At the very moment that Yesirkep finished his dinner, the chair beneath him bounced up and down so hard that he nearly fell on the floor. Thinking that it was the antics of his five-year-old son, it did not take long for Yesirkep to slap him on the back. The boy, who at that moment was daydreaming of a Sunday trip to the town’s toy shop, began to cry. ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Yesirkep’s wife confronted him. He started to explain what had happened, but at that moment the chair he was sitting on started to move again. Yesirkep looked at his wife, at his son, and then looked up… The light bulb hanging from the ceil- ing on a piece of wire was swinging like a pendulum. ‘Oibai! Everybody outside!’ shouted Yesirkep and dashed out of the house. Stopping only in the centre of the yard, he took a breath and looked behind him. Wife and son were still in the house. ‘Oibai! Kamasiya! Over here! Hurry!’ Yesirkep shouted with renewed vigour. The ground stirred again. Yesirkep, who did not often think of Allah, now called upon him a thousand times for help, then, exhausted with terror, sank to the dust where he stood. At last his wife appeared in the open doorway. She held their son in her arms. ‘Well, did the soul not fly away?’ she inquired as she lowered the child from her arms onto the porch. Yesirkep gradually came to his senses. Seeing that he had unnecessarily hit the child, had rushed out of the house when he should have been thinking of his family, and that he was now sitting in the middle of the yard, Yesirkep felt shame run up and down his body in prickly goosebumps. ‘Why are you sitting in the dust like a chicken? Get up!’ his wife shouted, nailing him to the ground. ‘Look how he treasures his life! And he boasted that as a child he had fought two wolves,’ she laughed. ‘Don’t they have anything better to do than mess with you?’ ‘Alright, alright,’ mumbled Yesirkep, kicking the dust out of his trousers. ‘Hurry up and get up! God forbid people should see. You’d better go to your car! Yesirkep looked around. Thank Allah, there was no one… He tapped his hand once more on his be- hind, causing a dusty cloud to form there, and