10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Content Warning: This section discusses murder, miscarriage, childhood sexual assault and rape, mistreatment of sex workers, and ableism.

Leila, known as Tequila Leila by her friends and clients, is a young woman in Istanbul, Turkey, who has been murdered. Leila’s body was thrown into a dumpster, but she finds herself conscious despite being physically deceased. She wishes to be found for the sake of her five friends. She imagines the funeral that her friends will organize, deciding that she would prefer roses.

A group of young men walks around the football field near the dumpster, looking for items they can use or sell. One of the young men finds Leila’s body and silently takes her gold locket; inside the locket, there is a photo of young Leila and a man, dated 1976.

One man asks if Leila is dead, and the thief says that she is dead and obviously a sex worker, using derogatory terms to describe her. He says they will be famous for discovering her body.

In the first minute after her heart stops, Leila remembers her birth in vivid detail. Leila’s mother, Binnaz, reacted to the announcement of her daughter’s gender with disappointment. Binnaz was a beautiful young woman and the second wife of a man named Haroun.