesterday still remained there, quiet and unfinished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f was walking downhill toward Ulus.
Even to himself, he couldn\u2019t quite explain why he had come this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He could have gone home from K\u0131z\u0131lay.
He could have turned down another street.
Still, there was only one feeling inside him.
If he was going to the station, this was the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not that he had decided to go there.
Not exactly.
He had only become unable to keep looking away from the direction where the station was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So he walked.
Not through a place like K\u0131z\u0131lay, where people carried you along,
but toward older, quieter streets,
where thoughts were less easily left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Bar\u0131\u015f
A silent morning road before the city fully awakens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The air in Ulus carried the smell of dry stone and morning bread.
The toasted scent of simit baking somewhere.
The smell of metal not yet warmed by the day.
The sound of an old wooden door opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the street, a man was setting chairs outside a shop, moving with a face that belonged to no hurry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In K\u0131z\u0131lay, everyone had been heading toward now.
But in Ulus, behind every movement, there seemed to be a longer stretch of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This city was not simply old.
It was a place where old things had not yet finished their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was what Bar\u0131\u015f thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he thought of his father, places like this felt closer than new ones.
The map.
The shoes.
His mother\u2019s silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of them belonged to the past, and yet none of them had fully ended.
The morning in Ulus felt like that.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Traditional
The street had not fully awakened yet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When he turned a corner, he saw steam rising in front of a small tea shop.
Behind the fogged glass, several tea glasses had been lined up.
Outside the shop were two worn wooden chairs.
An old man sat in one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wore a gray jacket, his cane resting upright against his knee, a glass of tea in one hand as if he had only just begun drinking.
Deep lines marked his face. But he didn\u2019t look tired.
There was a quietness to him, like stone that had spent a long time in the wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f was about to pass by, then slowed a little.
The old man was looking at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not watching him closely.
Not calling him over.
Just looking, as if he knew the kind of person who didn\u2019t know where he was going.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Elderly
He looked toward the street as if time itself were passing by.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
\n

\u201cToward the station?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The old man\u2019s voice was low and dry.
But not cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f stopped without meaning to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c\u2026I don\u2019t know yet.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After saying it, he almost found it strange himself.
The question had been about direction.
Not his life.
But that was the answer that came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old man\u2019s mouth softened, just a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cA lot of people come toward the station without knowing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f said nothing.
Inside the tea shop, a spoon touched glass with a faint sound.
Across the street, a man pushing a cart moved slowly past.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Quiet
The city had not fully awakened yet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Ulus in the morning was quiet.
But not still.
Only unhurried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old man took a sip of tea and looked up at the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWhen I was young, I thought departure was the big thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He spoke almost to himself.
As if talking to Bar\u0131\u015f, and at the same time to some earlier version of himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBut it isn\u2019t. The big thing isn\u2019t leaving.
It\u2019s deciding not to go back first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The words dropped straight into Bar\u0131\u015f.
He looked at the old man.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cDeciding not to go back\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The old man nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe station comes after that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

For a moment, the air in Ulus seemed to change.
It wasn\u2019t that he had been told something new.
But something inside him, still vague until then, had been given another shape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In K\u0131z\u0131lay, he had been stuck between going forward and going back.
At the bus stop, drinking tea, he had thought about the difference between a place to go and a place one wanted to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, in this older air of Ulus, the question had shifted a little.
Not whether to go forward or back.
Whether he would no longer go back.
That came first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time, he understood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAre you going to the station?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f asked quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old man didn\u2019t smile.
He only looked at his tea glass and said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cNot today. I\u2019ve gone enough times.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f didn\u2019t understand right away.
Maybe he meant when he was young.
Maybe it was a metaphor.
Maybe he simply meant the number of times he had actually gone to the station.
But the uncertainty stayed with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThen why are you here?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The old man looked down the street.
People were beginning to increase, little by little.
A shutter rattled open in front of a shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBecause people heading to the station sometimes pass through here.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It sounded like an explanation.
And not like one.
Was he waiting?
Watching?
Remembering?
Nothing was clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But someone like that suited Ulus.
In a place where old things had not yet finished their work,
people who did not clearly name their own purpose seemed more natural.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f looked down the street ahead.
If he kept going, he would come out toward the station.
He was still close enough to turn back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared to when he had left home, something in him was a little lighter.
But lightness was not the same as being able to move forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep inside, the fear was still there.
What if he found nothing?
Would following his father really lead anywhere?
Or would it only make the emptiness wider?
He still didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cYou look afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The old man said it plainly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f gave a faint, dry smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cDo I?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cYou do. But it isn\u2019t a bad face.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Something in those words helped.
Not encouragement.
Not a push.
Still, it felt as if his uncertainty had been recognized as something other than weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A wind crossed the street.
Unlike the wind in K\u0131z\u0131lay, the wind in Ulus carried the smell of old stone.
It didn\u2019t push.
It reminded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bar\u0131\u015f breathed in slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201c\u2026Is the station straight ahead?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Only after hearing his own words did he understand.
It was not resolve yet.
But it was no longer only hesitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old man lightly pointed down the street with the tip of his cane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cStraight ahead. But not many people can go straight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Again, he said something unclear.
And yet, strangely, it didn\u2019t irritate Bar\u0131\u015f.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He nodded once.
Then he left the tea shop behind and began walking down the street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a few steps, he looked back.
The old man was no longer looking at him.
Tea glass in hand, he was watching the other side of the street.
As if he had not been waiting for Bar\u0131\u015f at all.
As if Bar\u0131\u015f had simply passed through a piece of time in which the old man had always been sitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason, the image stayed with him.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Young
The street was quieter than his thoughts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Morning in Ulus had not fully become new.
The smell of yesterday.
Footsteps from someone much further back.
Time that had never found words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The day began while holding all of that together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Bar\u0131\u015f walked, he thought.
Whether he was heading to the station was still not clear.
But at the very least, he was no longer walking in order to go home.
That difference was much larger than it had been yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From somewhere ahead, he heard the distant creak of metal.
Maybe it really came from the station.
Maybe it was only the shutter of another shop.
He couldn\u2019t tell.
But to Bar\u0131\u015f now, it sounded a little more meaningful than an ordinary noise of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did not stop walking.
There was still no reason.
Still no certainty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet\u2014
in the smell of an old city, a person sometimes knows one thing before anything else:
that he is already a little further ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bar\u0131\u015f walks through the quiet streets of Ulus on a cold Ankara morning, unable to decide whether he is moving toward departure or simply drifting deeper into something he cannot yet understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9590,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"swell_btn_cv_data":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[982,981],"tags":[1013,1141,1412,1135,1413],"class_list":["post-8375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baris-and-noah","category-story","tag-baris-and-noah","tag-emotional-journey","tag-quiet-streets","tag-turkish-atmosphere","tag-ulus-ankara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9979,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8375\/revisions\/9979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwatch.tokyo\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}