Leviathan
Istanbul never ceases to stun me. Today I was walking along the Bosphorus at Akinti Burnu where the strait makes a turn and around the corner came gliding the largest ship I have ever seen. The blood-red tanker blotted out the sky and the other coast and just seemed to come on and on without end. Of course, equally enormous tankers plow up and down all the time along this narrow waterway that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara (and eventually the Aegean, the Mediterranean and the ocean). It’s just that I hadn’t seen one in a while and this one was closer to my side (the European side) of the strait. The impact it made on me was enormous. One can’t help but think what would happen if the ship were suddenly to lose direction and head for one of the lovely wooden Ottoman houses along the shore. This has happened in the past and not just once. A ship that size traveling at narrow quarters through a metropolis of (at least) 12 million people is an accident waiting to happen. Many are tankers hauling millions of gallons of oil from the Black Sea countries out to the Atlantic. Others are container ships as long as several city blocks. Leviathans hulking between the lacy wooden konaks and summer villas remaining from the Ottoman Empire, between thickets of fishing rods along the shore, small fish flashing like silver coins from multiple hooks, boys dangling their legs, women arm-in-arm strolling, simit sellers, the man selling fried liver and onions in a hunk of fresh crusty bread from a glass case dangling from his hand, fishermen sipping tea and frying their catches on the sidewalk on small burners. They barely spare a glance for the Leviathan gliding past.