Orhan Pamuk imagines life after the Bosphorus – the Turkish strait that separates Europe from Asia:
The Black Sea, we are told, is getting warmer, the Mediterranean colder. As their waters continue to empty into the great caves whose gaping holes lie in wait under the seabed, the same tectonic movements have caused Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and the Bosphorus to rise. After one of the last remaining Bosphorus fishermen told me how his boat had run aground in a place he had once had to throw in an anchor on a chain as long as a minaret, he asked, Isn’t our prime minister at all interested in knowing why? I didn’t have an answer for him.
All I know is that the water is drying up faster than ever, and soon no water will be left. What is beyond doubt is that the heavenly place we once knew as the Bosphorus will soon become a pitch-black bog, glistening with muddy shipwrecks baring their shiny teeth like ghosts.
(Hat tip: Matthew Schantz. Photo of Ortaköy Mosque and Bosphorus Bridge by Wajahat Mahmood)
The Dish 