It is daytime, meaning morning, when the sun has already risen in this autumn light. Right there where it says: “The lazy autumn sun has gone cold in its heart.” The sun has stretched itself across the red carpet, glowing deep and crimson. The lace pattern of the curtain has fallen onto the side wall, and the wall has become covered in motifs. The sound of the neighboring school has spilled into the house. Children scream in this early morning hour when the rooster, pigeons, and doves have all released their voices into the yard. If you open the window, a cool breeze wraps itself around the body of the house.
When you read the lines above, it is unlikely that you won’t see the images in your mind or feel a certain pleasantness. These are the reality of my morning today, what I saw when I woke up. But is life really just these beautiful scenes? Or what is the reality of life at all? How can one see the beautiful parts of life and pass by the violent or nerve-wracking scenes? Questions like these are many in my mind. That is why in this writing I want to describe for you the backstage of this morning image.
It is night, it is raining, a storm, thunder and lightning flooding the street with water. I stay at work until one in the morning. I return home exhausted. I see that electricity is connected everywhere, but only our building has no power. A repairman is working on it. Living on the fourth floor is not a good option for days without electricity and exhaustion. I climb the stairs one by one, with difficulty. Darkness has invaded the stairwell. I insert the key into the door and go inside. Everything is dark. I look for a candle and find one. I know I have no matches or lighter. I try the gas stove and remember the igniter works with electricity. I sit in the dark. I crave tea and remember the kettle also works with electricity, and even water is pumped with electricity. Lightning pours into the house. I feel suffocated. My phone battery is dead and I cannot charge it. Idleness irritates me. The air has become hot and the house feels heavy and damp.
I go toward the double-glazed window. When I step onto the carpet I realize it is wet. I step onto the tiles, also wet, and slip and fall hard onto my back. In pain, I get up in the darkness, confused about where all this water is coming from that has reached the middle of the house. Through the double-glazed windows, rainwater has entered all the way inside. I open the window and the rain falls freely into the house. Note that the water is still cut off. Note that my nerves are completely frayed. It is two in the morning. Also note that the rooster in our building starts crowing at two a.m. and continues without pause until ten in the morning. Its sound is right inside the living room. Note that our building’s rooster sings its “cock-a-doodle-doo” incorrectly. It drops one note and says: “cock-a-doodle-doh.” I am forced to sleep in the heat, in the smell of dampness, with the rooster and ducks and everything else. I sleep.
At five-thirty in the morning I wake up, half before and half after sunrise. Water has come further into the house. The sky is clear now. The electricity is still off and water is still cut. It remains so until nine in the morning when I leave the house. I am waiting for tea at the office.
They say that when ‘Orfi Shirazi was about to die, he was asked: “Do you have any final words?” He said: “Yes, I have things to say.”
Naturally they asked him: “What things?”
‘Orfi Shirazi, who was about to die, said: “I don’t have anything specific, but I have remained puzzled about this world. In all these years of life I have not understood certain things.”
I omit the question of the others—“What things?”—and continue with ‘Orfi’s words, where he says: “Why do they say the braying of a donkey is ugly? In all my years I have listened to the sound of donkeys and found it not so bad at all. Or why do they say the sound of the nightingale is beautiful? After listening to it for a while, I found it becomes irritating. Or why do they say the feet of a peacock are ugly? In all my years I have looked at peacock feet and found them not so ugly.”
And naturally, according to the history of ‘Orfi Shirazi, after saying these things he felt at ease and prepared himself for death, and of course he has been dead for many, many years by now.
That is why I named this piece after a poem of ‘Orfi, as a tribute to this fellow townsman poet.
In conclusion, I want to offer the moral of the story. Life is not what we all think it is. Life is either more terrifying or more beautiful than these things.
And the final result is this: you can sleep through all your disappointments, hoping that by morning all your problems will have been solved and new problems will have replaced them. But it is the sun that, without hesitation, imposes itself on you every single morning.