For my only and dearest brother back home
The shivering feeling of cold going down my back reminds me of the change. Some change, some invisible change in the air surrounding my body mass. I try to smell. I breathe in, big, big gasps of breath through my nose to smell the weather. Nothing in my nostrils but the usual floating particles of smog clogs my respiratory system channel. I cannot smell the change. I cannot feel it. After all what could have changed but this cold feeling going down my spine?
Around me all is green. All trees are green and all the flowers are in their full blooming cycle. They shine as ever in the glory of their eternal, short time beauty. I hold my hand to change this beauty. May be by touching it, I can make it lose all the brightness of spring.
It all started when he came back with bright eyes from my land. He came back, telling me that in my land the leaves have turned into yellow that they are falling and crying. The leaves are bidding their last painful farewell to the season. Streets are filled with leaves. Lovers walk on them to exchange the secret codes brought by autumn. The children are running on them, enjoying the cries of this season walking by their red cheeks and bright eyes.
My ears heard him. Sitting there with a smile dried on my lip like the mask of a clown. My head nodded from time to time to testify the circulation of blood under my pale skin. My head was there, on top of my body. Sending signals of life through my sparkling eyes to him. So, he could continue his words, his magic of words telling me of my land of the change, of the seasons gone by without me. The internal part of my brain alas had left long ago.
As soon as I saw him with that old smell of Tehran on his body, my cervix left my so-called skull. It flew back home to the land of old memories, to the land where seasons changed, where we celebrated my mum’s birthday under the bare trees. A land where still held my only dear brother inside. My brother? ! It is 4 years now since that moment of “Au Revoir”, tears and hugs in Mehrabad airport now. 4 years I have not seen him. He should have changed a lot from a 23 years old boy to a 27 year old man. From a mindless , free student to a young, serious man managing an office.
I float in my memories when he hands me the card with a bear holding a big red heart on it: You are always beside me. Inside it, the words dance for me, like a macabre:
“I have
not seen you for four years now. Since you left Iran, I have been very alone,
very alone. I miss you so much. Your photos are everywhere but I feel you are
not here at home. I sleep in your room at times, thinking that you will come
back in your car one afternoon and we will talk again about my school, about
your friends, my girl friend, ….
I always
think of the moments we spent together: Shemsahk, mehmoonies(Parties), ski,
shomal … I bought you a pair of eye-glasses same as mine.. so we think of each
other every day ..I can feel that you are here in that look.. and that in
Aban(October) we pile the leaves in the yard and celebrate mommy’s birthday
under the bare trees together …”
Next thing I remember was not him or my brother, it was me walking down Santa Monica trying to find fallen leaves to walk on.
Kathy
Hadizadeh
Los
Angeles
09/25/2003