MLA-DOST.DOBRO MAGAZINE

Tips, tricks and advice for NGO’s, small businesses and anyone else who needs social media marketing

Social media is used by 58.4 percent of the world’s population and the average daily usage of social media is 2 hours and 27 minutes, according to Datareportal reasearch from January 2022. The start of the COVID-19 lockdown period contributed even more – there has been a significant surge in internet and digital activities. But the number of people using social media is still continuously increasing, with an average of 13 new people signing up for the first time every second.

With the usual apps of Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, FB Messenger and Wechat which have taken over the first six places on the chart of globally most used social media platforms, TikTok had announced that it had passed the 1 billion monthly active user figure at the end of September 2021. It has taken TikTok just 5 years to reach this milestone.

Considering the just growth of social media we can see the importance of digital presence for brands, small businesses, non-governmental organizations etc. Big and successful brands are trying their best to hire professionals in marketing industry who have exceptional skills and creative mindset to create the best image of their brands online, on the platform that their clients are using. Hiring a whole team of professionals and investing in marketing is worth millions of dollars and the results of campaigns are often not tangible – brands invest enormous amounts of money to be visible, recognizable, important which leads to other values such as customer loyalty.

But what about small businesses and organizations who can’t pay a team of professionals to do the social media marketing for them? If you have just a little bit of creative component in yourself, the will and time – you can do it yourself for no money!

I have started doing social media marketing at the start of my studies when I joined the student council. Then I started working with small companies and NGO’s who didn’t have the time for social media. As a student I couldn’t afford expensive systems for creating and organizing content, so I have found multiple free platforms that helped me work through the barriers.  Five years have passed since I’ve been actively learning about social media and the trends that are changing rapidly. I did my master’s study in Marketing field, learning more about digital marketing and content production. According to my short, but valuable experience I am writing a list of tips, tricks and advice for doing your own social media management.

1. WHERE TO BE? HOW TO START?

Deciding on the platform you want to use is up to the fact where you can find your targeted public. The young audience (18 and less) is usually not on Facebook anymore – instead, they mostly use Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. People in business are on LinkedIn, and generations up to gen Z are on Facebook. Datareportal platform offers up to date information on Global Social Media Trends. If you determined your targeted audience, you will easily find the social media platform that would work best for you. If you have multiple accounts and a website, try combining it on free platform linktr.ee. You can always add and remove links from it.

Share your profiles with people whom you know, follow other accounts that could be valid to you or who you want to support. If you have a workplace that other people visit, create a QR code with QR Code Generator so they can easily scan it and follow you! 

2. WHAT TO POST AND WHEN?

Maybe it would be the best to get yourself a pen and paper, at this point. Write down your company name and start an association game. What do you do? How could you represent your offer/products/activities online? Along with this, could you include other content that would interest your audience – like showing the process of making your product, tips&tricks, advice, quotes, recommendations, interesting facts? Please, be careful here to put the source and make sure to fact check the information.

The timing is the one thing you would have to test. For example, Instagram likes consistency. You can try posting at 4 pm for one month, and at 8 pm the other, and see when your audience is moslty online. Instagram also likes when you use the new tools it offers, such as reels – so try all the new with every update because then Instagram will push you on its own.

3. VISUAL ASPECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media is mostly a visual tool and therefore it is important to create visualy pleasant content. The start point here is to determine your brand color palette, you can take it from your logo if you have one. This is when Canva comes in handy. Canva is a free graphic design software that lets you alter photographs without having any prior expertise or knowledge of photo editing. Using Canva’s free color palette generator you can easily get the colors you can work with. You can use Canva to create all of your content – you will quickly figure out how it works since it is very user and beginner friendly. It is also a great source of inspiration!

