Swiftly, the unusual journey began
To an ocean of messages where waves ran.
You became one with the waves through madness and grace.
In salty water you washed your body and face.
You followed friends, broke the torch of fire.
In the nimble water, world looked so very dire.
How long did the torch teach?
That had to be broken for your reach.
Storm knows of its transient state.
Just go, but look at sun as you await.
You're sometimes full like the moon.
When you feel crescent, melodies don't tune.
*
Some pieces of small, gray cloud, like a slow walking animal, had crept across the uncultivated sky. There, where it was only a glass between her and the barren sky, Anna felt that she was only a shadowy grain projected by the sunshine for its inadequacy. Quintessence and sound were obscurities that morning which had spread to manifest their pliability.
She pressed her face to the small window, as though her soul could somehow fly out to that sunshine, while remembering her mother's weeping eyes and her father's graying hair. As she conjured up the long, painful battle to get there, a sudden fear haunted her. However, the adventure of traveling alone and going to another country without the protection of her parents soon enabled her to overcome the anxiety.
The glass window between her and sunshine frightened her and she yearned the fantasy of touching that firing ball, of being with it and dissolving in it. The book on her knee stayed close all the way to London, where her cousin Fro and his wife were supposed to receive her.
Despite Fro's marriage to a foreign woman which had caused turmoil and coldness between two families, Shahzdeh had no choice but to open the line of communication with his nephew so his daughter could stay with him that one night. He would not possibly allow her to go to a hotel in a foreign land. The thought of seeing Fro, her cousin and confidant, temporary enlightened her soul and her face wreathed in smile. Dazing thoughtfully into space, she finally fell asleep.
In Heath row Airport, she was one of the first to exit the airplane. After going through the custom and getting out where she was supposed to pick up her luggage, she began searching anxiously to find Fro. She felt motionless, unhearing, and speechless. There were so many inquisitive eyes there that piercing her through like they had never seen a young girl traveling by herself. She was tormented. When she finally saw her cousin among the crowd, she let go of her stifled emotions and ran to embrace him. The two cousins cried of happiness and when at last their roaring joy subsided, Fro introduced his wife, who was holding their baby to Anna.
"Anna, this is Jan, my wife."
Anna hugged Jan and the baby together with pleasure.
In their small two bedroom flat in the outskirt of London, they lived a very modest life, Their old furniture all over the house were given to them by Jan's parents. Anna was overwhelmed to see Fro and his family. She particularly love the baby, who was fifteen months old. A little, chubby boy, who looked so much like Fro. Jan was receptive and did not mind that her husband and Anna talked Persian or discussed their old encounters. However, soon Anna realized the rudeness of talking their own tongue. Even though shyness was her reason not to speak English, she was afraid that Jan might take it as an insolence. When she began speaking English, Jan was amazed how good she had mastered that language.
Jan was aware that at one point her husband had been a candidate to marry Anna; but she also knew the stifle life they lived in and how hard Anna had struggled to convince her father for going to America.
In that cold January evening, the three of them stayed in the living room and talked. It was four in the morning when they decided to go to bed. Anna was offered the baby's room.
"I can sleep on the sofa." she blissfully said."
"Oh, no, please, John always wakes up at six and he won't let you sleep. I want you to sleep in John's room. John can sleep with us tonight," Jan said.
Anna was thankful for the generosity of this English woman.
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