Conversation in the Park
The entire week I worried about the tasks I planned to do on Friday, my day off. Chores I’d
postponed for months. The gutter was falling off the wall, letting rain to seep under the foundation.
The worse were our lack luster antique dining chairs. I’d already bought sandpaper, a paintbrush,
thinner and varnish to give them a make- up.
And Friday was the assigned day, the day I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything. Absurdly, I
debated which was more urgent, the gutter or the chairs? A broken gutter could cost us dearly as the
rainy season was approaching and the lackluster chairs were the source of embarrassment before our
guests.
I even tried to clear my head by doing a crossword puzzle but the name of Napoleon’s mistress that
I’d forgotten crushed my hope of resorting to this excuse all together. The entire morning wasted! All I’
d done was smoke and monitor the time.
A bizarre sentiment was radiating through my entire being, an old anxiety, an erratic heartbeat.
Whatever it was, it stopped me from doing anything productive. Later in the afternoon, I put my coat
and hat on and left the house and wandered aimlessly for a while until I realized my favorite plaid scarf
around my neck was missing. Any other day I would’ve gone back for it as the doctor advised me not
to expose my chest to cold wind, it triggered my asthma.
But today, I kept walking until I entered a park. It seemed more crowded than usual; the main
walkways filled with crowd killing time. Families sluggishly sat on the grass as if they’d been sentenced
to waste their Friday afternoon in the park. A few played cards; some played backgammon, others
gobbled sunflower seeds as if competing for a prize. And every group had a boiling samovar in the
center of the circle with a steaming teapot on top ready to pour hot tea.
On the fence, a flock of ravens were arguing. One chirped and three responded in disagreement.
Suddenly they all chirped frantically.
In one secluded corner, I noticed an empty bench, just the right spot. The sun settled right in front,
in an hour or so it would’ve to go home too. I pulled my hat down a little to shield my eyes from its
daring gaze.
I don’t know how long it took until I sensed the presence of someone next to me. Politely I shifted
aside to get a better glimpse and when I did I recognized the stranger. A sublime feeling of serenity
filled my being. Calmness replaced the anxiety I’d felt all day. It was Ali Reza; surely it was he sitting
right next to me, indifferent to my presence. My childhood friend and my next-door neighbor, with
whom I went to school and when we grew up, exchanged books and passionately argued hot social
issues.
“What was happening to me?” I wondered. How could he be sitting shoulder to shoulder with me
after all these years? He looked exactly the same, long nose, bony chin and sunken eyes staring into
the sun like we used to when we were kids. We’d bet who could stare into the sun longer without
blinking. Forty years of my life suddenly vanished in a hazy glimpse of a childhood friend.
He must have not recognized me. Unlike him, I had changed a lot; I’d gained 20 Kilos, lost hair and
now wore glasses.
“Is that you?” I asked perplexed.
He nodded with apathy, but uttered no words. He kept staring at the sun, gazing far from the park
and much farther than the ravens on the fence. He was looking into sky, higher than the snow capped
mountains and beyond the horizon.
“Don’t you recognize me?” I prodded.
His penetrating eyes turned to me for the first time just like the way he looked at me in our childhood
years. But the passage of time had paled that look; something was keeping him from me.
“This is a bizarre coincidence; I knew something good would happen today. I came here for no
apparent reason. I was anxious the entire day for this without knowing it. I can’t believe after all these
years we meet again. God knows how much fun we had together. Believe me my friend; nothing
replaces sweet memories, nothing.”
I kept talking without giving him a chance to respond, “Do you remember we paid three Rials each
and walked a long way to buy a half of bologna sandwich? Do you remember the sandwich shop called
the Golden Rooster on the corner of Pahlavi Avenue? I could never duplicate that taste. Do you
remember we could only afford to buy one movie ticket and watched the film in one seat twice in a
row? They don’t make movies like that any more, do they my friend?”
“You have changed a lot. I can hardly recognize you.” he said.
“After those tumultuous years of our youth, I’ve change beyond recognition. I don’t know who I am.”
I said.
“What happened to our old friends?” he asked.
“Do you remember Farzan? He went to Europe and became a doctor. How about the one we called
the psychologist? He always said if we had a sexual revolution, class struggles would be resolved? Do
you remember him? He abandoned his dreams when he inherited a Persian rug store from his father.
He’s making tons of money—doing what he always hated, following his father’s footsteps. And the rest
of the gang, I have no idea, I lost contact. Why didn’t you look me up all these years? What kind of
friend are you?”
He was distant, he was there with me and not. His mind was soaring in the sky. I wished I could
repeat the past, all of it, the bad and the good. I wished we could drink so much water after playing
football in the summer heat of south. I wanted to relive the taste of hot baked beets from street vendor
in the bitter cold of winter. I always wanted to ask him how he studied that made him a better student
than me? I had lots of questions to ask and so many things to say but his existence was melting before
my eyes, I was losing him.
He showed no interest in the past; he was relentlessly staring into the sun. Just as in our childhood,
I traced his gaze across the park fence, farther than the city limits, emerged from the smoke filled city
and rose higher than the snow-capped mountain. The air was clean and the sky blue. I felt like a bird
flying to eternity and approaching the sun. Just like him, just like our childhood, I was racing toward the
fountain of immense light and entering into the house of sun. I took a deep breath and exhaled freely
to cleanse my being. I was rejuvenated to stand against all odds and stop typhoons. Crystals of light
filled my body and waves of fire flowed through my veins. The sun exploded and its rays filled the
galaxy and I was standing in the center of it all absorbing every piece of light with all my being. Once
again, I opened my arms to embrace the world with no fear.
Suddenly, I thought of my upcoming retirement, my pension and my coin collection. What if the
gutter had fallen off the wall? Our dining room chairs were stretching their legs begging me to refinish
them. My eyes burned. My weak body could not tolerate the massive flow of light. Desperately, I
covered my frail chest with both hands to prevent it from crushing and shut my eyes. Darkness and
vacuum crept inside me and purged shattered pieces of light from my soul.
I shivered, buttoned my coat and cautiously opened my eyes. When they adjusted to the creeping
darkness, the sun had already set and I was sitting on the bench alone.