4. SCHEDULING YOUR CONTENT

Did you know that you can schedule your content so the chosen platform posts for you? A lot of people are not familiar with this life saving tool! The one that is free and that I use is called Creative Studio by Meta, you can find it in the search bar inside the Facebook applications. It connects Instagram and Facebook profiles and posts at the time you want. When posting try coming up with an interesting, but not so long text that will interest your audience in reading, liking and commenting. Remember, every like, comment and share is valueable as it’s rising your online visibility! Also, don’t forget about the hashtags… They are not of much use on Facebook (only if you want to put an emphasize on something), but on Instagram they are extremely valuable if picked correctly. For this purpose, I use a mobile app called Tagify and choose the moderately popular hashtags. You don’t want to put the most popular ones as they have a couple of thousand uses and your post will just get lost then. And please, use emojis – the world is a prettier place with emojis. ☺ 

5. SOME OTHER ADVICE

For photo editing I use Snapseed and Adobe Lightroom, and for video here is Video Guru app. If you want to see how your Instagram feed would look like in advance, before you post anything – you can try the mobile app Feed Preview. All the messages from Facebook and Instagram are combined in a mobile app called Business Suite. 

The world wide web provides us with many free options to manage our own social media. Although the platforms are free, the social media managing can be pretty time consuming, but worth it in the end! It is a great way to connect with your audience and stay important online. All the apps and platforms I recommended are user friendly and I guarantee you they will make your life easier if you want to get your socials on the next level and learn on the way.

Author: Paula Petrinec

 The more we grow up, the more we realize the importance of the concept of time. Sometimes we feel that the time hangs heavy on someone’s hand. And sometimes we do not understand how time flies. However, we all do like the chill moments when we close our eyes after an exhausting day in a rush. We, sometimes, might even forget to spare some time for ourselves within the fatigue of the day, backlogs, deadlines. In fact, we can beneficially do many things in 24 hours when we plan it well, 

At this point, we thought that it might be perspective-changing to confer with young people. Even if time is equal for all of us, the concept of time is individual. Comparing ourselves to others might be uncomfortable for us. When looking from this point, within the interviews, there are students, workers, both workers and students. The time is equal for those however, while 24 hours would be enough for some, It is not enough for others. Herein, maybe, we should observe how useful and wisely we can benefit from the time.

In other words, how much time can we separate for ourselves while we are lost in time and find ourselves in the rush of life? Yes, maybe we would feel better when we separate time to get away from our continuously thinking mind. Let’s imagine a moment how we can benefit from our free time even when it makes us smile when we think about it. The answer of “separating time” was more or less the same. The young people are very aware of this subject and pay attention to separate time. While some of them can have the whole weekend for themselves, the others have time in the first opportunity. Still, we can see that the seven days are equal for each of us. However, we are different in individual aspects.

Not only separating time, but also we dissent when it comes to free-time activities. While some of us prefer resting and chilling, others prefer singing in their free time. However, there is one mid-point, which is to watch films or TV series. I guess this is within our favorite activities. The other mentioned activity is to drink coffee with friends. In this point, we can see that Croatian youth love to talk, share, socialize and separate time for their family and friends. In addition to that, they also pay attention to working out frequently. We all know the countless benefits of working out. Croatian youth is also very well aware of this. 

And sometimes, we end the day without doing anything. When we look back, we feel sorry for spending a day in vain.  In fact, after the conversations we held, we saw that young people think au contraire. To put it all in simple terms, sometimes we can give an off day to ourselves as a reward. The only thing that our brain and body need might be just resting and doing nothing. They all agreed that it causes nothing but sadness and regret to force ourselves to do something when we need rest. But they also agreed that if there is something that they have to do, but do not complete, then they feel bad about it. However, they also underlined that if there is no task to do, forcing themselves to do something only cause tiredness.

To sum up, as a result of our interview with the young people, we had a chance to see the importance of free time and the priority of our requests. We can also say how beneficial and progressive the free time activities can be. Before concluding, I would like to add this quote that biased me from a book written by Ana Tan “Free time was the most precious time when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.”

Author: Erkin Duman

Photo by Marija Gebert

Hello! I am so happy and excited to write this article. Because we finished everything and mla-dost.dobro magazine is published in April. 

First I want to introduce myself and explain how we started to publish mla-dost.dobro magazine. I am Evin Arslan. I am from Turkey and I am here to volunteer in Mreža udruga Zagor. Most young people go to another country owing to the European Solidarity Corps Project. I am one of them. Before I came here, I was living in Istanbul and I was working at a newspaper. I was working as a reporter/correspondent. I like to write articles and news. When I came here, I wanted to continue journalism. When I told Ivana my magazine idea, she liked this idea and she really supported me. 

