"MORE TO COME" ✍ ✎ ✏ ✐ ☀ ☑ NIHILISM

While waiting for my next novel, which I am in the process of writing, I will write some poems of mine so you don't forget about me.

This one is called "NIHILISM". I wrote it in 12- 29- 1995; one of my early one in English language, but one of the one that is close to my heart:

✍

"In the moment of nihilism, the lavish breeze,

Is torn between dark and light in an isle.

All prospective thunders please;

And the only inquisitive man is vile.

Within his absolute vain in darkness;

And the gifts of nature are strewn.

He doesn't see in his spiteful blindness-

Rain, flowers, and a script on the stone.

The dissipative clouds are crowned in white;

Soaring majestically into sunset.

And the mountains near in site

Naked and unrivaled, they are set.

A tremendous sensation, so to speak,

A sumptuous abyss, deep and profound.

The nihilistic exasperation of man isn't unique;

As it has not been for many ages around."

✍

This poem is one of my published one. It received the best poem of the year award by the Library of the Congress.

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen- ☁☁☁The Birth

... like a wall of blood walking towards home.

☕

Two days later, Ariana read not so short, not so long article, hidden some where in page eighteen of the newspaper, that her mother was killed two days ago accidentally by a high power rifle in the middle of demonstration. The article said that they did not know why she was there, since in an interview of some months ago she had indicated that she would never participate in the demonstration. The article had called her dirty names, but they also had mentioned that she was the famous poetess that America film production, the "Great Satan" had made two documentaries about her life. They called her Kafar ( anyone who doesn't believe in Islam, and therefore must be destroyed), since in the film they had seen she had a dog. In Islam religion dogs are impure; and they said that she deserved to be killed; and on and on...

Ariana did not believe in death, specially the death of her mother in spite of what she read.

Her uncle and aunt and Kasra were searching for her, since Neda had left no trace behind. Kasra told them the story of Ariana's phone call and the meeting they had had in Ariana's friend's home. He told them that Neda had left him no phone number, had insisted that her secret stayed secret. "Don't tell anyone!"

Ariana was the one that contacted Kasra after reading that article. She finally saw for the first time Sohrab, her uncle, Maryam, her aunt, Aria, her cousin, and Kasra, the good, old Kasra, her mother's friend and editor. In spite of their extreme kindness to her, their uttermost joy of finding her, their exuberant love for her, Ariana completely refused to accept that her mother was dead.

However, because of all the evidence, the privet burial and funeral, she believed even more that her mother was alive. Neda's family, as sad and devastated as they were because of their loss, were elated to find her daughter. They learned from Kasra how Neda had searched for Ariana all these years and in what intensity. They began connecting the dots about all puzzling things that they had witnessed Neda had done, only after her death; since they never knew anything about Neda's sudden trips, or disappearances. Kasra told Neda's story to her family, the family that were so close to her, yet did not know anything about real Neda. They used to think that she was fine with not having Ariana. Now they were ashamed of themselves that they had not helped her in the search for her daughter.

At this time Ariana felt and understood, once and for all that her mother would be with her always, from now on; and would follow her to the end of earth, where ever fate or destiny would send her. She finally knew that her mother was not that cold hearted woman that her father had portrayed her. "She chose her poetry over you..." Her heart heaved... but now she had come to a divine providence, to an inauspicious place.

It did not matter what her uncle or aunt or kasra told her. She absolutely and categorically denied that her mother was dead. Kasra treated her as though she was his child, the child of a woman she had loved for eighteen years. But Ariana, even though found a true connection with Kasra right away, did not care for anything; she searched and searched. Every time she saw a woman with a dark, long hair, she hesitated, her breath almost failed her. Her father told her that her mother was dead. Her anger boiled and she ran off from her father's home but not before telling him:

"She is not dead, You're dead for me. If you think she's dead, then you killed her!"

She began searching for her, tracing her footstep from the time she had given birth to her to the time she had heard about her death! Her uncle and aunt told her that she looked and acted like her mother. She liked that but still did not think a word that was said about the death of her mother was true. She stopped women in the street that they looked like Neda.

The smuggler that was supposed to take her and Roya out of this chaos and to Pakistan and from there if they were lucky, they would go to America, left without her and with Roya. No one could convince her to go. "I must look for my mother!" Every time that she thought that she saw her mother, her breathing stopped and then became labored, her eyes filled with tears.

✪

"Let me shout, scream and cry.

Break every law and deny.

Look at the bloody sky;

Or the ugly bird in fly.

✪

Let me laugh, smile and try.

See the beauty and glorify.

First I cry, then I try;

Again and again I try when I cry

My black heart makes life dry."

✪

Ariana yearned that what if she had seen her mom before death! She said to Sohrab and Maryam that Neda's death was her fault.

"I am responsible. If I had not called her..."

No one could cure her of this search. One search had ended in order this one to begin. No one alleviated her of this guilt feeling that would live with her from now... And what was her guilt? She thought it was her birth!

"If I had not been born...!!!!"

✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ THE END ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎ ✎

UNFulFILLED- Nineteen- ✍✍✍✍ The Birth

... she had the better bargain!.

In the midst of these exchanges of feelings between two friends, their reminiscences about love, romance, pleasure, their secret love affairs their parents did not know anything about; the morning became noon, and hours passed one after the other. Ariana got a phone call from her mother, Mitra. To answer her question if she was going home or not, she said:

"No, mom, I'm staying at Roya tonight."

"Don't stay mad at us, sweet heart. I have no role in any on this!" Mitra was telling the truth. She loved Ariana as if she had given birth to her herself.

"I know... It's always men that do these kind of things. I know that my grandfather and the doctor were involved, too. I've been to the hospital, and finally had gotten my hand on the real truth. I know you just went along; but you didn't have to. You still could have been my mother. I can't even go and scream at these men. My grandfather is dead, the doctor committed suicide. I've heard shortly before he killed himself my mother, I mean Neda, had visited him. I heard that they had a very long meeting. What do you think, mother? Isn't that a suspicious thing to you or not?"

Mitra was silent during the tirade of her daughter. Since the truth was revealed to her last week, Ariana had spent almost all her time at her friends. She had gone home during the day when she knew her parents were not home to pick up things. Now it was apparent that she was crying, that she was shameful. She truly did not have anything to say to her daughter, whose sadness and anger was uncontrollable.

