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Saied Tabatabayee
Translated by
Saghi Ghahraman
The house was hushed and the woman, asleep;
dreaming? Dreaming of a panther racing after her car through the
green meadows of Africa. Or maybe dreaming of an airplane crash. Or
of lovemaking in the dark of a chilly cave. Was she sleeping, or
feigning it, listening to the ticking of the clock, reminiscent of
the footsteps of a man.
She could hate him, or love him. She could worry
over his coming home, or over his not coming back. She could love
him and hate him at the same time. She could be dreaming of him, or
she could be dreaming of herself feigning sleep, waiting for him.
The house was hushed, the woman asleep. Maybe
not. Maybe the man she loved had killed her in a moment of madness
and sunk the house into silence. Maybe the woman killed the man, and
lay on his body, trying to sleep deeply so he remains in his eternal
sleep. Maybe the man she still loved was in her arms; maybe she had
yet to kill him.
The house was hushed, the woman asleep, but maybe
asleep in another man’s arms, not her own husband. Maybe that was
why they were both dead. Maybe the woman was dead because the wife
of the man she was in bed with suddenly walked in. Or maybe she
dreamt it all and this dream was the sequel to the dream about the
cave and the panther. Maybe a man had arrived and killed her for no
reason. She dreamt of being dead, and at times, dreamt of being a
Raggedy Ann doll. She saw in her dream that the man was satisfied by
her death, satisfied with the cotton balls from her insides filling
the whole of the room.
The house was hushed and the woman asleep. There
wasn’t any man there, and no man was going to be there. Never had
been, never would be. She was who she was, but she thought that
without a man in her life, being a woman was meaningless. But she
was there, asleep, and she was dreaming. Dreaming of dying, of
death, of a man’s death. She was dreaming the male of a species of
spiders or scorpions which would be eaten by the female. She was
dreaming and feeling the taste of human flesh under her teeth, and
on the length of her tongue; feeling the hard, and at the same time,
sweet meat of the man who was also sleeping.
The house was hushed and the woman asleep.
Another woman was also asleep, in another place: the woman she
loved. The woman she wished to hold in her arms. She wished for the
house to be not so deep in silence, but filled with the woman’s
moans. She imagined her being asleep and, in her mind, she took off
the woman’s dress. She caressed her all over, took off her own dress
and still touched her and caressed her, her mind jammed with long
and short shrieks.
The house was hushed, but there wasn’t a woman to
be asleep and not a man, either. The house was empty. The bed was
disturbed, the closets messed up and jumbled clothes all over the
place, books piled on the floor, flowers withered. There was no man,
and no woman. The house was empty, there was only silence...
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