We had our first meeting with young people. Gabrijela Rogan, Tin Krznar, Rebeca Jana Bačani, Marija Gebert, Erkin Duman, Ivana Radanović joined. We talked about the magazine process and the name of the magazine. Paula Petrinec couldn’t join but we kept in touch all the time. 

When you read this magazine, you will see these names. Erkin, Marija, Paula, Gabrijela wrote so good articles for this issue. Graphic Designer Marija Gebert explained the tips and tricks of design. Erkin Duman wrote a very fascinating story. Paula told her Erasmus experiences during the Covid times, Gabrijela wrote about the interesting hobbies of artists and Katarina drew the illustration for Earth Day, 22 April. Also, I had an interview with professional dancer Margareta Sinković. She is very talented and she told very important things about contemporary dance and performance art. 

Maybe you can ask why you need this magazine. We wanted to make this magazine because we wanted to create free space for young people. Young people can find articles about youth, culture art, dance, movies and more! Also, young people can send us their articles. If you have an idea for articles, feel free to write to us. We are open to new ideas. 

When I finished this article, I wanted to say thanks to Mreža udruga Zagor’s colleagues for supporting us. Also thanks to photographer Luka Smuk for sharing his photos for the Margareta Sinković interview. 

I hope you will enjoy it when you read this magazine!

https://www.zagor.info/Cms_Data/Contents/ZagorInfo/Folders/Dokumenti/~contents/EW82ZYXNCG6BBK27/mla-dost-dobro-magazine.pdf

Vidimo se u sljedeći mjesec!

Writer: Evin Arslan

Photos: Erkin Duman

When the applications started and during the whole process of applying to the program, I thought I had zero chance of going to Portugal. The coronavirus had just reached Europe and suddenly no one knew what was happening and what are they doing. 

It was my last year of undergraduate study at University of Rijeka, and I was looking forward to doing my three-month practice in the hotel at the place where I live. When corona came, that was cancelled immediately and I ended up being at home for three months, bonding with my parents, having existential crisis and discovering new hobbies, like drawing and doing yoga. But all that free time led to applying for an Erasmus exchange in Portugal which would happen in the beginning of 2021. I applied to a few universities in the city of Porto and got accepted to ISAG, the private faculty. 

As I was gathering and sending all the documentation needed, I never fully believed I would actually go. Even when I booked my flight and paid for the first month of my rent – I made sure that I can get all that money back in case of the corona going crazy. To be clear, the corona went crazy, especially in Portugal, but I could still move there because I had a valid reason – to study at their University. For others who wanted just to travel, Portugal was not an option at that time. Therefore, I went, I packed two large suitcases and went abroad to live with people I’ve never met before. That is one of the top reasons I’d go again, the excitement of meeting new people from different countries and cultures. 

If I had to describe my Erasmus experience in a few words, it would be fulfilled, inspiring and stressful. I risked failing my exams in Croatia to go to Portugal and I wrote my masters there. So, last two months I spent on my computer in our beautiful garden, writing my thesis and studying for exams on both universities (Portuguese and Croatian one) while my Erasmus friends got to and go on trips. So, if you are thinking of going on an Erasmus exchange, maybe don’t do it on your last year if you don’t want to longer your studies. I made it all work in the end and I kept telling myself: ”Isn’t it better for you to be stressed out in Portugal at the ocean beach, than at home?”. And it really was better.

The corona restrictions in Portugal were very different than at home – we had to wear masks all the time and everywhere (outside as well), the police was going around on their bikes giving people fines for not wearing a mask or being outside their part of town, being in larger groups etc. We were trying so hard to maintain our social life, so we gathered in our apartment, which did not go well since our landlord threatened to kick us out because of the noise. But then, they opened the borders to other municipalities in Portugal – we started travelling around in rented cars and enjoying every step of the way. We visited many places from North to South. Those were amazing times with amazing people. 

Regarding University I was studying at – I’d say I am pretty satisfied. I enrolled in five classes which were all about marketing, event management, communication and content production. My schedule was not so tight, so I had enough time to explore around the city and surroundings. The faculty International Relations Office was always here to help and they were more than welcoming, and so was Erasmus Student Network (ESN) Porto. Portuguese people are usually really easy going and they always have time for everything – no rush at all. I liked that because it felt like home. 

