IWillSeeTheWorld.com

From the bridge at sunset, men throw lines towards small fish riding the tide out of the Black Sea, through the center of Istanbul and into the open Aegean. Some get caught on hooks and are carried straight upwards like a spider climbing its string, then get tossed into a white pail, which when full the fisherman carries down concrete stairs to where he can sell his heaving pail of silver slime and gasping gills to fine restaurants lining the lower level of the bridge.

A row of glass windows glowing of candle and mood lighting showcases tourists and wealthy locals dining on the very fresh catch. Over their meals and conversations, through the large windows, they focus their eyes past all the thin white spider’s lines stretching from the men working hard above to the fish gambling for their lives below. They look towards the West at the mess of cubes climbing the first hill of the European continent. They marvel at the smooth round globes and long pointed columns of all the magnificent mosques that give Istanbul its Islamic wonder.

Everything on this hill loses its color in the shadow of a blazing orange sun, which sprays its last light over Istanbul, through the restaurant and wine glasses, past the fishermen and their skinny lines, over the fish and the tide and finally onto another mess of cubes on the first hill of the Asian continent whose faces grow more golden by the minute.

The sounds of the day’s last Islamic prayer blares from the bubbled mosques on the western hill, echoing off all the grey and gold cubes and carrying too, by all the people and fish, working, eating, dieing and awing, on its way, everyday, with the last light, from the West to the East.