Səhnə Arxası

Every day we log into the same chat. Everyone knows each other. Aha, a new girl has shown up. Everyone launches an attack from their own side. If she replies to someone, the others back off. The guy she replied to moves her from the general chat into a private one. That girl never writes in the general chat again. Online jealousy. And on the server, Rafet El Roman is singing.

A girl from my class is singing Rafet's song: "hiç utanmadık seninle mhmhmhm" — out of modesty she skips the word "sevişerken" ("while making love") and says it only in her head... At the last bell we dance to "Seni seviyorum". You could ride a bicycle through the gap between me and the girl. "...ve ooooo an geliiir deeee" ("...and that moment comes"). That moment never came...

At university everyone considers themselves talented. "Yeni Ulduz" ("New Star") is all the rage. Everyone is humming songs everywhere. You open a classroom door and someone has got carried away, banging the piano like a drum and singing at the top of their lungs. None of those kids became a "New Star", though :( No, one did. In "Yeni Ulduz 5"!

I take the number 56 bus to the Arts University. I have 1 manat in my pocket. 20 qapiks to get there, 30 qapiks for a doner from Faig, 30 qapiks for a single West cigarette from the old man from Shaki, 20 qapiks to get back. An acquaintance gets on the bus — no problem, I'll have a hamburger instead; another one gets on — I'll smoke less; two get on at once — who am I going to borrow money from to get home?! Why is the Arts University located before all the others?!.. "...sonra neden?!" ("...and then why?!")...

At university a girl is in love with me. Madly in love. Whenever I look up, she's watching me from the second-floor window. She had filled a whole notebook with writing about me. She described my smoking, my walk, my messy hair so poetically that I almost fell in love with myself. But I couldn't fall in love with her. Before New Year she bought me a present. A teddy bear as big as me. You'd have been annoyed too. I snapped at her. I said, what are you, Father Frost? I never saw her again after that. Never. She stopped coming to university. She switched to distance learning and disappeared. And in the background, Rafet El Roman was always singing...