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Our take
... on Reza Ordoubadian's story

By Professor Hamechizdon
August 20, 2001
The Iranian

Our "fellouwwws" just informed me about Dr. Ordoubadian's analysis of his own piece,"The man who would sleep with his angel"!! We think this is a perfect historical moment to publish our rewrite of his story. Your readers can read them together and eshgh konan. Mr. Ordoubadian has personally thanked us . He loves our style of prose and our biting tongue!

So, go ahead publish our story of Davood the taxi driver, and Maryam the multicultural sanitation worker from kharejeh keshvar. many of these underlying themes add insight to our odots and ahvals.

Students! How are you doing with the last days of your ta' teelat? We can't wait for the year to start to use your research and publish the good ones in our own name. We have been faced with a troubling paradoxical inquiry about a curious piece written by the master of multi-social perspectives, the one and only Dr. Ordoubadian. Our department has been asked to illuminate on his story.

Who is Davoood? Who is Maryam? What is the nature of their discourse?

Our students have been mesmerized by the overlapping activities of our beloved philosopher, the social scientist, the linguist, the cultural commentator, Hafez translator, Nooneh turned Noon (gender signifier), our inspirational guru, O Reza!

O Reza, has incorporated elements from both cultures to create an epic set in the Appalachian Mountains. From reading thousands of pages of manuscript we can now say that our hero Davood is in fact a kharejeh keshvari taxi driver.

His problems start with being astigmatic or possibly myopic. Notice that the woman keeps appearing and disappearing from his sight. However, according to some of our research "fellowwous" he definitely has abeh morvarid because his eyes constantly produce tear, preventing him from seeing the road.

He is surprised to find anyone walking without an umbrella in that pouring rain; little does he know that Maryam who works for the sanitation department wearing the yellow rain coat, is one of our own Kharejeh Keshvaries. But she has not embraced it yet! What do we mean by that? She has just come from Ghazvin and really just zabanesh ghasereh. But no! Being partially blind, he does not see that she is also almost ghaseerol-ghameh (a midget). Again he can only see a raincoat. The taxi driver is a bache- bazaree from Abarghou.

His eyes are hurting and he has a confused mind. Of course, she could have been just a mirage; he remembers hearing about different kinds of airplanes and war machines and he loves the mirage -- that kind of Hill Billy mountain rain can easily distort vision!

He shouts, "Hell!" This is a good word he has learned. You see the danger is inside him. Maryam, the Kharejeh Keshvari sanitation worker is now peering through the glass, she is saying something he could not understand. Zabanesh ghasereh!

-- "What!"

-- "Open the door!"

-- "What "I don't... I can't hear you...!"

-- "Open the door!"

-- "Oh!... Yes -- of course!"

He is staring at her. He has never seen anything like this. Is it her jet-black hair protruding like a black halo from underneath her rain cap. Oh no no no. That ain't hair. It is her "bogh-cheh". She is multi-cultural.

-- "Are you afraid?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
-- "Why... no!" He replied.
-- "I was just thinking..."
-- "Do you want me to drive you to your place... I mean, I'll be glad to take... "

It is his job. He is a taxi driver. But then again he can't say it.

-- "You could, but I came to help you! You're lost!"
-- "It's not that -- but let me take you to your trailer first..."

She is working on Highway North, where they park their equipment and trailers.

-- "You're an angle!" he said with a Sadaat accent (pronouncing "a" as in apple).

-- "Not to worry! I've been driving for thirty years!"

-- "That's what scares me..."

-- "Wait and see!"

He is removing his foot from the clutch when the car rattles and shakes, but instead of going forward, it rolls back, almost to the edge of the road.

-- "Boy! That was close!"

-- "No, but you had the gear in reverse," she said and fell silent.

A spooky Kharejeh Keshvari woman. Did she or did she not speak Fingeelisi? She should not be in a car with a stranger, a taxi driver.

-- "Woman, I've got a hard on for you."

He had a hard-boiled egg to offer this passenger. He thought, "Fifteen years of marriage had produced three children and a life full of dissatisfactions. My wife still doesn't know how to boil eggs." Nevertheless, he was horrified.

-- "Dam!" he muttered under his breath. The woman turned and smiled. She had worked in Hoover Dam the year before and he immediately knew that she had read his mind.

-- "Dam! Damn!" His accent was Sadaat incarnate!

-- "Are you damning me?" the woman asked, with a kinder voice. "You can't, you know... I cannot be damned!"

-- "If you could only read my mind... then, I wouldn't have to say 'dam'!"

They had now passed the dam; too late for his English practice.

Before she could answer, they had arrived at the trailer. The man turned away from her and watched the large drops of rain splash the abeh morvarid from his eyes again.

"God help me!" he thought with a sad smile. "What am I getting myself into?"

-- " In the rocking chair; pick your choice. In old movies strangers slept in the bath tub, but I don't have a bath tub."

There was no hesitation in her voice; she knew exactly what she was doing.

"I don't want to do this," he thought, but he went forward.

-- "I'll get us some cookies, noon nokhodchee and baslogh, I made it this week. It is in my bogh-cheh," she said as she was slipping away from him. When she returned, she had a plateful in her hand, but he had not moved, and she bumped to him hard. "I know her game!" She knows Fingeelisi

He was now physically agitated. They spent the rest of the day watching each other. But to no avail. "You don't talk much!" She said. That wasn't true. He had been in the U.S. for thirty years now. He could say, "Got it," perfectly.

-- "Ever since I saw you by the river I knew you wanted me, but you mustn't..."

Davood went to her and, without asking, took a towel to dry the dishes as she washed them in the sink. There was no need for words. Frustrated and unsteady with ambivalence, twice he dropped the forks, and twice she rinsed them off. When he could not hold the skillet, and it fell on the kitchen floor with a crashing sound, he finally let go of the towel, turned to one side, and started biting the hell out of her. This woman was clumsy! She had to be taught a lesson. She seemed to offer herself as a sacrifice, if that was what he wanted. she was an over-size rag doll.

-- "Don't just sit there like a rag doll!"

-- "I have said all I could," she answered. "You don't seem to accept my answer."

Did it matter if neither could speak English?

-- "Are you different? I mean, sexually," he asked.

-- "Yes," she answered simply.

-- "How?"

-- "You won't believe it!"

-- "Show me."

-- "What are you doing? Don't... don't tear gas the room.. I just don't know English! Aaaakh My eyes."

Outside, the rain all but stopped. Down the road, he was taking another passenger to the ocean.

The author reserves all rights.

Author

Professor Hamechizdon holds a Fee.h.D. degree in Kharejeh Keshvari linguistics. He has held a professorship at Middle East Studies and Cultures of Kharejeh Keshvaries at Southern Khar-dar-Chaman University and has published numerous pieces on Kharejeh Keshvarie Odots and their Ahvals.

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