The house smells of coffee and stale cloth. Mizgîn waits for Sîpan to finish his cup, but he sets it down half-full on the table, takes the keys, leaves. The door closes softly. Since February Sîpan no longer says goodbye, not because he hates his mother — Mizgîn knows it — but because the words that would be needed do not yet exist in their language, and he does not want to invent them. Aram would have known what to say to him. Aram has been gone since January.

Mizgîn walks over to the grey jacket hanging by the door. It is Aram's jacket. On the left breast pocket, the green-and-white checkered handkerchief, the one from the 01982 wedding, folded in four. She takes it. She folds it again, in eight. She puts it in the inner pocket of her dress. She goes out.

It is the 24th of May of 02026, twenty to ten in the morning, and Hassakeh is already dry. Mizgîn walks along al-Quwatli Street, past the new cemetery — the one where in January they dug more graves in two weeks than in ten years. The headstones are grey, still without names cut into them. Only one, near the gate, has a name freshly cut, today. Mizgîn does not stop to read.

The polling station is in the primary school on al-Bashir Street, first floor. There is a queue. Mizgîn recognizes Khalid, the upstairs neighbour; he gives her a brief nod. She returns it. They do not speak. The air in the school is still. On the single wall painted blue is the poster with the two names. One is the government candidate. The other a young woman, said to be supported by the Kurdish diaspora in Germany. Aram, one evening last December, had said the first one was not to be trusted, because a man who has crossed over once will do it again.

The poll clerk is twenty-two, in a grey jacket too big at the shoulders, a damp stamp in his hand. He hands her the ballot. Mizgîn takes it. She folds it in two, so as not to look at the names before the moment. She goes to the booth.

The whitish curtains of the booth are thin polyester. Mizgîn pulls them shut. She stands in the closed space, in the silence. The folded ballot on the small wooden ledge. The plastic pencil beside it.

She opens the ballot. The two names. She picks up the pencil.

The right hand on the pencil. The left inside the inner pocket of her dress, on the green-and-white checkered handkerchief.

Fourteen seconds.

At the first second Mizgîn sees Aram in the autumn of 02019 telling her never to trust defectors, because a man who sells himself once sells himself always.

At the third second she sees Sîpan in February, at the door, saying to her "mama, enough," and that it was the first time he had called her mama in five years.

At the fifth second she sees her mother in 01976, bringing her a green-and-white checkered handkerchief and telling her that the green was for those who stay and the white for those who leave.

At the eighth second she sees herself in the bedroom mirror, the evening Aram had not come home.

At the twelfth second the pencil comes down.

At the fourteenth it lifts again.

Mizgîn leaves the booth. She folds the ballot in two. She goes to the transparent plastic urn. The poll clerk holds out his hand. She lays the folded ballot on his palm. He lets it drop. The ballot sinks among the others.

Mizgîn leaves the school. She walks along al-Bashir Street. She passes the new cemetery again. The headstone with the name freshly cut is the sixth from the left of the gate. The name is Hêvîn Mistefa Berekat. Twenty-eight years old. Mizgîn does not know her.

At home, Sîpan has come back from work earlier than usual. He is sitting at the table, his hands open on the wood. He looks at her. Mizgîn puts the coffee on the stove. She waits for it to heat. Sîpan says "mama." It is the second time in five years. She does not turn.

The handkerchief stays in the inner pocket of her dress.