Technicolor Ghosts of Vivid Madness

I found the letter below in my drawer. I don’t know when—or even if—I wrote it at all. The handwriting resembles my small, scrawled script. I don’t know who Morpheia is or where this Perseus place might be. I’m scared.

Dear Morpheia,

Thank you for your delightful comment on my tweet regarding The Color Purple. No, I haven’t read the adventures of Baron Münchausen. But one night, at four in the morning, I saw an ad on TV. It said the first ten people to call and buy their baldness-concealing spray would win a free vacation. “Call now,” it urged. So I did. I gave them my credit card number and won. I was one of the lucky ten, and for a few million liras, I got a hair spray that dyed bald spots black—and a free trip to the Perseus Constellation.

They loaded us–the ten winners–onto an open-top sightseeing bus. They strapped it on a rocket in Houston, like they do with the shuttles, and launched us into space. During the countdown, I was thrilled, but my thoughts kept drifting to the hair of the other nine people. None of them had even a trace of baldness. Could the spray really be that effective? Or had they, like me, not really needed it and bought it just to win the trip? I was so lost in these thoughts that I missed the countdown entirely. Suddenly, we took off.

It was an incredible feeling—animalistic and wild—the pressure and thrust roaring across my face and body. But once Earth fell behind us, and the G-forces eased, the journey to Perseus was slow and monotonous. Occasionally, the attendants offered stale cake and tea. I always chose soda instead of tea or water, which gave me gas. After 25 hours in the same seat, I was terribly uncomfortable. I couldn’t sleep. The person behind me objected whenever I tried to recline my seat. I kept tossing from side to side. My knees pressed hard against the seat in front of me. My Discman’s batteries died, so I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t read a book either—my stomach churned.

When we finally arrived at the constellation, I was exhausted. But after hours of staring at a dark, starry background, what I saw blew my mind. A kaleidoscope of colors surrounded me, where psychedelic creatures played games with surreal beings. I saw purple dragons playing squash, insects going to college, satyrs selling hats, and models commanding fleets. All the stories I’ve written are faint echoes of what I saw during my one-week all-inclusive trip to Perseus. I must admit this.

It was easily the greatest vacation of my life. I spent three magical days with the bald rabbit-fairy of a hill covered in marshmallow flowers and golden oil wells. The day we met began with me gifting them my hair spray and ended with us getting drunk at Refik’s Tavern. Refik was a local fisherman–he served the best fish and rakı in the constellation. I’ll keep the rest of these memories to myself. But for those wondering where my ideas and images come from, you should know—I stole them all from Perseus.

This letter is my confession, my attempt to ease my conscience, my plea for forgiveness. The return trip was even more exhausting than the journey there, with a searing atmospheric reentry and a rough landing. Returning to Earth felt like trading surround sound for small laptop speakers, leaving an IMAX theater for a 27-inch black-and-white TV, abandoning CDs for cassette tapes, or replacing an Intel Pentium with a Commodore 64. It was incomplete, and worst of it all, it was very much rabbitless and extremely fairyless. It took me months to recover from the depression of returning to monochrome life.

The stories I write now are but echoes of the stars I remember and the music I hear when I close my eyes. None of them are my creation. I stole everything from the Perseus Constellation and its bards. Please forgive this miserable excuse for a human being. I had no choice but to steal the colors, I couldn’t bear this sepia existence otherwise. Like every creature, I too clung to this wretched life, driven by an unstoppable inner urge, no matter how meaningless it seemed. And the only way I could survive was through this dishonorable theft.

I beg you, pity me. Forgive me, dear Morpheia. I forgive all the wickedness you have done and have yet to do.

Writhing in pain and regret,
Irmak