Emre (I)

In Istanbul, Turkey, Emre, 26-year-old male, the earthling whose instincts are the most sensitive in the last thousand years. He hasn't spent any money in the past 5 months. He protected his luck.

March 31, 2020, 6:49 AM

Ring~ Ring~

"Aaahh .. mmhhmmch", unwillingly extending his hand to his mobile phone, Emre forcefully opened his eyes and turned off the alarm on the phone. After getting up quickly and hurrying to the bathroom, he was ready to go to work in ten minutes. He closed the door and proceeded to the service stop with the shirt he had worn for 4 days and his sloppy appearance. After stopping by the small market on the way, He bought cigarettes, pastries, and water. He finished his pastry while waiting for the service vehicle.

He got on the shuttle bus at 7:14. Every day, he sat down in his permanent seat on the bus, ignoring the faces of other workers, whose unhappiness was visible just like himself. Emre started working as machine operator instead of being an engineer at the factory where he started at the age of 23 and has been operating the same machine for 3 years.

While the vehicle was on the road, he scanned the messages shared by his friends on his phone. Suddenly he realized that something was missing. He looked right and left and grunted. "Why did I suddenly feel like something was missing from me." After getting off the service vehicle, he started to work.

'It is 11:55'

With the lunch break warning, he took Zafer, where he was working with him, and proceeded to the part where they were smoking.

"Brother, did anything important happen today? It's as if something was missing from me and I was so unhappy. "

After lighting his cigarette, Zafer looked at Emre and answered, "Every day, every minute something happens, what a crappy question?" Of course, Emre did not expect an answer from Zafer. He was just speaking what he had in mind.

After getting off the shuttle bus in the evening, he came to the same market. An old uncle was laughing and talking to the cashier when he entered. He overheard their conversation while taking a snack for the evening.

"Today I got five of the numeric Lotto. I earned 20 thousand TL. Ahahaha. That's why I want to ask you something. Is there anyone around us who is looking for a job or has no conditions? I want to help."*(1)

"Uncle Murat, why are you looking after someone else when your son need money as well?"

"The more I help my son, the more he sinks. Let him stand on his feet now. He doesn't know yet that I won."

"He will definitely ask you, Uncle. Almost 10 times this year you hit 4 numbers or 5. I don't know how lucky you are. Heheh "

When Emre heard his speech, he realized how lucky his old uncle was. When he came to the checkout, after making the payment, he asked the old uncle the question he had in mind. "Uncle, I'm very curious. How can you win so many times in a game of chance? I have never seen or heard a winner twice."

Uncle Murat answered by looking at Emre: "Luck. It's all luck. But it is also important not to lose your chance. For example, I suddenly feel inside me. I say 'this is your chance', I go and try my chance immediately."

Emre was suddenly stunned. Like the feeling he experienced in the service in the morning, the feeling that something was missing from him was like the opposite of this uncle. Or Emre felt that way. Emre, who thought on the way to his house, started researching 'instant feelings' at the computer when he came home.

After filtering a lot of unnecessary information, a comment on a website aroused Emre's curiosity.

- We have 5 sensory organs we know. Mothers can feel their children even when they are away. A sense of motherhood? We can experience and feel things we have never experienced in our dreams. Like the feeling of flying? There are those who can guess before something bad happens. There are also those who think they are lucky and win games of chance. I wonder how many sense organs do we actually have? How much can we feel?

After reading the article, there were hundreds of comments written behind it. Some made religious comments, some political, some mocked or amused. But one of them caught Emre's attention.

- We believe that the accepted laws of physics are 100 percent correct, assuming that time cannot be changed. We also believe in the rules of biology that accept that we have 5 sense organs. Is your problem a matter of faith?

Emre was sure it wasn't about faith. But the feeling that something was taken from you was something completely different from the feeling of missing something. Then one had to keep his feelings under control in order to understand himself. 'I wonder how many feelings I have'

Emre, confused, prepared his meal while listening to the song. While eating, he sat in front of the TV and opened the documentary channel. Being hunted by a leopard, the gazelle's position in the herd caught his attention before and after the leopard approached. He found the same documentary on the internet on the phone and watched the same footage again.

