Odyssey...~{~37- Spark in Darkness

Inside Hana's apartment , where the blinds are drawn permanently, in the darkness, she like a stray dog paces the small apartment, exasperating every night. Rita, Sylvie's mom, has offered her to go to Italy with her for Sylvie's graduation only a year after they left America. She is planning to go for her graduate study. Farhad has still a long way to go, since he started much later. She thinks about their ages. She thinks about if Farhad has done what Sylvie has been doing all along, he should have graduated way before Sylvie considering, he is a year older than her. Hana meanly and stubbornly refuses Rita's offer for the joyous visit to their children just to be doleful; and just to plan her final days. She even gets angry at Farhad when he insists on her going to Italy with Rita, as though some one has violated her freedom. Her attitude these days is: "Leave me alone, all of you good people out there!" She does not return Valery's numerous calls; whence, Valery does not have any news from her to tell Mario, who calls her everyday and asks her about Hana.

Hana's life is summarized only in going to work every morning and coming home every evening. The walls of her apartment are covered with Sam's pictures from all walks of his short life, from birth to his death. As she sits mostly on the floor and looks at the photo albums, anything to remind her of past and gone, her ashtray becomes her best friend. She sees the picture of his brother, Van; and suddenly discovers something. Her brother and son were the same age when they died. They both died by the hand of someone else; Van by the hand of The Shah's Savak and Sam by the hand's of American Technology, what a bizarre phenomenon!

Her food is only cereal and even that is so little that does not even fill a bird. She intentionally wants to hurt her body by not eating. She has decided that the best way to die is not eating. It is going to be a slow and painful death but it is better than having an accident by car, since that way, she will hurt someone else, too. Slowly food becomes a pungent habit and anytime she smells the neighbor's food through the ventilation, she vomits. As she becomes weak and loses so much weight, some of her colleagues at work, who show concern about her well being and in a meeting with the owner of the company, they tell him about Hana's health and state of mind. He, who is busy making more profit for Hana's continuous and faithful effort and hard work, suddenly notices that they are right.

The next day he calls her in his office and only then he sees how frail and colorless this woman looks.

"I know what you have been through Hana, but that doesn't mean you hurt yourself by not eating!"

"How do you know I am not eating? " Hana is not afraid to show her annoyance.

"I don't have to know. I have eyes and I can see, What are you doing? Do you want to kill yourself? How old are you know? Is it forty six? Look at you in one years you have aged so much that you look like a sixty years old woman. I know that is not a politically correct thing to say, but I am saying it to make you aware of what you're doing to yourself!"

Hana controls herself of hearing the word "kill", and stubbornly looks at her boss.

"Why every time someone loses weight, people thinks she is dying?!"

"Hana, stop arguing with me. You've been my best employee and I truly care for you. Let me help you!"

Hana thinks about the words "truly care for you", and in her speaking mind says: "You truly care for profit." But to her boss, she says:

"I am fine. I don't need help."

"Oh, God, you're so stubborn. Listen, I am meeting some of my buyers tonight in a restaurant. I want you to go with me."

"You've never invited me before for such things. If this is an order and part of my job, I go with you, if not, I don't like to socialized these days."

Even though his talking to Hana makes her realize that there are still people who care; yet she does not go. She hates when friends or in this case boss interfere with her freedom and privet life.

She remembers a dream, a far past thought, when she was only a teenager, when her parents moved to the house in the dead end alley. Then she sat on the bed on her closet- like room, gazing at the red curtains hanging on the windowless wall. At that moment she saw herself just as she is now. She visioned herself in ten years, twenty years,... in the same room, living the same sort of solitary life. As the thought, then, shuddered her, it does the same now. At least on that occasion, she had a hope, a gloomy dream which echoed in her mind: "My solitary nights come to an end when a special morning comes!" She remembers that poem, a poem of hope and better future. She really expected to encounter "A Special Morning"! Now there is not any future and past is gone. Never she wakes up to a "Special Morning".

When Rita, Sylvie's mom returns from Italy, She rapturously calls Hana.

"Sylvie is four months pregnant. We're going to be grandmas!"

Hana has not been able to go to work for the last three days for her extreme weakness. People from work are really concerned for her well being, and they are planning to send someone to her home today. Her voice on the phone is barely audible.

"Are you okay? What is wrong Hana? " Rita quizzes her.

Hana has only heard the word, "Pregnant, Grandmas". As she is fading away into a dominating disease which is hunger, those words echo in her mind over and over. She finds enough strength to say one word to Rita:

"Help!"

To Be Continued