Seagull in the Rain

Concerning the Seagull on the Roof Opposite My Desk

The seagull is standing on the roof, in the rain, as if nothing has happened. It is as if it's not raining at all; the seagull is just standing there, as still as ever. Or else the seagull is a great philosopher, too great to take offense. There it stands. On the roof. It's raining. It's as if that seagull standing there is thinking, I know, I know, it's raining; but there's not much I can do about that. Or: Yes, it's raining, but what importance does that have? Or maybe something like this: By now I've accustomed myself to rain; it doesn't make much of a difference.

I'm not saying they're very tough, these seagulls. I watch them through the window, I watch them when I'm trying to write, when I'm pacing up and down the room; even seagulls can get panicky about things beyond their own lives.

One had babies. Two little gray balls of squeaky clean wool, just a bit frantic and silly. They'd venture across the once-red tiles now whitened by the lime in their own droppings and their mother's, veering left and then right, and then they would stop somewhere and rest. You couldn't really call it rest, though; they just came to a stop. They exist, nothing more. Seagulls, like most humans and most other creatures, spend most of their time doing nothing, just standing there. You could call this a form of waiting. To stand in this world waiting: for the next meal, for death, for sleep. I don't know how they die.

The babies can't stand straight, either. A wind is ruffling their feathers, ruffling their entire bodies. Then they stop again; again they stop. Behind them the city keeps moving; below them the ships, the cars, the trees all aquiver.

The anxious mother I was talking about-from time to time she finds something somewhere and brings it back to her children to eat. There's quite a commotion then: a burst of activity, industry, panic. The macaroni-like organs of a dead fish-pull, pull, let's see if you can pull that- is parceled out and eaten. After the meal, silence. The seagulls stand on the roof and do nothing. Together we wait. In the sky are leaden clouds.

But still there is something that has escaped my notice. Something that suddenly came to me as I paced in front of the window: A seagull's life is not simple. How many of them there are! Seagulls boding evil, standing on every roof, silently thinking about something of which I know nothing. Thinking treacherous thoughts, I would say.

How did I come to understand this? Once, I noticed they were all gazing at the yellow light of dawn, that faint yellow light. First a wind came, and then a yellow rain. As that yellow rain was slowly falling, all the seagulls turned their backs on me, and as they gabbled among themmselves it was clear that they were waiting for something. Down below, in the city, people were racing for shelter in houses and cars; above, the seagulls were waiting, straight and silent. I thought then that I understood them.

Sometimes, the seagulls take flight all together to rise slowly into the air. When they do, their fluttering wings sound like rainfall.

A Seagull Lies Dying on the Shore

This Is Another Seagull

A seagull lies dying on the shore. Alone. Its beak is resting on the pebbles. Its eyes are sad and sick. The waves beat against the nearby rocks. The wind ruffles feathers that look dead already. Then the seagull's eyes begin to follow me. It's early in the morning; the wind is cool. Above, life goes on; in the sky are other seagulls. The dying seagull is a baby.

Seeing me, the seagull suddenly tries to get up. The legs under its body quiver hopelessly. Its chest pushes forward, but it can't raise its beak from the pebbles. As it struggles, a meaning forms in its eyes. Just then, it falls back onto the pebbles, spreading out now into an attitude of death. The meaning in its eyes is lost among the clouds and the waves. There's no doubt now. The seagull is dying.

I don't know why it's dying. Its feathers are graying and unkempt. All this season, I have, as always, watched a great many baby seagulls growing up, trying to fly. Yesterday, after two brushes with the wind and the waves, one took to the air with great joy, with the cutting, fearless arcs that seagulls trace across the sky when they first master it. This baby, I noticed later, had a broken wing. It seemed as if it was not just its wing but its entire body that was broken.

To die in the coolness of a summer morning, as the other seagulls on your hill sing with joy and anger-that must be hard. But it's as if the seagull is not dying so much as being saved from life. Maybe there were things it felt, things it wanted, but very little came its way, or nothing. What can a seagull think, what can it feel? Around its eyes is a sorrow that calls to mind an old man who is ready for death. To die is to craw) under some sort of quilt, or so it seems. Let it be, let it be so I might go, it seems to say.

Even now, I am glad that I am closer to it than the impudent seagulls wheeling above us. I came to this lonely shore to enter the sea; I'm in a hurry, caught up in my own thoughts, and in my hand is a towel. Now I've stopped to look at the seagull. Silently, respectfully. In the pebbles beneath my bare feet, a whole world. It's not the broken wings that make me feel the seagull's death but its eyes.

Once upon a time, it saw so much, noticed so much; you know this. In the space of one season it has become as tired as an old man, and perhaps it is sorry to be this tired. Slowly it leaves all things behind. I can't be sure, but maybe it is this seagull that the other seagulls in the sky are cawing about. Perhaps the sound of the sea makes death easier.

Later, much later, six hours later, when I returned to the pebble beach, the seagull was dead. It had spread one wing as if to fly, and turned on its side, opening one eye as wide as it could to stare blankly at the sun. There were no other seagulls flying near its hill.

I ran into the cool sea as if nothing had happened.

Orhan Pamuk: Other Colors