The waiter brings the tea before I've said a word. Çay in a tulip glass, small spoon balanced on the rim, steam catching the morning light coming sideways through the café window. Nine in the morning and Beyoglu is still rubbing its eyes. A cat sleeps under the next table like it pays rent here.
The spread arrives in pieces, not all at once. White cheese first, then olives glistening in their own oil, then tomatoes cut thick, then eggs still warm from the pan. Nobody rushes this. There is no version of Turkish breakfast that fits into ten minutes, and I like that about it. It insists on time the way some people insist on being right.
The table is mosaic, chipped in one corner, sticky with someone else's honey from an hour ago. My camera sits beside the bread basket, loaded, waiting, patient the way film always is. I take one frame of the çay glass against the light and leave it at that. Some mornings don't need more than one photograph.
A man two tables over reads a newspaper he is clearly not reading. A woman argues gently with her toddler about olives. Istanbul at this hour is quiet in a way the guidebooks don't mention, all call to prayer and cat footsteps and the low clink of small spoons against glass. I think about how far I've come to sit still. Then I stop thinking about it and pour more tea.