After her mother's phone call, Roya asked her:

"Have you written any poems lately?"

"Yes, I wasn't writing for a while. But I write one after I found out about my real mother!"

"Do you have it with you? Do you want to read it for me?"

"No, I don't have it with me."

"Oh, I know you have photographic memory! Why don't you read it to me? You know I heard that Neda had a photographic memory, too. I read it somewhere."

" I know; It seems that we are very much alike in everything."

✎

"How do I tell the story of pain;

Sorrow on my pale face, or torrential rain?

When at night, all shadows are slave,

Tempestuous ocean is doomed in its own wave,

All protected obscurities in a center turn

Towards the hasty currents, so stern.

✎

In the lonely house of pain abides a poet's heart.

The essence of her poems remains so far apart.

At nights when the night at sea unfolds,

Its vision piles upon each other and scolds.

The Poet begins anther poem, nothing new.

She opens a different path, closes the view!"

✎

Kasra was not very far from a scene of another murder. People around him were saying that some one was shot. But there was no way of an emergency car, or an ambulance to reach to any wounded or killed. They were all left behind, stamped under feet of the crowd as though they were the leaves of autumn season on the ground. It did not matter that most of these dead and wounded had met their makers accidentally, for just being there; but these people who claimed they were Muslim, had forgotten the respect this religion had required for the dead. No, no, they still wanted to be part of this dirty history in making!

Kasra had a feeling that the "ANOTHER MURDER" was her Neda. He knew that a little more ahead there was something besides the riots, burning, destroying, speeches. His heart stopped beating. Somehow he felt that Neda was no more, that almost two decades of being in love with her had come to a screeching halt, or had just begun. But could love begin or end even with death?

When he finally pushed his way to the scene of murder, he saw some men were trying to revive Neda. He covered his face. It was a savage ending for a poet, who had gone through so much suffering. He knelt down in front of Neda's dead body. Somebody screamed from the top of the truck:

"Do you know her?"

Kasra raised his teary eyes and looked at the bearded man.

"Yes, she is my wife!"

"Then Take her away."

She was shot in the back. There was a big hole in front torso of her fragile body. The contents of her stomach were half inside and half splashed on the surface of the street. There was a pool of blood all around her! Kasra picked up the lifeless body and pushed his way through crowd. This time people opened a lane like a narrow alley for him to carry her. Neda'a belongings and part of her stomach stayed behind. He and she, finally together, looked like a wall of blood walking towards home.

To Be Continued

UnfulFILLED- Nineteen- ☄☄☄☄ The Birth

...something so wrong with all of this!"

Ariana was almost pleased with her friend's lecture. She needed to hear that some else besides her noticed the wrong doing, the deceit, the lies, the corruption , and ... had gone to all these since nineteen years ago when he was born in MEHR HOSPITAL. She had a hard time to condemn her parents too much, yet she knew that the things they told her a few days ago could not be true. How a woman with that much feeling, with poetry that made you feel how she felt, naming her first book "ARIANA" that now made sense to her, to be phony. Yes, Roya was right. she had to wait. She had to hear her side.

Ariana, and Roya, were two bodies in one. They had been friends since childhood. They had gone to the same school. They were, but a few months, the same age, even though at this point Ariana was not sure of her exact date of birth; they had gone through the magic of childhood together; and then through selfishness and passion of teenage years. One had fallen in love and off love because of the other had done so. Their families were good friends because of their children not the other way around. Now in a few days they were smuggling out of country with the blessing of their parents together. What attracted one, captivated the other. They always sympathized and empathized for each other but sometimes in a tasteless harmony of manner and a common craving of credence and culmination; after all they were still young, yet mature for their age, and yet again immature compare to older people!

Ariana was thankful that she was with Roya, that she was waiting in her friend's room. Both friends were smuggling. They knew it was the right thing. Their parents told them that it was the right thing. No one with he sound mind wanted to raise their children, even though they were not children anymore, in this chaos and anarchy . They have no chance of going to college, no chance of finding a job, no... They knew this new regime would take away just a little freedom they had. They both knew that in their race, there were some breeds that should leave, should stagger to a different place. Ariana said:

"You know, our little ugly type, weak and stupid, dressed dirty, unshaven, violent, and ready for fight, they all are evils. In fact I call them devil worshipers; they practice it by putting us down, putting someone like my mom down. They think they're clean and holy, but no, no, they're dirty. They think they're fair, but no, no, they're cruel, they're extremely cruel." She paused for a moment and began again:

"Did you see today's paper, not only here in Tehran, everywhere in country, did you see the bodies, the blood, the wounded, the lost children, the dead children? Why are they destroying? What is with burning tires, cars, building? What is the end result of all this? What surprise me more than anything is the women, who are right there and scream for Imam Khomeini. I guess that is their way of ventilating years and years of put down, of oppression, by their men, their fathers, brothers, husbands..."

There was a strange smile on Ariana's face when she said these things to her friend. Roya saw that Ariana's smile shone and reflected a deadly light into her soul. She thought that between the two of them, she had the better bargain!

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen-☫☫☫☫ The Birth

...that came to a play and left without any trace."

Ariana was not sure if the the phone call of the night before was the right thing she had done. She felt so detached from hope, and felt so miserable that began regretting to had made that call. Heartache crowded her mind. "Why isn't she here?" She kept asking herself. " After all these years, now she is so late! I guess my dad was right that she doesn't care for anything but her poetry."

She finally raised her head, where it was between her legs, looked sadly at Roya and said:

"She won't come. She is so phony! my dad is right! how I hurt my mom and dad for this!"

"Come on Ariana! I was also listening last night to your conversation with her. She fainted when she found out it was you on the phone... Don't be like your dad."

"Yes, she fainted; but maybe later she decided if she had lived without me for nineteen tears, she can do it for the rest of her life! But, look, it is two hours has passed from the time she was supposed to be here...I am sure my father is right; she chose her poetry, or as she says in her interviews "my art", over me!"

Roya tried to comfort her friend with her soothing voice, while lighted two cigarettes at the same time and gave one to Ariana:

"You know what is going on in the streets. May be she is stuck somewhere! maybe..."

Ariana had thought about it herself; yet it was hard for her to swallow her mother being late after nineteen years. Her friend found an excuse and left the room momentarily. She went downstairs to call Neda's home. Kasra answered the phone.