I can freely say that I met friends for life in Portugal, from all around the world, but Portugal also became my home away from home. If you are a student who’s thinking of going on Erasmus exchange – I would encourage you! Don’t think about it too much, just accept the opportunities and enjoy it as much as you can, while you can. You can join the ESN in the city you are going to and hang out with locals and other Erasmus students, attend the events and get amazing discounts on rent-a-car, bikes, restaurants, even flights with Ryanair! For many countries, the Erasmus scholarship you get is often enough (I got €720 per month), although for me it wasn’t since I decided to travel the country and Portugal in general is not considered cheap. I had few student jobs that helped me go through and a little bit of help from my parents. 

There are also many options for Erasmus if you are not a student – you can volunteer in other countries or participate in short-term projects like I did in Slovenia and Latvia. You always come back just a little bit richer in experiences and with few more friendships.

Writer: Paula Petrinec

Skupi programi za dizajn često su nedostupni široj publici. Oni koji se ipak odluče kupiti neki program kako bi ga koristili za nešto što bi bez problema mogli odraditi i u nekom online software-u ni sami često ne pronalaze alternativni program. Kako ne biste bili jedni od većine nastavite čitati i upoznajte se sa besplatnim software-ima koji su jednostavni i lako je izraditi ono što želite.

Dizajn se dijeli na pixel i vektorsku grafiku. Vektorska grafika predstavlja veličine između vektora te uporabom ovakvih grafika izbjegavamo deformaciju nekog oblika, odnosno oblici su određeni matematički izračunatim veličinama te ih zbog toga možemo bezbrižno uvećavati i smanjivati. Suprotno od toga je pixel grafika koja je zadana veličinama pixela, smanjivanje ovakvih grafika ili fotografija je moguća, no svakim povećanjem gubi se kvaliteta te samim time i izgled grafike.

Najbolji primjer software-a za dizajn su Adobe Photoshop (pixelska grafika) i Adobe Illustrator (vektorska grafika). Na internetu postoji mnoštvo programa koji su bazirani na Adobe-ovim programima, a izdvojeni programi su:

Vectr.com – online; besplatan program  (3 stars out of five – it would be added later in designing magazine)

Vectr je online program koji je u potpunosti besplatan i bazira se na obradu vektorske grafike. Ovaj program zadovoljava bazične zadatke koje bi svakome mogle zatrebati. Od kreiranja raznih oblika pomoću pen tool-a ili linija, ubacivanja teksta ili kreiranje jednostavne pozivnice, plakata, čestitke ili post-a za društvene mreže. Postoje i mane samog programa, kao što su nedostatak alata, fontova i mogućnosti no to ne bi trebalo stvarati probleme ako se radi o jednokratnoj upotrebi kao što je npr. izrada logotipa. Stranicu možete podsjetiti ovdje. 

Photopea.com – online; besplatan program (4 stars out of five – it would be added later in designing magazine)

Photopea je kao i Vectr online program, no baziran je na radu sa pixel grafikom. Ako ste upoznati sa Adobe-ovim Photoshop-om onda će vas sučelje Photope-e iznenaditi nevjerojatnom sličnošću. Photopea sadrži gotovo sve alate kao i Photoshop, izgledom jako identičan program. Prilikom unosa i izvoza grafika, Photopea vam daje mogućnost izvoza i importa .psd datoteka. Stranicu možete podsjetiti ovdje. 

U slijedećem broju otkrijte nove programe, trikove i zanimljive multimedijske sadržaje.

Autor: Marija Gebert – voditeljica ZagorMEDIA radionice 

Što je igra, tko se smije igrati, igraju li se i vanzemaljci lovice ili su pak oni više tip osobe za lego kockice? Igraju li se vanzemaljci uopće?

Ako ne znaš odgovor na prvo pitanje, nema veze, ni autor ovog teksta nije dobar s profesionalnim definicijama koje su izašle iz nekih obrazovanijih glava od naše.

Nije bitno ni znaš li koje igre igra neki tamo daleki potencijalni život udaljen od nas miljama i miljama svjetlosnih godina. Zapravo, nije bitno ni vjeruješ li da taj život uistinu postoji.

Bitno je jednostavno pitanje koje je slučajno zapelo u sendviču onih kompleksnih – tko se smije igrati?

