Dallas-
Talking to an imaginary friend has stayed with Hana within years. As the illusion is the only drive in her life now, it had been the same in past. Dream and fantasy grow with her, even though her double is a strong woman, she has stayed weak and nonchalant. Her other self, whom Hana has allowed to be part of her life continuously, has stayed by her side all these years. She uses this mystical creation to turn away from all sullen absoluteness and to have a cherished corner to run to. During the years, this safe place and the other self have helped her to overcome, succeed, and survive. When she is not working, she can be found in a dream world and then she becomes the other self. Now that she has to work harder than ever, driving to and from work is the best time for traveling to her dream world and become the other self.
After six months living in Dallas, they are already moving to another apartment, as so many other times. She recalls an earlier move when her parents moved to another house. That move was the hardest of all; it was like a nightmare to her. She loved that old house on M. Street. However as she can not stop this move now, she could not do anything then either.
Tehran-
Since they had moved to that new house, Hana was mournful. She missed the old house, the tall tree, the cozy little shops, and the stream lets on both sides of the road. There was no spirit in this new area. The dead end alley the new house was located on, was a place for all the children of neighborhood to play and scream at each other. Every afternoon when schools were over, her brothers and sisters joined the noisy crowd in the alley and added more to her agitation. She always refused to play with them even at younger age. At age fourteen, she felt like grownups with many serious things in her mind.
Although she hated her new life and home, she liked her room. After the sickening dispute they had over who would take which room, she finally got the smallest one on the second floor. What she liked about that room was mostly its privacy. She knew that room was built to serve as a storage room or a large closet; but she did not care. She did not mind not having a window there. When feeling suffocated, she opened the door to see through the window in the turn of the stairs the big garden of the neighbour. She even used her imagination to create something unrealistic in her closet- like room. She wanted her red curtains, from her room in the other house, to be hanged in her new, windowless room. Her mother finally agreed to nail the rod on the naked wall and hang the curtains. She used to sit in her dark, lonely room for hours, staring at he red curtains hanging on the wall and imagining a glass window behind them which faced a place like M. Street. Only a moment of bliss; wasn't such idea satisfactory for the exclusiveness of her life?
Dallas-
This new apartment is in the same building as the other one. It has the same floor plan, two bedroom, a small living room, a small kitchen and dining room, with the exception of having two bathrooms. On Friday evening, after work, they hand carry their modest furniture and belongings to the new place. On Saturday, She organizes the new place. By evening everything looks normal as though the place has been theirs forever. Sunday morning when her family are still in bed, she looks around to find something to do. There is nothing else needed to be done. Therefore she decides to travel in her mind to old days.
Tehran-
In her closet- like room, her bed was also her desk. There was no room for a desk and chair. Her sisters got the possession of those in their joint room next to hers on the second floor. Despite the fact that she felt superior to what they taught her at school, she studied intensely and always got good grades. She hated to see her father's frown or her mother's breakdown since she had seen them that way when it came to her brothers and sisters bad grades. Every evening after the supper, she did her homework for the next day; and then reached for her hidden notebook under the mattress. First, for a while with the pen in her mouth, she gazed into the small space. "What am I going to write tonight?" The image of the tall figure had left a hole in her heart. That particular night she wrote:
"Your love abides in my reminiscence like an enchanting vision; a vision that I think of a long time after awakening."
She put the pen in her mouth again and looked at the words she had just written. She did not want to forget the tall figure; even though somehow it was not as heart breaking as it had been two years ago. Gazing thoughtfully again into the small space, the walls and floor seemed discolored to her. Everything was dark and impure. She got up from bed and began pacing the closet- like room. Many different things passed through her mind, she saw herself, just as she was now, in ten, twenty, and ... in the same room, living the same solitary life. Trembling by her own thought, abruptly one line of her night before writing echoed in her mind:
"My isolated nights come to an end by a special morning."
Dallas-
Sitting on the sofa, she thinks of all those writings. A feeling of anger suddenly haunts her when she remembers how she burned them all the night before their flight to America. "Your writings are you soul and if you burn them, you have burned your soul." Her sister, who had helped her to burn them, told her. Sometimes she feels a powerful compulsion to write again; but how can she? If Hamid, her husband, finds them, he will destroy not only her writings but also she has to pay a big price for it.The silence of this Sunday morning confuses her. She looks at the clock. It is only four in the morning. She opens the window to feel the blissful stillness. That reminds her of of another silent night in her closet- like room back home. But before traveling there, she decides to write the rush of the words in her mind. She will burn them before Hamid wakes up.
Luminous, unreachable star,
Oblivious you are and far.
With your twinkling eyes,
You're the diamond of sky.
My world you see,
Because you are free.
{}
In this silent night,
You see me from that height.
You see my writings I burn
To only get in return
A piece of mind
Which before I couldn't find.
{}
Poems of love were among.
They were my secrets for long;
And my treasure for ever.
Strangers could read them never.
{}
You can now decide,
That I am crushing my pride.
I am leaving my ease,
Which only pained my breeze.
Because I was naive;
Now I must grieve.
{}
My star, you well know
That my eyes are filled with woe.
Joy, thrill, and song
Died for his wrong.
My star, you can tell me
What will happen to my sanity?
My poems are gone;
I burned them with fun.
{}
On my empty bed,
Where I have suffered,
I finally retire;
Knowing my poems are in fire.
Now, I am in rage
For burning all but one page.
{}
Do you also know
That cruelty never go?
Earthly people sting,
Hurt they only bring.
{}
Now I turn my face;
From is or is not of this place;
Those poems I miss,
Living in this abyss.
{}
My star, at night
You look like my tears of spite.
My star, open a door
For me to soar
To your eternal world,
To your eternal world.
When Hana finishes writing, before burning what she just wrote, she names it, "An Intimate Talk to a Star".
Tehran-
To Be continued
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