"You don't know me! I'm a friend of Ariana..."

Before she was able to continue, Kasra cut her off:

"I wanted to call myself, but she had not left your telephone number for me. She left home four hours ago. You mean to tell me she is not there yet!?"

Roya, all shaken, sighed: "Not yet!"

Kasra ran to the alley and then to the streets. He saw people, he saw the revolutionaries, he saw the crowded streets, He smelled the odor that Neda had smelled. He saw the tanks, trucks, the weapons. He saw the burning, the destruction; the setting fire the cars, trash, tires, even buildings. He saw bloody people, some with superficial wounds, some much deeper; He saw the trace of Neda. "No car can drive in this!" He told himself.

Suddenly he noticed Neda, blue Fiat in a very narrow street. He ran. He touched the hood of the car. It was cold. It was obvious that she had parked the car there a long time ago. He noticed the damages done to both sides of the car. Some one had punctured all four tires and then slashed them. "Why, why the destruction? " He began running again into the main street, right into the middle of the crowd, stepping on people, not noticing all the women with their babies in their arms and toddlers hands in their hands, pulling them, pushing others. They all wanted a piece of this pie! The same man with Uzi, who had talked to Neda said something to him; he did not hear. The crowd was thickening as he tried to find a way to go ahead. The other side walk that a few hours ago was Neda's hope to reach since it had had less crowd in it, now was filled with people. There was no place to go, nothing to do. The odor, the smell, the heat of the bodies, the children, who were left behind and crying! he saw a few of them bloody on the ground being smashed under the feet of this wild bunch. No one cared to pick them up. No one cared to look for their parents. He saw dead people! So much blood, so much odor, so many machines, so many weapons, so many men wearing military fatigues. It appeared that somebody with a hand microphone was speaking only a little ahead. It seemed all the action was there, a speech, a lecture about how bad the Shah was and how this backward religion was going to come and rescue people from evil and sin ;and give them money, food, and work, to make women cover their hair, to have men wear beard; and all these people, that had lost their mind, specially women with their children, were trying to reach where the man at the top of a big military car was talking with his hand microphone. So Kasra decided to aim at where everyone was going, to where the action was; where the bearded man was talking.

☏

Roya returned to her room. Ariana was still sitting on the floor in the same position she had left her. The spirit of mother and daughter haunted Roya with a sudden flashes of the picture of Revolution; and a lonely journey of a mother to see her daughter amongst them. She began to cry. Ariana raised her head and looked at her friend. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

"She left home four hours ago!" Roya said factually.

"So you went to call!?"

"Yes, I did not want to tell you. I don't want you to blame her now that you'd found her. How do you know the story your mom and dad told you is true? How do you know that your real mom was not searching for you? We don't know what they did. Her name is not even in your birth certificate. If they were able to do all these illegal things, we don't know what else they have done. I've always had my suspicion. You don't look like them or act like them. Just don't doubt her until your hear her side. There is something so wrong with all of this!"

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen-☠☠☠ The Birth

...I just don't want anybody to know!"

Kasra responded:

"Be careful!" As though he could predicate future and he could tell this would be a very emotional meeting for Neda; or perhaps because of the streets and door to door Revolution and riot, he knew the route to any destination would be hard and sometime even unreachable. He knew the viciousness of both side, specially the one, which would become victor, and the fickleness of the people who were changing face and moving to Tehran in droves, where the power, money and corruption would be shortly. He called them party of wind, meant they would go after money and power by seeing where the direction of the wind was.

He hugged her before she left. Followed her to the yard, and hugged her again in front of the gate; and said again: " Be careful!"

It was December of 1978. The Revolution would come to fruition in February of 1979, when The Shah would leave Iran; this time with no fan fair, no red carpet, no lines and lines of soldiers standing to salute him, or school children giving flowers to the Shabano (his wife); a cancer- stricken man who knew he had not much to live, yet decided to escape under pressure and not be a real leader, not would be the last to either be killed, abdicated, or arrested, so he could stay for ever in hearts and minds of people for ever!! No, he failed to rule this ancient land, and like many before him, he forsook to respect HUMAN GOD GIVEN RIGHTS; he refused to build the country everywhere with the wealth that Persia had, but only a few big, tourist cities like Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan... But in the final analysis, history would prove that most Persian people would have preferred him to this blood suckers, to this religious Republic, who in the name of religion, would have become the worse the country had yet seen. So many were killed and still being killed or arrested. HUMAN RIGHT became non existence. To achieve their victory, the mullahs under the rule of Khomeini, and likes of him covered the streets of Iran with river of blood, the blood of our brothers; our sisters, our countrymen!

Soon after The Shah would leave, Khomeini would come victoriously from Paris. It seemed as though he was the natural leader. All the blood that was shed, all the deaths, the misery, the unfortunate ones...!!! Most of the students, which claimed this was their Revolution, had to go under ground, some would fight, some would smuggle, some joined the Party of WIND, (Where ever wind was blowing), some joined Mujaheddin ( An Islamic Marxist Organization, which their leaders, a young husband and wife, again were sheltering in Paris).

☯

Ariana was very disconsolate and unhappy waiting for Neda at her friend, Roya's home. Roya had found out about this sudden event exactly at the same time that Ariana had. The two friends were big fans of the greatest poetess of their time, Neda. They read every book she had written, Ariana, herself wrote poetry, something her father and mother making fun of and trying to make her stop. Ariana did not know the reason. So she stopped telling them that she wrote or read poems. Connecting the dots had happened only less than a week ago, when the two friends had bought Neda's last book, and that night She stayed in Roya's home. For some strange reason, or some may call it God's providence, they looked at Neda's picture in the back cover. That photo was taken recently. Publisher wanted a new picture. " Not the same old one, Neda!"

All of the sudden, Roya said:

"She is getting old too fast. This is a new picture of her. But look at her, how much you look like her!"

"Let me see, let me see."

We know the rest, how Ariana had talked to her parents about this and how Mitra had finally confessed.

