Chapter Eighteen, Meager April Sunset

Staggering, he brought a rose flower
To allure her for romance.
It was wrapped in plastic, had lost its power.
And he laid it gently at entrance.

She frowned and denied his gift.
He struggled in vague to look into her eyes.
She was as she wished to be, very swift.
The sparkle in his eyes, she could deny.

He would bring more flower of the earth.
He would say words of her true feeling.
He would bring her the flower of his hurt,
to where she lived, for revealing.

But everywhere were fear and plight.
The roads were covered with woe.
And there was danger laid in each site.
And the flowers were dead in that blow.

In that meager April sunset
She shone like a star before him.
Her tenderness slowly enveloped him like a net;
And then rose and disappeared like a whim.

Her everlasting sorrow could not last.
He had known it from start.
What else could he bring her to last?
A stem of flower from his heart.
*
Destiny, what some people believe is inevitable and others think is irrelevant, often disturbed Anna. She understood nothing about that word. That was her mother's word and world. However, the term, "I understand nothing or I don't know" reflected more and more as a denial of life, a vague depth between her and nonentity. Thus, occasionally a thought would painfully come to surface of her vagrant attitude like a glance to a picture, a phone call, or even a veiled pride. Then she would temporary gain an energy to fight back all other depressing feelings and thoughts. Her heart was not distilled but it was sad. The perpetual detachment from everything and everyone she knew was already intact; and she knew by the end of of one's life, she would be digressed. She had subjugated her professional life, adversely, her nugatory personal despair severely vanquished the irremediable loss she felt. The inescapable diversity was only a showing that had made her bounded and uninspired life.
When Stacy returned from her vacation, things seemingly went back to normal. She did not speak to Stacy of her insomniac nights. She listened to her friend's description of having a Good time in her parents' home.
"They asked about you a lot." Stacy said.
Anna did not mention of her final decision for returning to Iran after graduation next month. "She'll find out when the time comes." She thought. No words exchanged about Steve. To Anna, that was a forgotten fact of life, but her heart screamed something else. A week later when Anna was studying in the living room, she overheard Stacy's phone conversation in the bedroom. She had heard when the phone rang. In their house Stacy always answered the phone. Anna only had one call every Sunday morning from her father. All the other calls were Stacy's.
"I didn't know that you were back. When did you come back?"
Anna shuddered behind her desk since she had put her desk in a corner of the living room. She had the smaller bedroom. She felt a sweat and heat gathering in the palm of her hands which were over her book. It was Steve on the phone; who else could it be? The word"come back" resounded in her ears. She could not hear anymore of Stacy's conversation as though she was deaf permanently.
"Are you okay, Anna?" Stacy asked her when she saw her head on the desk with her hands clasped behind her neck.
Anna raised her head and looked at Stacy through her misty eyes.
"I'm fine; just a terrible headache." She did not dare to to tell her that she overheard her conversation.
"That was Steve. He's back."
Anna did not say a word.
"He asked about you."
Anna tried to look indifferent and stayed unspoken.
Even though Anna was very confident for getting good grades, she studied endlessly. This was the easiest semester she had had. She went to school every morning and worked in the hospital for her internship every afternoon. Her parents were aware of her imminent finishing school, the first part of what she planed before leaving Iran. But Anna had not yet told them about her decision of returning to Iran and all the other things she had decided during the lonely days of Spring break. "I must tell them." However the concept of going back to Iran and living with her parents again bothered her. She was not the same person as she was at seventeen, when she had left. It was not acceptable for an Iranian, unmarried woman to live on her own and have a separate home. She did not think she could handle living with her parents anymore. She needed to tell her father that she would return to Iran if he agrees that she had her own place and would not force her to a marriage. That would be an exhausting battle, she thought; but she also knew that at this point she was stronger than her father and perhaps she would win the battle. She thought that her father probably would buy or built her a home right next door to theirs. She would never had freedom. she knew it.

To Be continued