I'm feeling very cold. This wooden hut, or rather, it can't even be called a hut, it's a ruin; it's very cold. There's no enclosed space, and it's raining outside. My name is Taşkın. I don't know my last name. I don't know my age. I have no idea what day I was born, what day of the month it was. But I must be seven or eight years old. I've been here for as long as I can remember. Just outside, about twenty or twenty-five steps from this miserable ruin, there's a big house. The people who feed me live there.

At regular intervals, someone brings me food. When I try to say something or look at them, they beat me. Once, just because we made eye contact, they beat me with an iron rod. The people who bring me food keep changing, but it's always the same two people. A woman and a man. I only see their faces.

I only know the faces of two people in my life. I have no idea what I look like because I've never seen myself before. I don't know who they are. My body hurts a lot, I'm constantly in pain, but I guess the pain becomes more bearable every day. I don't know what I did to them, why they treat me like this. I'm very scared of the sound of the rain and the flashes of lightning. I cover my head and ears with my arms. I'm very scared; it's as if every lightning strike physically hurts me. I flinch every time lightning strikes.

I have a friend here. He's a mouse, and he comes to me every night. I see him in the faint light provided by the small bulb hanging from the ceiling. He's my only friend. I wish he could talk to me; we would play games together. I wonder what other children my age are doing. Sometimes, on calm days, I hear children's voices coming from afar, laughing. I don't know if they would run away from me or play with me if they saw me.

Days come and go. How much longer will I stay here? Will my whole life pass in this hut? I don't know. The hut is surrounded by fences, but there are gaps in some places. I've escaped a few times from those gaps, but I've been caught every time, and I've paid the price with many bruises on my body. It's morning now, the weather is very nice, and I hear the children's voices again, but this time they're closer. There's a window in my hut, but I can't reach it, so I put a small stool and climb on it to look around. A ball fell into the yard; I climbed to the window and jumped down. My feet hurt a little, but I didn't care.

The ball had fallen to the back of the hut; so even if they looked from the house, they couldn't see that I had come out, the ball stayed at the level of the hut. The window was also at the back of the hut. I picked up the ball. It was an orange ball, I liked it very much. Just holding the ball in my hand made me happy for some reason. Also, I don't really know how to play with a ball. Most likely, a child hit it a little too hard, so the ball fell where I was; otherwise, why would they throw the ball here?

I saw a girl from afar; she was coming towards me. She was about my age or younger. I didn't know what to do. Would the girl run away if I tried to talk to her? Would they see me if I went to her? I thought it was worth the risk. I walked towards her with the ball in my hand. She got scared when she saw me, and her face changed. It's as if she was disgusted with me and she put her hand on her nose. I guess I smelled very bad, but I didn't smell anything.