Ariana sat on the floor, leaning on Roya'd bed. She was so motionless, so passive that Roya would not dare to talk to her; nevertheless, she said:

"It is the right thing, Ariana!" She was trying to make Ariana to speak. But Ariana had simply had lost all hopes. She was still sitting on the floor, leaning on Roya's bed, with her knees brought in to her chest, her head between her legs as if she was hiding from her friend; but what she was hiding was her tears. In her speechless attitude, there were things she was telling herself but not loud enough for her friend to hear. She felt that she needed to be carried away from that dim hope to her own familiar home, to her father and mother, who had lied to her all her life, who had gotten her a birth certificate that indicated she was six months older than her real age; because her sister was born only five months after her. Her real mother was not coming; so wasn't it better for her to go to the ones that raised her even though they have lied to her all her young life and then covered up their tracks. She thought to herself:

"To my mother, I really never lived, so I really never existed. To my mother, I've always been a dream, a phantom, that came to a play and left without any trace."

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen-☯☯☯The Birth

Neda had told Kasra of her dreams only once. That was a dream of little Ariana, when in the dream she was only a child.

"She was small and pale. She touched my face with her little, cold hands; and I felt a burning sensation on my face and inside of me. When she took her hands away from my face, I felt a wild and horrific pain grabbing my heart...!"

But when Ariana's phone call came, her dream of the night before began making sense to her. That dream was not about her daughter's childhood, but it was a dream of her being a young woman saying good bye to her. Neda had seen her in that dream as a young woman about a little older than the age she, herself, had been when Ariana was born.

That day, all day, before the phone call came, Neda was disturbed more than usual. All day she was thinking about her dream. "Did she want to tell me something?" All day, she was trying to remember the details, little or big, like what was she wearing? What color was her hair, or eyes? Was her hair long or short? But none of those small or big details would come to her memory. Once she had said that details were boring; but that was not the case this day of reckoning. All she could remember was a general outlook of a young, beautiful woman; yes, she remembered that her daughter was beautiful. She remembered that she had this wild look of some movie star whom she did not remember her name at the moment when she had played the role in the movie "Bitter Rice". Perhaps! But she also remembered that how she resembled her, almost like a twin sister, so identical!

But it was not till late at night when the phone call came, and until the next day in the morning when she left home for their secret meeting in Roya's house, a friend of her daughter, that she began recalling some of the details of her daughter's look in her strange dream of the two night prior.

In the morning, she was ready at five. In fact, she had not slept at all. Kasra stayed up with her that night. They talked a lot. More secrets were revealed. They just had coffee and cigarette. No drinking, no intimacy, just being close, crying, talking. After all these years Neda found out for the first time that Kasra was married once only for two months to his cousin. That was what their parents had wanted; but their feeling for each other was more like sister and brother, or two friends. He had not touched her in that two months of marriage. He did not want to take the virginity of a woman, that he loved like sister, away. They got a divorce without the blessing of their parents. His cousin ran away with her lover, and never returned.

"But I hear from her. They're married. They have three children. Some how they were able to go to America. She sends me pictures, letters. They're a happy bunch."

"Happy bunch! Is there anyone out there happy? I know you're unhappy!"

"How do you know? I never show any of my feeling to you!' Kasra retorted.

"I am a poet, remember. I can sense how people close to me feel. I know you've always loved me. That is why you're unhappy."

Kasra thought for a moment; Stretching himself on Neda's bed. He began laughing suddenly.

"Yes, you have a mind of a poet and heart of a stone!" The minute he said it, he regretted it.

"I'm sorry, I meant the other way around!"

"No, you didn't. But I'm going to give that to you. You're right. I've known you've been in love with me from the very beginning; but I am not the marrying type. I like you a lot, a lot,... But what can I say, I love people in a different way. I love you but not the way you want it. I love Sohrab, Maryam, Aria, oh my precious Aria. I even love my doggy and Ziba, the cat. I am not talking about like, I'm saying love. My poor Kasra. I wish I could feel the same way you did. If I would ever marry, it would be you that I choose, no one else." Neda sat on bed, and and hugged Kasra's legs. He was crying.

No one knew about this secret meeting but Kasra. Neda decided not to tell even Sohrab and Maryam about it. She asked Kasra to promise her that while she was gone, if any body called for her, "Just tell them that I'm gone for a walk." But she thought for a moment about it. "No, no, that won't do. They know I don't go out these days because of all these Revolution and riots and street fights..." She hesitated for a moment; then said:

"Whatever you do, I just don't want anyone to know!"

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen-☝☘☔ The Birth

Neda was using baby talks in her dreams with Ariana. Her daughter understood everything that she said. At the beginning of these dreams, she had complained. "I'm not a baby! Don't talk like this to me..." But slowly and gradually she came to accept her mother's baby talk to her.

These all started after the death of her father and the suicide of the old doctor, as if some warning, "Danger, danger!" On this special dream, the night before Ariana's phone call, her daughter sounded very concern for her while saying her good byes. " I'm worried for you mother. You must forget about me. I'm not going to come to your dream anymore!"

Then she said: "This is the last, mom. This is good bye!" She was silent for awhile. Neda even thought that the dream was over when Ariana said after a long pause:

"Mother, you're so unhappy!"

Neda thought: "How strange! She is calling me mother for the first time. She shows care and distress for me. She does not condemn me!"

Then she introspected in her dream world why that particular night the dream was so different than other nights.

"I must go now, mother." This was, Neda guessed, the third time that she had called her mother, and all three times in this special night, in this distinctive night. She had never called her anything. Was she dreaming or was she making up all these things?

"Don't go, not yet!" Neda begged. She touched her daughter's face in the dream; pushed her away a little so she could look at her better. She was not a child, not the eight years old child that the dreams of other nights had portrayed. She was a woman, looked so much like her, taller than her, the same type of hair. She was almost identical mirror of herself at the age she had given birth to her. Ariana seemed to be in a hurry when she finally disappeared.

Life had never been this forlorn and disconsolate for Neda when she woke up that morning. She was depressed every morning thinking that she had to live another day; but this special morning her distress was beyond any one's imagination. It seemed to her that everything was falling apart. Her dream of the night before, seemed so real, so tangible..., or perhaps they were games her mind were playing with her every night and last night particularly! She was not sure if they were her creations or they were real dreams, so, real, so touchable, so... Last night's dream was bitter sweet. That dream was trying to tell her something, announcing some kind of news to her. All the memories of that mental picture, or perhaps a delusion came crashing down back in her mind. They were extremely vivid and alive as though they were not dreams at all. The law, this shattering, fathomless and abysmal law of the land that at one point Kings and Queens and Cultures and Civilizations ruled it; and now had changed because of a dark religion which had stolen her child from her. Three men, who were supposed to protect her, had cheated her of her God given right as a mother; money had changed hands; father had sold his daughter and therefore his soul; doctor, who had forgotten his honor and his oat; and a husband, who had exchanged her for a better model! Oh, how terrible! And now these dreams had become like an added horror to punish her what the three men and the dark religion had done to her!!!!!

