Laleh Khadivi

In these short distances and insufferable spans the boy lives through a night forgotten by history, where the men of the land and soldiers of the shah take to each other with bullet, knife, curse and bludgeon to craft a single composition; the precise choreography of flesh puppets, strung to a thousand stars and pulled as sparring lovers, to and from the flame, to and from the gouge, to and from the stab and shot, their beating hearts like magnets charged to the opposite pulls of victory and death.

…they tear down our lines of laundry and wear our socks over their hands and our sisters’ skirts like scarves around their necks; they smell our mothers’ stained monthly cloths and let their eyelids flutter in pretend delight. They kick over the pans of crushed tomatoes we have peeled and seeded and cooked for the winter to come, hours of work that leave our hands gummy and raw, and they make a contest of kicks—who kicks the farthest—and the pans fly through the air and splash our winter’s tomato sauce all over the street like blood.

I have a blind eye and it has brought me nothing but misery my whole life. It spews pus and tears all the time and when the shah soldier took one look at it he spat in my face and then moved me to the side with the tip of his gun, and I could see, with my one good eye, all the imperfects around the square relax.