The mechanical succession of days and night Made Neda's heart to ache. The passing of the time was like a compulsory servitude, a repetitive moving of hours; and they were all so hard for her to endure.
Anything she looked at was the same as before, yet they all had changed. Today and yesterday were the same; yet there was a great ocean between them. She tried hard by herself to figure out this great difference. It came to her as a shock. Things of past were simple, natural, colorful, and bright. Things of today were dark, polluted, and lonely. Was she being frightened mostly loveliness, like her father used to say that there was something lovely about a woman who is frightened? Future was unknown and scary; therefore, she could not borrow from it to help her through this ordeal of present time. She thought as complicated as her life had been at such young age, for sure her future should have its own tribulation!
New year and its brawl was over and gone. Oh, how much she used to life the Nou Rouz, the beginning of the spring. The aroma of violets that each spring her mother planted in the yard, the tulips, the lilies, the irises which all spurted out of earth and made everything lovely with their mixed perfumes. She saw through her window that the birds were returning. She used to put food for them all over the yard; but now she could not go more than once a day down the stairs; and even that one was with so much difficulties. Sometimes Sohrab, her brother would carry her in his arm, so she did not have to ascend or descend the stairs. The birds' calm and yet powerful movement impressed her. Even these little creatures were stronger than her. She envied their strength; she envied their uniqueness.
She had between two to three more weeks left of her pregnancy. The doctor said that he could not be sure since Neda had always had a very irregular periods. There was a mysterious future, two weeks, or three, did it matter? How would she feel when it was all done and Mansour and Mitra would take over her possession! Was the baby a thing? She had carried it; she had gone through the pain and misery of it! Shouldn't she have a fair share of it? What was this feeling that was taking over her? She had said that she did not want it; she did not care for it! Had she said lies?
The future was a mystery to her. She never tried to fathom it. Just by itself the present was meaningful and telling. From the beginning of her courtship with Mansour to the end which would be the birth of her baby and handing it to him in a tray seemed like a dream, like it never had happened. Now she saw that she had lost that which she held; that she had rejected the newly impassioned, newly kindled human being she had fed for almost nine painful months; that they demanded her to give, the black law of the land ordered that she should give away this thing that was hers and hers alone. She almost did not want to give birth.
To Be Continued
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