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Nineteen- The Birth

Neda had a passionate entreaty for death; but she knew and hoped the craving she had to part life, which she also loved, would make it more difficult to achieve. She knew she could not end her life on her own. After all she did not want the entire world to know about her secret, her daughter! She did not want to please Mansour and Mitra that she was gone for ever, that she was no more. She did not want Aria, her nephew, who looked like a man now, to think of her aunt as something different not what he had pictured all his fourteen years of life! She did not want her mother to suffer, even though she only suffered for herself. She did not want that the spirit of the old, frail doctor, under earth, to blame himself for her death and to hurt even in his death. She did not want the spirit of her father to agonize for what he had done to her; and above all, Sohrab, Maryam, and Kasra, yes, kasra, the good, aging, fateful friend of almost eighteen years, the one, who had stood by her and her mood swing, in good and bad days for ever, who knew more about her than herself, to grieve for ever because she liked herself so much to tolerate her pain and was so tired of life and could not take it any more!!!!!

She had desired and pictured a scene with her daughter for so many years that she had memorized that display. Now those settings came to her in dreams. Every night when she went to bed, she prepared herself for a dream, a glimpse of Ariana; as if she had gained a power of mind to dream about what ever she wanted. Or perhaps she was not dreaming at all, but hallucinating, or making up those dreams.

When all these had started, she had no idea that they would have such an impact on her, so powerful, so merciless. When she woke up every morning, if she slept at all, in her lonely bed, for a long time she could not understand why she was sitting on her bed, why she was shaking, why she was all sweaty, why she was so frightened! She felt cold, hot, wet, shivering, all the things that they did not go with each other. "Yes, it's all over now. I'll always be alone... I 'll never see Ariana!"

She would stare at the clock. Every morning at five as if some divine power had programmed her mind to wake up.

The dream she had had the night before Ariana called her was about good byes. She was surprised at the change of tone, of not being condemned. " Ariana, Ariana..." She almost cried in her dream. "Why good bye, where are you going?" But her daughter was silent. It appeared that Ariana did not know what to say to her mother. She always saw her faceless; like seeing a person with the head of a mannequin. No hair, nose, eyes, lips, cheeks, nothing. Why was God punishing her? Why didn't he show her Ariana's face?

To Be continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☀☀☀The Price

...Then the Doctor continued:

"We, three men, ruined your life. Your father because he wanted to act like a young man and enjoy his life with his new young wife. He told me so himself. I know it is not good to talk behind a dead person, but I must take this load, this poisonous knot of my stomach. He said that he was only ashamed of you, that he needed to do something about it. Then it was Mansour; he realized he made a mistake, that Jalal's promises to him was his promises not yours. So he found some one else for himself when he was still married to you, when you were sick and pregnant." He stopped talking at this point, wiped his forehead and dropped his head on his chest.

"What about you? You said we, three men!" Neda finally broke her silence.

"I guess I made everything possible and easy for them. It was just like yesterday that three of us were sitting in this office and talking about you and your baby and drinking vodka and smoking." He began crying again. Neda did not rush him. She was like a detective that had stumbled upon solving an unsolved mystery. She knew that she was finally hearing the long awaited secret. She would give the old doctor all the time he needed to tell her the story. She would not leave that office until she knew everything.

After again the ceremony of taking off his glasses, wiping the tears, and blowing up his nose, the old man said:

"They paid me. Actually your father paid me. Mansour had no money. Your father gave a lot of money to alter everything when your baby was born, from the name of the mother, to making your baby older since Mitra was already four months pregnant. They bought me. I took the money. I ruined your life. Now I'm paying the price. That knot I told you, that poisonous knot , it's Pancreas Cancer, one of the worst. I can't take it anymore. I am certain I end my life before it ends in shame and pain. Yes, I did it..."

Neda stood up, shaking all over, yet managed to walk around the desk. She hugged the old, crying doctor. She was finally able to cry, too.

"If it wasn't you, they would find some other doctor. I know my father could be persuasive!"

The doctor stood up. She never knew how frail he had gotten. She stayed in his bosom for a while and then all of a sudden started laughing:

"So I am going through menopause at thirty seven. Think of it that I am special in every way!"

The doctor laughed, too.

"Neda, you got to take care of yourself. The stress of all these years in my opinion is the cause of this. I'm going to give you some vitamins to take home with you. Promise me to take them. Promise me to take care of yourself."

So that day, the old doctor faced what he was frightened to face for eighteen years. The way Neda had lived her life showed to others that she was not bothered by it. But now he knew that her entire life was affected so drastically because of it. She just had not talked to anyone about it.

The only one person, who knew some what of Neda's distressful life was her friend, Kasra; and that was because he was with her most of the time. The last thing the doctor said before Neda left, was:

"I hope you believe me. I've been suffering all these years for what I've done. I've done searches of my own, too, to find Mansour and his family. But it sounds as though they just have disappeared from earth. But now I know that your agony has been the greater than anyone else!"

"Tell me one more thing. I knew that my father bought you since Mansour had no money. Who was it that made the final decision; was it my father or Mansour, or both? I need to know. I don't think it matters any more. But I must know for my own sanity!"

"I can't talk behind a dead man!"

"That is enough for me. We've been talking behind him for a long time now..."

That was enough and satisfactory answer for Neda to know. "I can't talk behind a dead man!" So it was her father who had planned everything. She wanted to hate her dead father but she could not. The doctor suggested her to see a psychiatrist.

"What are you talking about? How can anyone help me, to unravel the eighteen years of absolute horror and condemning myself? Tell me how! Everyone thinks that I am an unfeeling, vain woman who is only after fame! Nobody knows that I am unfeeling and vain because of my fame!"

