Simana’s Diaries

Simana’s Diaries -9- The Gift from Başkam

When

Simana returned from the forest, the soil of the steppe no longer felt familiar.

The stones crunching beneath

her feet seemed to have softened, and even the touch of the wind had grown gentler.

Her

step was heavy; this was not a heaviness born of fatigue, but rather the dignity of a settled fate settling upon her shoulders.

Ever since the

fox had vanished into the mist, its eyes had never left Simana.

What she

saw was not an animal; it was as if a piece that had been missing for a long time had finally returned today and fallen into place.

As he walked, he said nothing to himself. But deep within his mind, a single sentence kept circling:

“Some secrets cannot be told… Because they die the moment they are spoken. The soul only nurtures what it carries.”

And today, for the first time, he wanted his soul to grow with what it carried.

By the time he reached

the camp, it had grown dark. The smoke from the tents traced thin lines across the sky, and as the shepherd dogs drifted between sleep and wakefulness, no one asked Simana where he had been.

Perhaps they were curious… But they also knew that sometimes silence is a form of respect.

As she passed by

Başkam’s tent, Tüleç was sitting by the fire. He was cleaning the knife in his hand.

Their

eyes didn’t meet, but Simana shuddered. Because sometimes a kam could see without even looking. And at that moment, Tüleç had seen everything.

That night, Simana ate a simple meal, dried a few herbs, and filled her cup with sagan tea, sipping it slowly. The day had told her so much…

Simana, however, didn’t put any of it into words. And for the first time in her life, she didn’t tell Başkam about something she had experienced. A voice inside her said:

“This began with me. It must stay with me.

And if it’s true… he already knows.”

Just before

dawn, the tent flap opened silently.

Simana had woken up, but her eyes still held the depth of the night.

Başkam stepped inside. Without saying a word, he opened his palm. In his palm lay a wooden fox necklace—just as Simana had seen in her dreams.

Its

tail was carved in a spiral, its eyes etched like stars. Başkam held out the necklace and said only this:

“Some companions arrive in due time…

Some secrets, however, are understood without ever being spoken.”

Simana didn’t ask any questions. She took the necklace and hung it around her neck. And in that moment, for the first time in her life, she felt that someone truly knew her.

As

night fell, dreams and wakefulness blurred together. She returned to the misty forest. The fox was there again.

This time it spoke, though it had neither tongue nor voice. Its words were made of a silence that penetrated straight to her heart:

“I am not the path.

But I will be your eyes.

Whenever you’re about to

forget, look at me and remember the path you must take.”

When

Simana woke up in the morning, her fingers traced the necklace. As she held it, a light—a remnant of the night’s mist—touched her fingers. It was the same silent light as that of the fox that had walked within her eyes throughout the night.

Simana took a deep breath.

The shadows on the

tent walls looked different today. It was as if they were all trying to remind her of something:

The

wind’s footsteps, the earth’s memory, and that chilling silence when a person first encounters their own destiny. In that moment, Simana realized:

The path she had walked until

now was not a beginning. It was merely the threshold of destiny.

And now, the true path had begun to call to her. For the first time, she did not see herself as “the chosen one”; rather, she felt like someone following the trail of a destiny whose steps had been written down the moment she was born.

She was no longer the owner of a path; she was a guardian standing at its threshold, safeguarding its passage.