Purple Scream

1

I’m sitting on the dark grey wool sofa, body closed tight, tense as can be, across from the TV. I watch with eyes wide open, red from the combination of the lack of sleep and excessive staring at the bright rectangular, which puts me right into the streets of my birth town, Tehran. I wonder how could what I am witnessing be even possible?

Ferdosi Square, Tehran, 1957

Details of the Pazyryk Carpet

2

I turn to my Dad, sitting on the matching dark grey wool loveseat, on my right. His shoulders, still broad but are now curved inward a bit, from the combination of old age and the weight of the pain he has been carrying for decades. Those are the shoulders that carried me around the house so that I would forget about my wounds whenever I would fall and injure my knees or elbows, a common and almost daily incident, when I was a super active child. His perfect shaped head, not too round and not too oblong, with very short white hair blending so well with his bald spot, is held in the palm of his left hand now, resting against the arm of the sofa. His eyebrows, still not completely white, are now in a tight knot. Those are the eyebrows my mom fell in love with. She said they resembled a pair of perfectly shapes swords. The swords are now engaged in a duel, frozen in horror and sadness. Unlike me, Dad is not staring at TV. Instead, his dark eyes are fixed at the patterns of the Persian carpet under his feet – the same patterns that taught me harmony, balance, color, and most importantly anticipation.

My dad when he was young with his sword-shape eyebrows

Persian Carpets

Pazyryk Carpet - Made in 5th century BC - Discovered in Pazyryk, Siberia.

3

“What is it, Dad? Why are you not watching TV? Is this too painful for you?” I want to ask him but the words don’t leave my mouth. It is all in my head.

During the last couple of weeks, I have gone from cloud nine to the pit of the earth, from being an ultimate optimist to an absolute hopeless soul. I have felt all my dreams and wishes for my birth country secure in my hand, so accessible I could easily taste them, only to have them snatched away from me. Words such as absolute devastation wouldn’t even begin to describe my state of being. I am a fool, I tell myself. I should have known better. After all, this is not my first time facing such calamity.

I look at dad again, still no sign of him being interested in what is on the screen. My heart drops, for him it has been at least one additional time, I remind myself! And unlike me, witnessing the events from the other side of the globe, he was there, not only in the streets, but there, right in the center of it all. He never talked about it though. My grandmother mentioned it once or twice, but back then I was too young to really understand it. I wonder if I can ask him about it now, as it seems that the history is toying with us once more. But that would be selfish of me and unfair to him – so much pain, so much despair,  a sea of lost hopes.

Tehran 1953

Tehran 1953:: Somethings never change!

Tehran 2009 :: They just get bigger

Tehran 2009 :: ... and bigger.