After Neda was done with two weeks of check up and finding out about her body and soul, she was again a changed woman. She continued with her work, her art, as her brother called it; she went on with her life, her dog, cat, nephew, brother, Maryam, Kasra and her poetry as usual; but the light and energy were gone from her. They all had disappeared after the death of her father, and the conversation she had had with the old doctor. One day she heard, before reading it in the news paper, that the old doctor had taken his life by hanging himself in his home. She knew this would happen. The last time she saw him, she knew it by looking at him, seeing his crying, and the pain in his stomach. She considered him an Honorable man.

The inevitable end of everything suddenly had confronted her for the first time; even though it was not the first time she had this extreme unhappiness. She did go to the old doctor's funeral; but her reason was mostly was a chance meeting with Mansour.

The word "Menopause" had such an ugly impact on her that she did not pick up pen for weeks to write. The force that had challenged her this time was irresistible and not reversible. What was this compulsory urge she had for death? She not only did not know, she had never even considered doing something about it! She had dared not to contemplate it!

Her family and Kasra, the one who were seeing her almost in daily basis, were extremely worried for her. Why now? She had not told anyone, not even Maryam or her mother that she was gone through menopause.

☉

"Dear self, close the door, for I no more

Desire to say hello, goodbye, or ignore.

A little part of night is still intact.

A nocturnal song is echoed in abstract.

And Glow worm in its hidden place

Twinkles to me and a star in space.

The look of its burning, promising eyes,

Sparkles in this dark house of whys!"

☉

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-✎✎✎✎✎The Price

Summer came with vengeance and then it was fall again. The trees lost their leaves. The leaves that were deprived of their shimmering green sheen first loosened up from their stems and then they flew to the ground. There had been a point in Neda's life that all the varieties, all the charms, all the beauties of life were made of light and shade for her. Now nothing made her to see the light or the shade; nothing made her happy. Everyday was another day, every season was another season. Her unruly dreams continued. The thinking about her father and his action continued. She was bored, tired, and extremely successful.

As she was only three years away from her fortieth birthday, she kept saying to everyone that she was forty. Sohrab would tell her:

"Don't say that little sis. You are making Maryam and me older, too!"

But it was more than the constant dreams, nightmares, unhappiness that were affecting her. She had always had an irregular period, but nowadays, she would not get one for months on end. She had constant, horrific headaches. Her physical condition was influencing the flow of her poetry. She finally listened to Kasra and went to see the old doctor she had so much history with. He had not retired yet; even though his cancer was progressing. His logic was: " What am I going to do in the home?"

She was frightened should the old doctor tell her that she was pregnant, even though it was many months that she had not had any intimacy with Kasra. But she knew in her heart that she was not, and the doctor did not say anything about pregnancy. He gave her some advice and a warning that she had not done a check up for many years. So he did a top to bottom examination and observation from her body. He sent her for a lot of lab work. The laboratory was next door to his office. He even did a chest x ray from her lungs, since she smoked a lot. "You should quit smoking!" the old doctor smoked in his office; and he had cancer for certain. Neda laughed up this advice.

It took two weeks for the result of all the lab work, x ray, and every other tests that the doctor had ordered to return. He called Neda and asked her to go and see him. She had already had forgotten all about those tests; and was just tolerating the headaches.

"It's strange; but you're going through menopause." The doctor told her.

"It's not very often a woman your age..." At this point he stopped and looked at her with true, genuine concern: "You're thirty seven, right?"

Neda shrugged her shoulders. "To everyone else I am forty, to you, only because you're a doctor, yes, I'm thirty seven. Besides you know it; you brought me to this world yourself. I am one of your handiwork!"

"Okay, okay, for a thirty seven years old woman, this is very unusual to stop completely. That is the reason of all the headache. Do you know when did your mother stop?"

"No, but I think she was passed fifty and still getting her periods."

"So strange!"

Neda smiled.

"Everything about me is strange!" Even though she always liked to show the old doctor her distaste of what he had done by cooperating with her father and Mansour, and switching the real mother of Ariana, at this point she thought that she liked the old man. He was much older than her father. How much older, she did not know. She had already forgiven him. The doctor mistook her smile for the bitterness she had always shown towards him.

"You never forget that, do you?"

"How can I? No one, not even Sohrab knows of my true feelings, of my searches. I have had no life. Everyone thinks that I've broken all barriers, that I'm so famous, that I'm this and that; but I'm nothing. I'll change all of those to have a glimpse of my daughter. Have I forgiven you? I think so, I'm not sure. Look at you, you're old, much older than my father. I know you have cancer, you're very sick. You're pathetic! How can I not forgive you? But tell me why are still working?"

The old doctor removed his glasses from his eyes and wiped his tears and then blew his nose. Then he put his glasses back on the bridge of his nose, stretched his hands from his side of the desk, where he was sitting, to the side that Neda was and tried to touch her fingers. Neda stretched her hands and allowed him to hold her both hands. Tears were rushing down her face, too.

"Why am I still working? It is because of you that I'm still working!"

"What? Because of me! What do you mean?"

"You know that my wife passed on for many years now. If I don't work and stay home, all I'm going to do is to think back to what I've done to you; how I've separated a mother and a child. How there is no trace left to find them. How much I've searched myself to find them. I know of all your searching, too. If I don't work, I'll die at home. I think about you a lot and all the time. I think about how we three men ruined your life; each of us for our own reason..." He stopped talking and repeated the ceremony of wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. Neda sat motionless, this time with dry eyes, dry throat. She wanted to say something but she did not know what... A few minutes of silence.. Then the doctor continued:

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-✍✍✍ The Price

Success followed Neda after her father's death even though her style of writing changed completely. Her publisher mentioned that to her once.

"Why? You don't like my writing anymore! As I change, my writing changes, too. I am not the same person. How do you expect my writing to stay the same!"

Her publisher did not want to anger her. She had stayed fateful to his publishing company all these years. He had made huge amount of money because of sales of her books. She could have gone to any publisher, and in fact she continuously was getting offer from other publishers. Others wanted her with delight.

When she wrapped her shawl around herself, it seemed as though she was wrapping her cold soul that was there and sometimes was not there. Her terror had gone. She told Kasra one day about that feeling of anxiety that she had had all these years from her father. As unbelievable as it sounded, Kasra understood her.

"You know, Kasra, I felt like an injured animal with a mental wound and a cut throat all these years; now suddenly I find myself without any injury, cut, or bruise and everything around me is without horror. They all have vanished."

