In the dark room, Hamid, Flustered and drunk, knocks over a chair, goes straight to the wall, and finally finds the bathroom. He cheerfully vomits all the poison out of his system. There is much relief in doing that, since it is his habit every middle of the night. He washes his face and looks in the mirror to a face that has changed during years from an innocent young looking man to a monster. He actually enjoys his new look. Suddenly he feels the presence of something or somebody in the bathroom. He does not believe in spirit or ghost, but this feeling or the existence of something there is the closest he has come to that feeling. Looking around, he does not see anything. " I drank too much tonight." He says that aloud to himself. However, he senses strongly that something is sharing the bathroom with him. He is baffled. He uses the towel to wipe the mirror clean; and what he sees is a shadow made of smoke or mist that forms up on the mirror again. It does not have any particular shape or size. Rubbing his eyes, he thinks what ever he sees in the mirror is the reflection of his own monstrous face. But the mist moves and all of a sudden speaks, too. He hears a soft woman's voice, which sounds just like Hana but when she was much younger. He shivers of fear.
"You drink too much every night." The invisible woman says.
He, confused and appalled, trembles of a sudden horror and decides to leave the bathroom. He can not open the door. He feels a sensation of a burning hand on his arm as though the image or the spirit is trying to stop him from leaving there. His joy which normally transforms to anger and back to unsteady happiness disappears. He sits on the commode. The soft voice, once more, is heard. But as the voice picks up its intonation, it becomes capricious and more distinguish:
"I feel my bitterness against you. I should cast a dark shadow over your fake happiness. I should freeze and darken your heart with resentful chiding and traumatize it with my hidden and secret grief; and provoke it to beat nervously and out of control at this moment of your false bliss."
Hamid, aghast, feels a sort of anxiety that is new to him. Baffled, he washes his face again and looks in the mirror intensely in the search of the unwanted and unknown ghost in that little space; but this time, he sees nothing in the mirror. Flustered, he puts his hand on the door knob and surprisingly the door opens. Happy to get out of that inauspicious place, he storms out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Hana pretends that she is asleep. He turns on the light and takes his clothes out and throws himself on the bed. That harsh movement shakes the bed, but Hana does not move; even though that has been Hamid's intention to wake her up. her ignorance to his violent action brings him a gnawing pain for which he finds no cure but more abuse to his wife. Kicking her back with his foot, he screams:
"You're not sleep. Stop pretending."
Her heartbeat increases and she feels as though a big knot made of so many poisonous snakes wrapping around each other, filling her throat. Feeling the distasteful venom of her unfortunate life in every organ of her body, she gasps for air to release the monstrous suffocation that is about to end her life. With both hands she pushes the heavy comforter away from her chest and then sits on the edge of the bed. Hamid, who has never turned off the light, looks at her through the haze of his drunk eyes and kicks her again in the back. The act causes her to fall and she begins a hysterical cry. Meanwhile he moves to the other side of the bed, bends and pulls her hair fiercely, so he can see his face.
What do you want from me? You're drunk..." She babbles.
"You know what I want, you stupid, ugly woman."
Hana's struggle to release herself from the hand of this blood thirsty evil causes more viciousness. After his barbaric, vengeful beating and other unbecoming violence, Hana, almost unconscious, wishes to die.
When he is finally done with all his extreme, tempestuous, and coercive assault, he goes to the bathroom. The ghost he saw in the bathroom is still in his mind. He finds, Farhad, their older son, behind their bedroom door. He has heard everything. He rushes to the bedroom and finds his mother half naked and unwitting. She has blood all over her. Screaming with tears in his eyes, Farhad runs to the bathroom and opens the door.
"You crazy man, you killed my mother."
Hamid, now very calm and sitting on the commode, smiles:
"She is okay. Don't worry; And it is not your damn business." His voice slowly tempers to a violent one.
Farhad hysterically throws his fist in the air:
"I hate you. I wish you die."
Tehran-
To Be Continued
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