E pa, ako misliš da je odgovor apsolutno svatko tko ima želje, kreativnosti, volje i/ili nekoga za igru, apsolutno se varaš! 

Neke igre stvorene su samo za one čije se godine ovozemaljskog života mogu pronaći između brojeva 5 i 99, a neke druge imaju limitiran broj igrača. 

Igre s kojima ćeš se susreti u ovom članku sastavio je Alastair Brotchie u svojoj knjizi „Surrealist games“, a iste su podijeljene u nekoliko kategorija. Nadrealisti su se igrali jezikom i  govorom, vizualno su eksperimentirali, mijenjali svoju zbilju i tako stvarali umjetnost. Iako same igre neće potaknuti tvoje tijelo na stvaranje hormona potrebnih da bi dobio Salvador Dali brk, zasigurno će pomoći u kreiranju tvoje unutarnje mini verzije tog ekstravagantnog i genijalnog umjetnika.

„Upute za korištenje“ 

Materijali: 1. Stari bakini recepti/ Ikea upute za sastavljanje kauča

                    2. Olovka

 Jedna od igri kojom su se nadrealisti služili u stvaranju poezije bila je „Upute za korištenje“. 

Uzimali bi recepte iz kuhinje ili upute za korištenje određenih alata/predmeta te bi ih zatim primijenili na različitim konkretnim i apstraktnim pojmovima. 

Za primjer koji možete vidjeti zaslužan je Jean-Claude Silbermann. 

„Automatsko crtanje“

Materijali: 1. Flomaster/Olovka/Tuš za oči/Kist

                    2. Komad papira

Automatsko crtanje odraz je naših instinktivnih pokreta. Zanemarujemo trenutni vrtlog misli koje nas opsjedaju i crtežu pristupamo uz minimum svjesne kontrole. 

Automatsko crtanje najlakše je i najzabavnije kada zatvorimo oči i prepustimo ruci da radi što hoće.

Iako nam pravilo ove igre nalaže da olovku cijelo vrijeme držimo na papiru, ako se želimo uistinu predati apstrakciji, možemo ga i zanemariti.

Upravo u neočekivanosti i nepredvidivosti konačnog rezultata leži zabava.

Pro tip: automatsko crtanju možemo pristupiti i kao temelju za daljnji rad na crtežu, a ne samo kao konačnom rezultatu.

„Exquisite corpse“

Materijali: 1. Flomaster/Olovka/Tuš za oči/Kist

2. Komad papira

Ova najpoznatija nadrealistička igra namijenjena je za 2 ili više igrača.

Ako igra ima 3 igrača, svaki igrač presavije svoj papir na 3 jednaka dijela. Prvi igrač crta u prvom dijelu papira te rubovima svojeg crteža minimalno prelazi na drugi dio papira po kojem će crtati igrač broj 2. Kad igrač broj 1 završi crtež, svoj dio presavije tako da je skriven od igrača broj 2. Igrač broj 2 nastavlja svoj crtež, a startna točka su mu  rubovi crteža igrača broj 1 kojima je ovaj ušao u prostor igrača broj 2. Kada je igrač broj 2 gotov sa svojim crtežom, prosljeđuje ga igraču broj 3 i igra se nastavlja.

Najvažnije je da igrači ne vide crtež prijašnjeg igrača te da se ostave linije vodilje za sljedećeg igrača koji će crtati kako bi crtež ipak imao određenu strukturu.

Autor: Gabrijela Rogan

Photos: Brotchie Alastair: A Book of Surrealist Games

Margareta Sinković who is 23-years old is a professional dancer. Sinković who studied Academy of Dramatic Art at University of Zagreb gived contemporary courses and organized movie days about performance art. She explained her dance journey…

•  First, how did you decide to study dance and start contemporary dance?

I had started with the ballet lessons when I was four and I liked that a lot so I had enrolled in School for classical ballet years after. It was there where I was introduced to the modern ballet in which I had the opportunity to create by my own and find my own expression without the need to fulfill the perfect form. I have found the most of creative possibilities in contemporary dance and I wanted to learn about it even more so I enrolled in the dance course without thinking about professional career. By taking the lessons and watching the performances, my interest was growing so I decided to start preparing myself for the audition for the Academy.  

• What does contemporary dance mean to you?