One night she had a strange dream. She saw Ariana in her dream. In the dream Ariana was only eight years old. Her eyes were flashing. She looked Neda straight in the eyes. Neda touched both her shoulders. Ariana's face was filled with grief. Her lips were trembling violently.

"Why mother?" She cried.

Neda sat on her bed, shaking. She had sweat all over her body, yet she felt cold. She had to sit up in that position for a while to make sure that she was not asleep anymore; however, she remembered her dream fully and clearly. She recalled what Mansour had told her at her father's funeral. "You chose your poetry over your child!" She thought: "Had he influenced Ariana against me?" But she conjured up that her daughter did not even know that she existed. May be that was for best that she did not know about her real mother, or the switching in the hospital and all the other schemes that went along with it to hide the identity of the woman who gave birth to Ariana.

Now after the death of her father, she had more dreams about her daughter; as though her father was an obstacle or barrier to her dreams when he was alive; and now there was no impediment , no obstruction. As though her father had raised his hands from grave to help her, to tell her that it was okay to dream. But the dreams about her daughter were cruel, unfair, and they all were condemning her. They were all about her action, not her father's or Mansour's actions. In those dreams, her daughter was always blaming her, judging her, questioning her, and at the end disapproving of her.

"Oh, God, how could I know your will...? Who could have helped me, warned me about this? I was just a kid myself! I didn't know. Nobody told me anything! Who should I have asked for help? They took me out of school and put a wedding gown on me! Why wasn't anyone there to tell me to give up a child would become the greatest torture in my life? Why didn't my mother, or aunt said something to me? They are mothers. They knew how it would make me to suffer for ever! Did they think that I wouldn't care, I wouldn't suffer? How childish of them! Why do I have to ask all these empty questions from myself? Why did I have to marry so young and specially to a man that neither of us understood each other? Are these dreams telling me that there is something so terribly wrong loving poetry?"

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☻☻☻☻ The Price

Neda tried to live her life; but she knew deep down that she was also affected by her father's last act against her and Sohrab. Why did he have to complain about them in his will? Wasn't just cutting them off from his belongings enough? She remembered his last look at the house, before they had taken him to the hospital, before he had disappeared in the world of nothingness! Did she see regret in his eyes when he looked at her and put his hands on her shoulders when she was massaging her feet in the warm water? Did she see him asking for forgiveness? Was she imagining that look? She finally made herself to believe that the look was for real; that her father had asked both Sohrab and her for grace and compassion at the end, when he was still aware, and again in the hospital before he died. What if he was not sick, he was his own powerful, demanding self, and he saw that kind of love from his first two children, who had come to his rescue, who had come to give him love, and passion, would he then change that despicable document of the will and took out the part that he had muddied his children!

✍

"They were in love with morning star,

In love with rainy day, so far,

In love with wandering clouds,

In love with ambiguous crowds.

✍

The dead- dying- and living lay;

They were dear to someone someday;

They've been daring, feeble, and brave.

Their face would be covered by dust of grave.

They wear a smile on their pale faces-

The hesitant shadow of their childhood graces."

✎

Every morning Neda wrapped herself in her favorite shawl that now was old, faded, and frayed, and walked the dog. It did not matter how the weather was. That shawl had become part of her womanhood, a reminder of her childhood and teenage years. The cat, Ziba, followed them where ever they went but always from far, waiting, listening, ready for disappearing. He had been and was aloof and standoffish. Neda had to beg him, chase him until he would come to her. The only time that he showed love to Neda on his own, was when he wanted something. Neda knew exactly what he wanted; was it food or was it about his ears, since he always had ear problems. He never liked people that he did not know. His trust to human being was non existence. Neda wished that she could be like her cat. She remembered why she named him Ziba even though the cat was a boy. It was mostly her nephew's suggestion and it was because he was the most beautiful cat that any of them had seen. His soft fur, milky color body, his nose, ears, and around his eyes the color of flame, a sign of Siamese cats, that supposedly are the second most intelligent domestic cat, and those bluest color eyes made everyone on their path to say something about his beauty. The dog's beauty was not any less than the cat, but her demands increased daily. She stayed Doggy, as Aria had called her first.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☪☪☪☪ The Price

After a week of mourning, a few fights with mom and Sima, who had no respect for the dead man, and were using the situation to laugh and catch up with the old friends, Neda returned to her normal life; if there would be a normalcy in losing one's father, who betrayed her all her adult life, yet at the end, she realized the love, the bonding, which was rooted so deep from early beginning, strong and passionate, which she had unconsciously carried deep inside with her even the days that she had thought she could not tolerate the betrayal anymore. She had had a chance to follow Mansour to find out where he lived, who knew him and his family, and from there perhaps to find her daughter, but she had not. She tried to convince herself that her father's death was without violence. She thought:

"He was dying for so long. He was ready. He was sick mentally, and nobody knew, nobody did anything about it; because everything for him was provided and prepared for. No one gave him a chance to know that he had double personality."

Neda's eyes were brimming with tears, but they were not blinding tears. She left her father's home, looking through the tears at the beauty of that spring day, at the glory of the nature. the sweetness of the violets fragrances. How was it some thing so magical be so cruel? She wanted to know how her father looked beneath all these beauty, wrapped in a white cloth! She said to herself at random something only to hear something; but that was not what she wanted. The world that day looked so large, so open around her. The sky was so close at hand, as if a big load weighting it down, down, so close to earth that she could reach it, touch it. She thought she could float in that divine sky as if it was a body of water.

Kasra and Maryam though that Neda's responsibility now ended. Did that mean that she had nothing else to do? The father, she knew now, she loved so much, was gone. Her mother and Sima shared the house. No one knew how the old man's will was drafted. Did he even have one? If he did not have a will, that meant that his wealth would go to his children, mostly to Sohrab and very little to the wives!

