She was a nucleus of light

Hunting Time

"Pat pat," Cemal had dropped his team in the mountains two days earlier, and tough days had begun. It was hunting season...

"You know snails, the ones that come out when it rains, leaving a bright white, mucus-like trail wherever they go, carrying their homes on their backs. Just like snails, every creature leaves a trail, no matter the terrain—sand, grass, rocky, muddy, wet, dry. The trick is being able to see these tracks. Whatever you're tracking—human, animal, male, female, heavy, light, armed, unarmed, tired, energetic. Did they sit, lie down, crawl, run, walk, plant a mine? How many of them are there? If you track well, you can see all of this. Especially in the morning and afternoon, when the sun's rays are not too direct, the tracks become more visible."

While Cemal was intently tracking, he was also giving tracking lessons to one of the inexperienced commandos unfamiliar with these mountains, who had replaced Kerem and his two wounded soldiers.

Just ahead on the right, when İsmail suddenly extended his left hand backwards, showing his palm in a stop signal, Cemal said, "Looks like our handsome guy saw something." He made a quiet gesture by bringing his left index finger to his lips. To the person next to him, he said, "I'm going, be careful!" A wave of tension swept through their hearts. They hid, barely breathing. İsmail, using a nearby short oak tree as cover, pointed to a group of thirty or forty armed individuals in a semicircle down on the flat area under the rocks, two hundred meters away, and said, "Do you see them?"

"They're crowded... This is both good and bad," Cemal whispered. He was like a predator that had seen its prey, restless with excitement. The possibility of an encounter had ignited his blood. It was another chance to do what he knew best and loved most, to add another heroic achievement to his successes.

"What are we going to do?"

"We can't do anything from here; we need to go down there, but that's difficult and suicidal they'd see us instantly and shoot us like birds, and they're already more numerous than us."

"Then how did they get here? We came by helicopter; do they have a helicopter too? The place is full of cliffs and rocks."

"How should I know? They're like mountain goats. Part of me gets angry at these bastards, part of me admires them. Is it easy to live in these mountains, facing death at every moment? They're tough, brave bastards. With such strong enemies, the fight is more thrilling, bloody, and fierce. If only a few of these strong ones were in my team... But they're on the wrong side, damn bastards! It's a job for the cobra... Let's inform them."

In the twilight of the evening, the cobra arrived with a noisy clamor and began its assault. As soon as its sound was heard, the armed group that had settled down for rest started to scatter, hide, take positions, and fire back at the cobra. The trails of glowing bullets and rockets flowing downward mingled with the glowing anti-aircraft fire coming from below. In the dusty, gunpowder-scented, noisy evening dark, intermittently illuminated by the scorching, bright redness of fired bullets, rockets, and shells, there was a life-and-death struggle. Lives were taken and given. The takers and givers were human. And lives were cheaper than oil...

The destructive and savage aggressor within Cemal couldn't wait for the cobra to finish its job and leave; his team had already slipped to a place close to the attack zone. When the cobra left, the deafening noise gave way to an eerie silence. On the flat area in front of the rocks were bodies, shot and burned. Cemal could hear sounds coming from the cave diagonally to their right from their hiding place. They approached, and suddenly, the inside and the front of the cave turned into hell... Bullets rained from both sides... They shot and were shot, and after a while, the guns fell silent, and the mountain was ruled by the silence of death...

The cave was captured without any casualties, with only two lightly wounded. The other side lost three men and a woman. Their bodies, along with eight men and one woman killed by the cobra's fire, were thrown off the cliffs. They would spend the night here. The cave was full of supplies, ammunition, and medical equipment. They had to be careful; of the thirty to forty people, only thirteen had been neutralized. Even considering the wounded, at least twenty had escaped and were around. They could regroup and attack to avenge their losses at any moment. There was no sleep again that night...

When things calmed down, leaning against a rock, the Poet wrote in his notebook: "Once again, instead of being used for the happiness, welfare, freedom, and development of the different colored people of these lands by sharing the wealth of these lands justly, it is, unfortunately, as often, spent on killing, burning, destroying, and annihilating the people of these lands with weapons, bullets, rockets, bombs, missiles, mines, and traps. Once again, the seeds of separation sown by those who covet the wealth of these lands were watered with their favorite liquid: blood."