Contemporary dance to me is a way of connecting with others. Ability to express ideas and opinions, my personal way of communication with society. 

• What kind of prejudices about contemporary dance have you faced so far? 

People mostly don’t know well what it is so they assume that I’m doing ballroom dances, step or any kind of street dances. In a performative context, contemporary dance sometimes can include those things, it can absorb a lot of different approaches to the body and the movement itself, including the martial arts also, but it has its own specific characteristics and technique. The ones that heard somewhere about it or they have some kind of an image of what it could be, they often find it incomprehensible, confusing, sometimes even elitised, reserved only for the artistic world. 

CREATIVITY, BODY, DANCE…

• You are giving contemporary dance lessons in Zabok. How did you decide to give lessons?

I wanted to share the things that I’ve learned with others. I was lucky and I had a privilege to take dance classes because I had a big support from my parents who wouldn’t mind driving me everyday to Zagreb. I felt the need to give the opportunity to the ones who have the interest for dance, but it is not so accessible to them. 

• It’s good that young people in Zabok have access to a course like this. Finding a dance course in Zagreb is easy, but in Zabok it can be difficult. What do you think?

I agree. There are no contemporary dance classes in Zagorje, and the dance scene is centralized. Before, there was an enthusiasm for doing the classes and creating a dance scene here, but after some time it faded away. In other parts of Croatia there are some tendencies also, but we are all still focused on Zagreb because there we have better conditions, although not ideal. But nevertheless it is a place where the art scene is and there is an audience who is following it. 

• Can someone who has never danced before learn contemporary dance? Have you encountered people who are hesitant to attend the course?

Yes, of course. It is interesting that contemporary dance goes into studying the movement itself, not necessarily some dance element, but also the everyday movement. How to move in the most efficient, functional way with the creating the awareness of anatomical connections, one’s own body possibilities and the influence of the gravity. With this body understanding, a lot of different movement possibilities are opening up, one can go even in more complex situations. This is what technique is about. When you add the creative aspect of the dance on top of this, transfering the thoughts and emotions into the movement, it is beautiful what can be made, no matter if the person who is dancing is doing this for the whole life or whether it is somebody that attends the second dance class in life. We have to allow ourselves the freedom to express ourselves, get away from the thought that what we are producing with the movement has to look in a specific way, or to be perfect for somebody that is looking at it from the outside. I definitely try to share this with the others and encourage the ones who are hesitating, I hope that I am successful with it to some extent. Some like it, some don’t and that is completely fine. 

“KINO PLEŠE” IN ZABOK

• You organized “Kino Pleše” movie days. How did you decide to organize this event? Do movies about performing art reach enough audiences?

Idea for that started during my studies when my colleagues and I were making experimental dance movies. I thought that the things we’ve made were great and that more people should see what we are doing. And in general there is a boom of transfering the performing arts into film and video media, partly because of the huge influence of the movies on the wider audience and partly because of the epidemic. With my tendency to decentralisation of the dance scene, and knowing about the culture events at the Green Room in Zabok, I thought this was the ideal place for the realisation of this idea. 

The number of the audience of the experimental movies and about performing arts is definitely quite smaller than the number of the spectators of the more commercial movies, but it is existing. I even think that the interest for this is growing and that in popular culture since the middle of the 1960’s until today there is a tendency towards the experiment in terms of making the art. But it is only my point of view. 

• What kind of feedback/reactions did you receive from the audience after projecting a movie?

So far I always got really nice comments, I didn’t get any negative feedbacks yet. But sometimes people don’t want to admit that they don’t like something. I personally think that there is nothing bad about “not liking” something, thinking about what you saw, about what you consume as an audience is far more important. To me, that is the point of art. To make you think, enable you to feel, whether this is the positive or negative emotion and make just a  slight difference in our everyday life. 

• What would you suggest to young people who want to study at the dance academy?

You just have to keep going and try not to overthink. Mind is blocking us much more often than the body does.

Interview: Evin Arslan

Photos by Luka Smuk

“She needed a metamorphosis because she would not want to be a caterpillar anymore.”

“Do you know what’s the best thing in the world?” he asked. “ I really don’t care” she replied while she was lighting up her cigarette. It was a breezy, June night, at 3 in the morning, they were on the top of the roof.  Everything was so calm, the city was so dead. Yet, she could still see the lively city lights. Soon they would be turned off one by one as her cigarette fades away.