One day mother called. They had found the will. Everyone again was called to the house. Her father had a lawyer, the same man that Neda had seen in the court when he had sued her for her money. The lawyer recognized Neda. But he was respectful to her. He looked at her with admiration. Neda did not know why! He was there along with the family to read the will. The scene looked something from movies. It was drafted and signed only a few months before his death; just about and around the time he had gotten sick; and at the time that he had lost in the court of law the law suit against his own daughter. She wished, if she knew that her father would be dead soon, that he had won. So he knew that he was dying; or he was angry because he had sued Neda and had lost. They all sat in the living room, some like vultures, others just out of respect. As usual tea was served and the lawyer began reading, after a few coughs, the will. Neda later remembered bits and pieces of the will, the way bearded lawyer read it:

"I with clear mind...give everything I have equally to my wife, Sima and my daughter, Mina...Mehri, my first wife should stay in the house as long as she lives... Sima can never sell the house as long as Mehri is alive." Neda thought a good reason for Sima to poison her mother. "For the information of law, so they don't think I'm forgetful, I admit that I have a son, named Sohrab, a daughter, named Neda, and a grandson, named Aria; but with clear mind... and willingly... under no pressure, I cut then off from obtaining any of my belongings... The reason for it is the way they have treated me." "Should this bitter announcement be in the will?" Neda asked herself. " They cut me off from their will and I cut them out from..."

Sohrab was outrageous, not because that he was not getting anything, but because his name was dragged into mud by his own father. The old man had practically called him and Neda unruly children. Bitter to the end! Neda and Maryam tried to calm him. Neda hugged him for a long time and then said, almost whispering:

"What did you expect my sweet brother?"

"I did not want his money; but I did not want him to drag us in the dirt either!"

"Forget it Sohrab. Leave your life!" That was the last thing she said in her childhood house before leaving.

To Be Continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☤☤☤ The Price

Neda got up from the bed. She looked at it. It seemed to her that she had a fight. Normally she did not move much in bed; but that was not the cast the night before. She noticed that she had slept with her skirt and camisole on. They were so wrinkled that she knew she had to either go home and change or iron them. While debating what she would decide, she straightened the bed; put on her stockings and shoes on and went down stairs.

After a week of mourning, mostly pretentious, Neda noticed that the ones who suffered truly and did not pretend, were old man's three children. She thought that she needed to do something for her little sister, who by her estimation was only eight months younger that her own child, however, she needed to be soothed herself. "I think about it later."

The last time she had seen her father's house this crowded with rented chairs and tables, food, people coming and going, was her wedding. But then they had the cherry tree. Now it was only a stump with a pot of plant on it. The strange thing, the season was the same, spring, in fact end of April. Wasn't that month that her Ariana was born, too. Why was it that every major event in her family happened in spring? Was that a coincidence or happenstance ? On the last day of mourning, the seventh day, she saw Mansour, who had come by himself to show his last respect to the old man. They just came face to face with each other on the hall way of the first floor. Oh, how he had changed! He was bald at the top of his head, he had lots of gray at sides; but his eyes were still the same. She knew the end too well to begin again. He knew where it all had gone. She knew what it would all become. He stepped out of the way, so she could pass. None said anything until Neda was about to lose her chance to ask about her daughter.

All the strong, blinding, and baffling first effect of forceful and distinct surprise were over with her almost at once. Still she had enough to feel; a feeling that was nothing but agitation, painful and misery; and somewhat delight in the mix.

"Tell me about my child!" She almost forced him to stop.

He looked at this mature woman, who did not look anything like a girl he had to give her wine to have intimacy with. He stepped aside for her to pass by; and only said:

"You chose your poetry over your child! Let me go!" And he walked out.

☭

"When I lie down on the bed of dreams,

I hear the melancholy, yet mellow sound of a bell.

The dawning day, in my heart gleams.

The sound of awakening children knell.

They slowly and solely sing my sorrow-

A dire but harmonious verses of sad eyes.

Should my fire of life last till tomorrow-

I worship that fire which in my heart lies.

At night when skies are lit by stars

And I listen intensely to hear

The war of planets which has lefts scars

The fading music in my ears is so dear.

☭

Years of tension have come, years of stone had gone.

And strangely for those years I long.

And lying on the bed of dreams, I have none.

Neither tension, nor stone; what have I done wrong?"

☭

To Be continued

UNFULFILLED- Eighteen-☯☯☯☯ The Price

Everyone was expecting Neda. Everyone wanted to see the celebrity relative and the daughter of the dead man. Many were there not because, or may be because of the death of the old man; but they wanted to see the most famous poetess of their country. She wanted to be left alone. But she knew that peace would not come to her at least for another week.

Sohrab had spent all morning to arrange the burial. Since four in the morning that he had left Neda in the hospital, besides going home, showering and changing to appropriate suit for funeral, he had been busy to buy a burial ground in Behsht e Zahra Cemetery, to arrange all the legal matters; and to set time for that afternoon to bury their father. Sohrab thought that Neda had done enough. He did not think that his mother or Sima were capable of doing anything. Maryam after dropping Aria at school, accompanied him everywhere. Her husband needed him then, so she would be with him. She did not care that people at the house would ask about her. Except the extraordinary circumstance, in Muslim Religion, the dead should be buried in twenty four hours after his death.

This time Neda let her brother to take charge; and she let Maryam to take her under her charge. She was too tired, too disturbed, too frustrated by the people around her that would not leave her alone. Maryam told her:

"These people are here to eat and gossip for a whole week. They don't care for the old man. They're here to take a glimpse of you and even talk to you, and then go spread rumors about you. Let me take care of you. You're too weak now!"

The news of her spending eight days in hospital with her father spread like a wild fire. Maryam took care of her as she had always been ready to do so. Neda followed Maryam, holding her arm, and did not remember anything else.

That night after burial, and a few more nights after that she slept in father's home. She mostly did this for her mother and for her half sister's sake. In a way it was expected of her and Sohrab. But Sohrab, Maryam and their son went to their home every night.

Late that night, exhausted both emotionally and physically, she removed her shoes and stockings. She stretched herself in the middle of the high bed with all white sheet, cover, and everything, that reminded her of her father's face before they had thrown dirt on him. They had made the fourth room on the second floor, which its door had always been closed, into a guest room. She did not seen it before. She did not known about it. This was the room that was always used as storage room. She guessed that perhaps this idea of making it to a guest room was Sima's.

How sensuous it felt to sleep in a strange, original and quaint bed with its odor of sweet newness, which lingered about the sheets and the room!

When she woke up in the morning, she asked herself:

"How many hours have I slept?" Her whole mood was changed.

"Where am I?" She looked around herself and for a moment or two could not remember anything. She looked at the clock on the night stand. It was a little before five in the morning. She had slept but a few hours; but she felt fresh like someone who had slept a long, restful sleep.

To Be Continued