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serhat tutkal flash nonfiction september 2025

I remember a little kid who spent his summers at his grandparents’ house.

He stayed out most of the day, but he really liked their house. He was fascinated with the backyard, a backyard without fences or anything separating it from the path leading to the mountains. He used to take a walk to the mountains. He loved that.

He spent most of his days going around mountains, eating lots of blackberries. He drank water from the river. When it was late, he came back to play football with other kids on the street. They set up two stones as goalposts on either side of the street. He thought the games were fun.

At night, he sat on the small balcony that served as the entrance to the house. He read whatever books he had brought with him from the city. Having no TV in the house didn’t bother him at all. His grandmother sometimes complained that he was wasting too much electricity, but she let him read his books anyway.

Unless it was one of those nights.

On those nights, they had to turn off all the lights. Then, close the curtains tight. And get away from the windows. The kid knew that he shouldn’t make loud noises. He knew he should act as if he didn’t exist. They all acted as if the house didn’t exist. Or the neighborhood. Or the city. Or the entire people. They didn’t exist according to official reports, so they had to act accordingly. The kid knew it was time to make himself invisible, imperceptible, inaudible.

Then, the noise started. Guns screamed. Humans screamed. Animals screamed. The kid didn’t know which side the screaming guy was on. He learned that dying men scream alike. He was scared. He was embarrassed by his fear, but he couldn’t help it. He hid under the divan. He remembered when his grandfather said, “If you recite Al-Nas and Al-Falaq, you will be protected from anything.” He had already memorized them even though he didn’t understand Arabic.

The kid started murmuring with a Basmalah, “Qul auzu birabbin nas…” Then, “Qul auzu birabbil falaq…” He repeated all the verses in Arabic. Again. “Al-Nas,” “Al-Falaq.” He didn’t understand what he was saying, but he kept saying it. The noise went on. People screamed. The kid repeated Arabic words.

The noise died down. Just like other similar nights. The kid was fine.

He planned to go on with his day after sunrise. Unless there was curfew. Curfews could last for days. He read when this happened. He never had many books with him, so he read the same books again and again.

 The night the kid violated curfew, he wanted to watch the final game of Turkish Sports Writers Association Cup between two major İstanbul football teams: Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe. He walked a couple of minutes to his friend’s house, just down the street towards the feeble stream.

After the game, he wanted to go back home. His friend’s mother told him he should stay, but the kid thought it wasn’t a big deal. He left the house to go home. Then, he heard the noise created by lots of gunshots.

His mother and aunts told this story so many times that he isn’t sure if he remembers it or if he just recreated the whole thing based on what he was told. What he thinks he remembers is that he hid behind the stone wall, terrified, waiting for the shots to stop. They were most likely just warning shots. Then, a bright light emerged from an army vehicle. The kid put his hands up and slowly walked towards the vehicle. He vaguely recalls a couple of surprised soldiers. But who knows if he just made this up at some point? He barely remembers his aunt coming from the house. He remembers returning home. He doesn’t think he knew how to recite “Al-Nas” and “Al-Falaq” at the time; he must have learned that later.

When the kid played football in that street, another kid screamed, “Tank!” Then, they took the ball and the four stones that served as goalposts and ran. They returned after the tank passed. They put the stones back and continued playing. None of them were surprised. Tanks passed at least once a day.

If you ask me now, I’ll tell you the kid doesn’t exist anymore. I’ll tell you he became a grown man.

I won’t tell you that he still remembers how to recite “Al-Nas” and “Al-Falaq.”


Serhat Tutkal is a Kurdish academic. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher funded by the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (Secihti) in Mexico. He has a PhD from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) with a dissertation on the legitimation and delegitimation of Colombian state violence. He teaches courses on armed conflicts, dehumanization, racism, colonialism, and qualitative research methods. You can find him on Mastodon and Bluesky.

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serhat tutkal flash nonfiction november 2024

I prefer to be considered a particular person, although I’m from Nowhere.  Where I come from doesn’t exist. This creates a confusing situation since logic dictates that everyone come from somewhere. It looks like I defy logic. I come from Nowhere. It has been told to me many times, by many authorities, and government officials, and all sorts of serious people in their decent suits. I see no reason to doubt them. I’d rather doubt your logic.

Strangely, I don’t have a language. People where I’m from speak in a nonexistent language. It has been stated by many experts and authorities, and there is no reason to doubt them. But I also don’t speak much of the nonexistent language. I speak some existing languages, but I cannot call any of them my native language. As a result, I have no language of my own. I borrow other people’s languages. I speak weirdly with my unusual accent and occasional pronunciation errors. I guess everyone assumes I must be speaking well in some other language. I don’t. To me, every language is a foreign language. Every word I utter is borrowed. I have no words of my own.

I speak in these foreign languages in my head when I take walks. They become entangled, creating a creole language that would be unintelligible to nearly everyone else. Maybe that is why I like talking to myself. I also like walking. I usually combine these two favorite activities of mine.

If I have to move from one place to another, I always prefer to walk. I enjoy walking the most when it isn’t directed towards the aim of arriving somewhere. Because when you aren’t walking towards somewhere, it can be said that you’re walking to Nowhere. So, I know that if I don’t walk towards a specific place and I still insist on walking, I’ll eventually arrive Nowhere. And that is where I’m from. I go out and walk aimlessly, secretly hoping that I may eventually visit my hometown: Nowhere. I miss Nowhere. All these somewheres have been tiring me for quite some time now. They are very noisy and full of unpleasant faces.

I never get to visit my Nowhere though. Sometimes I find myself in Nowheres that are not exactly like mine. I may see nonpeople there, sitting on both sides of the long street that runs through Nowhere; but they won’t be sitting on short stools. That is how I know immediately that this isn’t my Nowhere. They may drink something, but it won’t look like black tea. They may speak some nonexistent languages, but I won’t be familiar with them. “I’m at someone else’s Nowhere again”, I say to myself when this happens. It’s still good to visit Nowheres even when they’re different than mine. The familiarity of Nowheres is usually nice. But not always. Not when I see an intruder, for example. The intruders are also all too familiar to me, but there is nothing pleasant about them.

The intruders are actual persons in a Nowhere full of nonpeople. There are always some of them in Nowheres, but you usually manage to avoid them. They come from somewhere, you see, and they speak existing languages. They tend to wear nice uniforms. They are hostile to nonpeople wherever they find them. They can smell us. It doesn’t matter that I’m not from this particular Nowhere. Nonpeople are nonpeople. The intruders know that. They don’t like being in a Nowhere. They take it out on us.

You can also see these intruders in existing places. That is where they come from, after all. They look at us with disdain, they can tell that we are one of the nonpeople. They know we come from Nowhere and we don’t belong here. We don’t belong anywhere, except for Nowhere, obviously. They make us feel that. They talk about their somewheres, and their somethings, and their someones with absolute confidence. We can’t talk about our Nowhere, and our nothing, and our nonpeople with the same confidence. We become silent. Our weirdly pronounced foreign words become reserved for our conversations inside our heads. Until we decide to write them down.

Let us nonpeople take long walks whenever we can. It may get us Nowhere.


Serhat Tutkal is a Kurdish academic. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. He has a PhD from Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) with a dissertation on the legitimation and delegitimation of Colombian state violence. He teaches courses on armed conflicts, dehumanization, racism, colonialism, and qualitative research methods. Find him on Mastodon at fediscience.org/@SerhatTutkal and on Bluesky at serhattutkal.bsky.social.