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It was just bad advice, and she paid for it, too.
She received the news of her aunt’s death on a chilly morning, before work. She was at the bakery, about to get some pretzels while ignoring the man behind her, talking and talking, encouraging her to give the eggplant pastries a chance. As she laid the money on the counter, she felt the vibration on her right thigh and offered the cashier a vague smile, just enough to assure he’s not going to hate her, then grabbed her phone in a rush.
“Dad?”
“Yeah, please, tell me what a joy it is hearing from me.”
“It’s just that you never call me this early.”
He muffled something—got to be a joke meant more to amuse himself than anyone else, as it’s always been. He was laughing by the end of the sentence but Leyla couldn’t hear him through the wind greeting her the moment she stepped out of the bakery. She stood there, in front of the display, straining to catch his voice. A passerby, probably out of pity, told her with an exaggerated gesture, “Shield it with your hand, honey,” and so she did, the nylon bag of pretzels looped around her wrist, she raised her arm, and cupped the receiver with her palm.
“Whaa?” she said, laughing too, though she couldn’t say why.
“Listen, we didn’t want to alarm you or anything but—we lost your aunt.”
“What?! My aunt? Dead?”
She still had the remnants of that smile, realizing too late she was hoping this might be another one of her father’s jokes. Silence stretched on the other end.
“You’re serious,” she continued, solemn now, “What happened?”
“Don’t worry about it, I know you gals were not close lately. It shouldn’t matter how.”
Did it matter? She had to think about it, and hard, for a while, fortunately, to discover that it actually did, but it was too late to confirm it now, too fake.
“Dad, I’m so, so sorry for your loss. God rest her soul— She. . . was a character.”
“That she was indeed. Anyway, the funeral’s tomorrow, back in the hometown.”
U-uh. Trouble.
“Well, I’m. . . Not sure I can make it.”
“You don’t have to be there or anything. I– just wanted you to know.”
“Thanks. I mean it. And once again, my condolences.”
“Yeah, well. . .”
She hung up, and all serene, tried to remember her aunt, hoping that some memory from her long-forgotten childhood or an insignificant gesture later on would make her feel something. When she thought about her aunt, she could only remember the leftover foods she made a habit of mixing together in a single pot, the pills she took not in search of remedy but due to the upcoming expiration dates, and the epilating wax that’s been used over and over and over again Leyla once had the misfortune of discovering in the freezer. Last she heard, her aunt was making a living by selling daily items allegedly belonging to a now-famous local artist through an online website as shady as the items themselves, ranging from napkins to toothbrushes to remotes to plastic utensils. The prices were quite reasonable, and the fans were usually buying them for their “what if” value.
“Sorry for your loss,” said a deep voice beside her. It was a man, in his forties, with a five-o’clock shadow and tired eyes, trying to have a smoke fighting off the wind. “May she rest in peace,” he added.
“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”
It was not, in fact. He must’ve been listening to her conversation all the while, and with a wind like this, there was no overhearing. You had to mean it.
“You know,” the man said, releasing a temporary cloud of smoke that disappeared so quickly in the wind that Leyla found herself hesitated whether she really saw it or not. “You might have a day off from work.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was your aunt, right? They gotta give you a day off for that, even if you do not go to the funeral. Just an idea.”
You see, there was a practicality in death, beyond the grief and pity and regret.
“This advice of yours,” she said, after some thought, “am I gonna pay for it?”
The man gave her an equally inquiring look. He seemed genuinely confused. “You think it’s bad advice?”
For many, it wouldn’t have been. But as soon as she sent an email to HR that night, informing the company about her loss and taking the next day off for the funeral in hopes that she may finally clean her apartment, reorganize the kitchen cabinets, and catch up with some trending TV series, she became overwhelmed by this feeling of guilt. Having all this free time and still not making to the funeral? Bad, bad thing to do.
She did her best to shake it off, distract herself, trying to turn off all the things her father did not say to her on the phone, I’m very disappointed in you and Your disrespect towards me, I can take it, but to my sister?! She almost forced herself to take a nap, burying her head under the pillow, in vain. Called up some friends who were all working on this weekday just as she would’ve been if her damn aunt were alive.
Only a few hours at home, cursing and cursing, then she got her backpack, took off, and headed to the coach station, on her way to her aunt’s funeral. All because of a bad advice.
“There’s a foot rest, below the seat,” said the guy sitting next to her. “It’s much more comfortable, if you’d like to use it.”
She half-smiled with a tint of disgust, with no visible dash for the foot rest.
“I’m just saying. . .” the guy continued, now his hands raised, surrendered, probably against her indifference.
“Sorry, I meant no offense, but I’m really not in the mood for advice.”