While normally 15 gazelles before it could be prey in the herd, in a few seconds the gazelle became leopard bait. Did other gazelles have stronger feelings or better reflexes? Or was the gazelle unlucky? After Emre completely decided that it was a factor of luck, he started to do research on the internet as "what is luck, how to have luck".

What was the luck? After searching in Turkish, English, German and Japanese with using google translator, he continued his research in Chinese. Unlike other nations ​​that suggest that luck is linked to fate, he has found an expression that luck is one of one's potential in Chinese. He tried to translate from the same source and came across statements saying that one's luck could hardly be improved and would also be lost.

The person could improve himself as he read or researched. One could also improve his body when he exercised. All of this was the development of potential. In other words, it was said that luck could be improved by targeting it. Emre, who started to investigate the ways of losing luck in detail, realized that he had found a few things at the end.

Some people said that while touching lost their luck, the luck of the person touched increased. Others believed that if touched, they lost their luck. So what was touching? It was a method of transferring mysterious synergy in the person. A basketball team was creating synergy by putting their hands together before the match and shouting the names of their teams. Or, after two workers engaged in a difficult task, motivated each other by putting their heads together, they could lift a heavy load which they normally could not. Synergy, potential and luck.

The next day, while returning home from work, Emre met Uncle Murat. After shopping from the same market, Uncle Murat was on his way to his house. Greeting Uncle Murat, Emre saw the shopping bags in the hands of the old man. On the way, Emre asked why the old uncle did such a big shopping at the small market: "I wonder why you are shopping at the neighborhood market when shopping malls sell products for much cheaper these days?"

Uncle Murat said that the products of the big grocery stores were passed by hundreds of people without any change in his facial expression. He stated that the products have changed hands from hundreds of points from the manufacturer to the consumer and that the top ones, not the ones who deserve, won. He kindly expressed that he was against this system.

Emre was completely speechless. Emre was not surprised by Uncle Murat's political or personal principles. It was the idea that caught Emre's attention 'the products were passed on by hands of hundreds of people.' "If the potential is carried in the products and this potential decreases every time, the consumer will have products with low potential" Emre suddenly awoke.

Upon getting home, when he realized that the producers had no chance as well, Emre thought he was going in the wrong direction. The subject had gone out of the way to win luck. Emre, who started his research on ways of gaining luck again, got caught up in topics on witchcraft. He thought they were absurd, not believing that magic exists. But he encountered interesting statements on a social platform.

The way to cast a spell on someone without that person's knowledge was to use something belonging to him as a tool. For example, love spells or revenge spells. For the curse spells, intermediary materials such as a person's hair, handkerchief, and clothes were needed.

After thinking a little bit about what Uncle Murat said and a little bit of the magic methods, a terrible idea came to mind. What if when you buy a product with your own money, they use the money as an intermediary? What if the biggest shopping chains perform magic by the ratio of the money they collect at the end of each month to the total number of customers?

Uncle Murat was doing his shopping from the local grocery store. The shopkeeper got the money. Therefore, Uncle Murat's money was not going to the manufacturer of the product. The money of the shopkeeper was going. Emre was thoroughly confused. And he decided to put an end to his research on the Internet and do a trial. For a month, he would only shop at local grocery stores or roadside kiosks. At the end of a month, he would evaluate whether he had accumulated enough luck by playing the game of chance or differently.

After making this plan, Emre never spent his money in big stores or shopping chains for exactly two months. At the end of two months, he received 10 TL from Zafer, stating that he will play a game of chance without repayment. On the way to the market, he came to the shop that played games of chance and played a lotto. He asked the machine to choose the numbers.

(1)* [Numerical Lotto is a kind of betting game, gaming machine pick six numbers from fourty-nine and you estimate before the draw. TL = Turkish Lira]