Electric Piracy

"We have entered the villa. An apparently poisoned body lies on the floor. On his desk, there are hints indicating the body was busy with writing probably just before dying. I also see an empty microwave oven still hum."

"Captain speaking. Unplug the oven right away. How many times should I tell you not to say, "Body died," sort of things? Bring me all the writings."

My deceased manager warned: "Beware of those unbelievers tapping on the state's supply. Do not ever be tempted by the unlawful, otherwise you will be warped and will be burnt. The devil will ceaselessly be attempting to grease your palm."

"Don't even mention it, my big brother," I said. Pointing at the ceiling and the floor, "There's Allah in the sky, and the hell below us," I shouted in accordance with my demonstration. While was bawling, "The state's electricity equals to my honour," I struck my chest with my fist, giving my voice a rest in the middle of each word.

As a positive person, I swore on my blood to take the Allah's side when I started to work as an ambitious electricity meter reader, at the age of 22.

I first acquired a well-detailed map of the quarter the day I was appointed to the Cihangir district. Dividing all the inhabitants into two categories by the codes "-" and "+", took me only one month.

The sign "-" denoted the state's generous clients; those preferring to use the power supply legally. The "+" sign stood for the rest: my personal price-conscious clients, who either did not feel like paying at all or paid just a fraction of what they should for the power, to the state. "Be positive no matter what they say," my ancestors said.

A voice from the skies was ordering me to enrich myself then. Naturally, I was fulfilling the duty of charging commissions during my visits to plus signs in the name of Allah, in return for ignoring their cost minimisation efforts. Yet, even because of that simple cabriolet I bought for myself the year after, the late manager criticised me. According to him, I was not supposed to afford such a car... Unfortunately, my manager used to be the number one enemy of a prosperous and a humane society.

That was the third year of my war against poverty. In her Don't-ask-enter Street apartment, transvestite Gonca was too ecstatic during my visit to her. (That overpopulated building that entirely belongs to her is, registered as uninhabited in the state's records. Therefore, the power inlet has no meter. She sells the electricity to the rest of the apartments in the building, and the neighbours pay her a fixed amount each month for that. There, despite broken windows and inactive chimneys, everybody is around only dressed with an underwear in the middle of the winter. And I visit her monthly, to have my share.) While polishing her toenails, she was shitting jokes, and I was suspecting that she might be selling even more electricity, perhaps to the nearby buildings. Although the state continuously increased all power supplies' prices, both the billed and the unbilled payments were going down in the region.

The declining revenue problems in my mind, Gonca's stout leather-like legs under my left hand, the arabesque song "There is no mortal without fault, Love me with my faults," on the cassette player, a can of beer in my right hand. During this holly month of Ramadan at least, people could have been honest mercantile instead of cheating like her.