FOUR

Always shitty Tehran. The fucking unavoidable disgusting Tehran. The one and only place to which I ever had a gooey sense of belonging. Like a gum that sticks to the fingers, when you want to throw it away. Pollution particles stick to my throat, swelling my larynx. The sticky touch of Tehran. Particles have even earned a new term in Farsi over the past ten years: Riz-gard, literally micro-roamers, they hover around bodies, organs, eyelids, ears, nostrils, closer to us than the jugular vein. People wear white masks. Portable paper walls to keep the vicious proliferating particles out, like Trump’s imaginary wall, but morally acceptable. Theories of their origin is rampant with the inevitable paranoia through which Tehraners live this god forsaken city. They come from the East borders of Iraq, from nuclear experiments, military adventurism, global warming, American operations. Words without thickness, content. Words without meaning. Like the coloring notebooks of my childhood.

Mother prescribes me warm milk to purify my organs from the particles and Adult Cold every four hours to settle the swelling. I am drenched in my sweat in her precious 600 thread cotton sheets that she has brought to the house from her apartment. She insists that I go back to her comfortable two bedroom condo, where the home is functional at least, with hot water and homemade food. “This place is not worth fixing my dear.” She says with a soft dim voice. She keeps talking. I can sell it in a day. She can help. In an old central neighborhood like this, flippers would jump on it. Her words come from afar as if I were under water. Its’ all wet between my thighs. The palms of my hands pulse, as if holding a beating heart of a freshly slaughtered animal. My chin drips onto my chest. Am I crying? Everything is wet, watery. Our family photos that are mounted on the wall in the living room, are dissolving slowly, as I sink deeper into the couch I am laying on. Why did father never take down their wedding photos? He never even liked photos. Neither do I. We are alike in that way. We were alike. His face runs down into mother’s in the frame. She doesn’t look like herself, wearing a chapel-length veil with handmade sown pearls that is draped on her beautiful face. Father looks like a stranger. His deep dark eyes trickle down on the bertha of her lace gown. Colors dissolve on the wall, shifting and distorting boundaries. As if someone is hosing over a watercolor painting. Water is leaking from the corners of the ceiling, streaming down the walls. I’m going under. I’m a fish, floating in the deep waters of the house. Mother’s voice is withering father away. The water is kind. The water is soothing.