“It’s nothing, forget about it.”
They sat in silence, for what, a few minutes tops?
“If I were to give you advice,” he said, “considering how you look, I’d say that all days have an end, even the worst ones. They don’t decide how the rest of your life is going to be.”
Without moving much, she took a quick look around, as if searching for an escape route, catching nothing but the fleeting, blurry image of an interstate road.
“Aren’t advice supposed to offer something solid?”
He thought briefly.
“Well, how about reading a book then? To distract yourself?”
She hated, hated this. Raised on her seat a bit and turned towards the window, away from the guy, as much as possible.
“Would you like to tell me more? About today? I can help you more, maybe? Offer better advice?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Could you close the curtain?” he asked, and seeing she hesitated, quickly added, “Not an advice, this is for me.”
Within the small intervals the guy shut the fuck up, she was having obscure visions about her aunt, remembering, her small gestures and the tone of her voice, and traces of kindness, if there were any. She picked up the smell of burnt hair, ironed in the middle of the living room. She felt her aunt’s long nails polished in bright red caressing her arm. She heard the flicking of her lighter, a hundred-year-old antique she insisted on keeping using. And there were these twisted guidance and commentary on life that her aunt meant to inspire her with, but instead confused her even more.
Never show your belly button to anyone, ever, for your life dwells in there.
There’s nothing wrong with a strict raw-meat diet.
It’s people who tell you that their favorite color is “purple” you gotta be careful about.
As a child, she considered this as a weird game between them, for her aunt would charge her for these random thoughts, cheap toys or some coins or a piece of biscuits, always something. When she grew up and she confidently began to sense that there was something wrong with these statements. “Only a mad person,” she had thought, “or a very corrupt company would charge people for a random advice.”
“I understand,” the guy interrupted her thoughts, “it’s not your fault, you know. It is our common failure as a species. And my failure for choosing a decaying job, which is talking. We lost the spontaneity of it. People used to believe in destiny, and they’d think, ‘If we’re here now, you and me, it must mean something.’ You and me, we are here, and look at this, I’m just bothering you.”
The thing is, she wasn’t sure what the hell this was. She thought that the guy must be trying to sell her advice. Then, she considered him to be nuts. Towards the end, she was convinced that he was trying to flirt in an awkward way. One thing for sure, she was bothered, very much so—weary, even. She even looked for the conductor to change her seat if possible, pointing out the guy with her eyebrows, quietly complaining, anything at all, for she didn’t want—or couldn’t dare—to antagonize him.
“Tell me, what was the best piece of advice you ever got?”
“Don’t talk to strangers?”
There were these physical signs now: the sudden knot in her stomach, the ache at the back of her head, the numbness creeping upward from her toes—each offering something new for her to feel: anxiety and terror and anger and doubt and hesitation. A complete gallery of emotions for her to pick and choose from.
“Huh. Funny. It serves me well, though. See, your parents told you not to talk to the strangers, years ago, and those words, they traveled, here, standing between you and me. I told you to close the curtain—not an advice but you get the gist of it. Now we’ll arrive, and you’ll slide it open to take a look around. That movement will be born out of nothing, and action created just because of my words. This is what an advice is. It loosens the time itself—”
The guy stopped, abruptly, which caught her off guard. She thought he could talk for eternity. He had a cheeky grin on his face, looking at her legs.
“The foot rest,” he said, “you’re using it.”
She had no idea about how or when this had happened. Through the ordeal the guy put her through his little talk, her body must’ve embraced the smallest comfort.
“I–” she began to explain but the guy suddenly lost interest in her, putting on his headphones, even turning his head away from her apparently to sleep for the rest of the trip. She felt a weird combination of relief and confusion, even locked her foot rest back in its place hoping to rid the guy the satisfaction, but he didn’t seem to notice it. Soon she fell asleep, had a dream in which her aunt was a bus and she had to pay the fare in the form of advice in order to get on, though she had none to offer.
They arrived at the terminal half an hour late. When she woke up, the guy had already left. She got off the bus, stretched, stretched like the last hours of a work day, rubbed her eyes, and took her phone out to call her father, only to find a new email notification, boldly titled, “Payment Received! Thank You For Your Purchase.” In it, there was an invoice for the equivalent of 9.99$ with a description of service: Successful Advice on Foot Rest
“God damn it!” she said, adding the invoice amount, along with the fee for the bus ticket, to an imaginary account book she opened for the cost of her aunt’s funeral. There, she recalled another advice, this time by her aunt, which cost her a gum and a plastic wristwatch. “You shouldn’t bury people,” she’d said, “And even if you do, you shouldn’t gather and watch.”