 She scratched her chin and bit her lip. She could see the fondness of the lights and fake lives of the city.  It was not a person what she was.  Took a deep breath, felt the summer breeze on her shoulders coming from the ocean behind. It was rubbing her tend skin. Lift her head and looked at the starry sky. Closed her eyes and tried to listen to the melody of the universe. She really desired to be alone. Because she was tired of being among the people. “ Is it the life that you are living to?” she asked. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Nevermind,” she said. She would know that he would not understand any of her speech. It was not even worth losing a single breath for that, she thought. Maybe she was pretending too arrogant but she was feeling that it was the time for transformation. She needed a metamorphosis because she would not want to be a caterpillar anymore. She would like to spread her wings and fly across to the moon and thrive in the dust to the universe and the way unknown. Sipped the last straw of the alcohol and climbed to the fences. “ What is passing in your mind ?” he shouted. She smiled. “ I just want to bring my rains.”. “I really don’t get  what you are talking about,” he said. “ Does it matter what I am saying?” she turned and whispered. “ Of course!” he said. “ Well, why?” she came closer to him. He stuttered. “ C- cuz I like you”. This sentence made her laugh. “Is that all ? That’s simple?” He continued “ I do care about you” She laughed again “You do?” swung her head right to left and went inside. Took her bag and tightened up her hair. Put on her shoes and went out. Pushed the button of the elevator but it was the slowest thing she has ever seen in her life. Rolled her eyes and went downstairs.  She wanted to get lost in the streets of her favourite city. Reckless, she walked down to the city. She could hear the music. The music of nature. The symphony of the cosmos. She wanted to be a note of this perfect philharmonic.

While the purple and red neon lights that blended by the morning mist reflecting on her face, she raised her head and looked up skyscrapers rising from the ground. She could not breathe when she felt being surrounded by such an environment. She got excited like a wanderer who sees a mirage in the middle of Sahara when she saw the tree standing ahead. She had her mouth gaped open wide. With the dizziness that the alcohol gave, by teetering in the concrete jungle, she sat down under the tree.  She looked at the beam that the billboards transmit and the sizzling wires above. She thought about the meaningless conversation that she just had. Are people really getting such dull? Don’t they want to comprehend? Or she just cannot express herself well enough? While the thoughts were running inside of her head, the sourish feeling made her feel sick to her stomach. She gulped sourly. By flipping her hair back, she covered her face. She wanted to cry her eyes out. Maybe that was the only emotion she could feel at that moment. She was feeling alone in this robotised world. Not a robot world but a robotised world. Because she was wishing to believe that there is someone who can still feel something somewhere. She knew that It will not take a long time. She was thinking that soon, not only the souls but also the hearts will be automatised. Well, why did she care about it that much?  Yet, while she was loving this electrical city madly. Was not she a part of this city? She took a deep breath. She looked at her digital watch. The two blinking dots were showing four-thirty five in the morning. With smaller dots, the date was indicated as 2041. Soon, the sun will rise and people will wake up and go to their works as if nothing happened. They will have lunch, work all day long and will come back home in the evening. While that thought occurring in her mind, she stared at the date written on her watch. How come the time has flown such quickly? As if the small girl was not herself who used to capered in these streets once upon a time. Like she suddenly grew up and this digital city has grown up with her together as well. While the building painted in white stretching out the sky, she transformed into an illusion. Well, what was making her sad?  Elapsing or the alteration of this city? Why she was so angry? To herself or others? She tossed the warm water that she pulled out of her bag. She went with the flow of the pick-me-up. After she had cleaned her mouth with the back of her hand, she put the bottle back into her bag. She stood up and dusted off. She walked home by being captive of her thoughts. She came home. After she had thrown her bag to the entrance, she clumped to her room. She stared at the ceiling. She was trying hard to not get lost in her mind. She conditioned herself to stay in the moment. “ Just watch your thoughts” she murmured. Her lips vibrated. That shiver captured her once again. She closed her eyes while the morning breeze coming from the open window was mixing her thoughts and caressing her body. Soon, she will have woken up, gone to work and then had her lunch. She will be working all day long and will come back home in the evening.

Writer: Erkin Duman

Photo by Deniz Atasoy