IRAN
Whither this land that has touched my soul?
I have wondered in recent weeks why Iran has touched me so deeply. I have travelled to 25 countries in my life. In all of them, I have marveled at various aspects of culture, history and natural beauty. And yet this 25th country I visited, Iran, has touched me more than all others. It is a land that has haunted my dreams, touched my soul, and shifted my consciousness. Little did I know that, after visiting Iran, I would never be the same again. From unexpectedness came an appreciation inexpressible by frail words
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STORY
When Nader stood up, his eyes glowed a wild red
This rare creature used to hang out at our house a lot. He wasn’t welcome anywhere else because he made other parents uncomfortable. And for good reason. When children played with him, someone always lost a shoe, fell off a bicycle, broke a tooth, or was stung by a scorpion. But my mother was impractically softhearted and couldn’t bear to see the child rejected like this. She felt sad to see Nader placed in the social outhouse from the very moment of his birth. I was born in a hospital, so instead of the outhouse, I was taken to a nursery. Yet even that wasn’t good enough for my mother
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SIGHEH
مشدی کاملاً گیج شده بود. عطرتن دختره تمام فضای بقالی را پر کرده بود.
مشدی عباد اندکی در خود فرو رفت. 15 میلیون پول زیادی بود. ولی وقتی به یاد گل چهره افتاد، دوباره سینه اش آتش گرفت. سرش را پائین انداخت و چشمانش را بست. قباد منتظر ایستاد. مشدی عباد به روی خودش نیاورد. قباد این بار با متانت خاصی قدم پیش گذاشت و گفت: میروم با گل چهره بر گردم. یک تاکسی برایمان بگیر تا برویم منزل تو. البته من وسط راه پیاده می شوم. ولی ... سکوتی برقرار شد. مشدی خوب میدانست که قباد میخواهد موضوع پول حل و فصل شود. مشدی عباد با مهارت یک بازاری مکار از صحبت در باره پول واهمه داشت. خودش را به کوچه علی چپ زد
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GHOST
We were told that her house was the primary residence of Jens and their immediate families
My ominous association with ghosts goes back to my early childhood years. Aunt Sedighe my father’s youngest sister lived in Shoushtar, one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back to Achaemenian dynasty (400 BC). Shoushtar used to be the winter capital of Sassanian dynasty and it was built by the Karoun River. The river was channeled to form a trench around the city. A subterranean system called ghanats connected the river to the private reservoirs of houses and buildings, supplied water during times of war when the main gates were closed. The ruins of these ghanats still exist and one was connected to Aunt Sedighe’s house where my cousins and I explored if we dared to
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POETRY
بعد از آن سودابه آمد سوی شاه / گلرخش سرخ و کمند مو سیاه
در بخش اول از دو بخش این داستان به این جا رسیدیم که شاه هاماوران (یمن) راضی به ازدواج دخترش سودابه با کیکاوس پادشاه قدرتمند ایران نیست چون با این ازدواج دختر یکدانه اش برای همیشه از پیش او دور خواهد شد. ابتدا این دو نفر را با هم روبرو می کند به این امید که سودابه کاوس را نپسندد و راضی به ازدواج با او نشود ولی بر خلاف میل او سودابه و کاوس شاه یکدیگر را می پسندند و شاه هاماور کینه جویانه نقشهء شومی می کشد. پس از مراسم ازدواج این دو، شاه یمن از کیکاوس می خواهد تا برای تفریح و شکار هفته ای به صحرا و کوهستان بروند
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