Dream of becoming

Should I wake from this nostalgic dream into the nightmare of living?


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Dream of becoming
by Azarin Sadegh
10-May-2008
 

I had written it as one of my first assignment for Philomene Long. I
just made some changes, to make it something special for Mother's Day:

It is dark.

Lying under my bed, touching the thick harsh wooden board that holds the mattress, touching the cold metallic bed frame, listening to the drum-like sound of artilleries aimed at invisible enemies. The darkness of night blankets the absurdity of the situation, and still knowing that does not help me to calm down. I lower my hands to the ground, pressing the floor, hard, as if I am trying to dissolve into it, to transform into cold grey vapor--smoke and ashes. My body, my fingers, my back, feel numb, but still not as numb I dream of becoming.

The door to my room opens, and a warm hand touches my foot, a hand like my mother’s. She invites herself into to my space, joining me in my shelter, lying down by my side, grabbing my shoulders, trying to act normal under the bed. It is 3:00 a.m.

We are not talking.

She holds my body tight, melting away my fears. She says nothing, but she pushes me closer to the wall, closer and closer with each sound of explosion. I feel burst of her breath on my skin. Her hands, her belly, her legs, her hair tickle my face. The ground scratches my ears, and the right side of my cheek and my right hand--they’re all detached, as if they belong to someone else. I am void, empty of feeling.  I am shrunken to the point of insignificance, worthless, similar to the mysterious creatures hidden under the bed with me, those crushed under my weight, penetrating my body, flooding into the flow of my blood.  

A black creeping insect crawls up my nose, into my mouth, down my throat. I am touching monsters somewhere at the end of the world where I am turning into dust, into a germ, into an unknown, paralyzing disease. All hope lost on the way.

I grab my mother’s hands harder; her hands disappear in mine. Time doesn’t move. The silence before the next explosion lasts an eternity.

I turn my head, looking at my mother. Her eyes, like fire. I listen to her smile rustling like joy. To her heart pounding against mine. Darkness is fading into blinding light. My fears, all destroyed. Her eyes shine in the darkness, like a mirror. I look at the vague image behind my own reflection, distinguish the shape of a monster with burning eyes, shivering the silence, brightening the night, breaking the mirrors, razing the walls, a monster eating us both alive.

…

Should I wake from this nostalgic dream into the nightmare of living, or should I give in to the hungry wild melancholic monster while I am being hugged, touched, loved?


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Azarin Sadegh

Yes...you!

by Azarin Sadegh on Thu May 15, 2008 12:33 AM PDT

I liked your Afro hair style better :-) Azarin

PS: Was it JJ? 


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Omid Hast

What?!!!

by Omid Hast on Wed May 14, 2008 08:00 PM PDT


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Azarin Sadegh

Thanks!

by Azarin Sadegh on Tue May 13, 2008 07:43 AM PDT

Thanks Omid Jan! Now I understand why I love your cartoons. They're the most intelligent and original, like your comments! 

Of course my response to Philomene was:"What?! A poet? No way. .. plus, who needs poetry these days?"

Azarin (still snoring :) 


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Omid Hast

Oh really!!!

by Omid Hast on Mon May 12, 2008 09:40 PM PDT

Oh really!!! You're already awaken? Or, you're so deep into your dream that you think you're awaken? A dream, induced by the monster, so real that irreality eludes you now, or embodies you as it wishes.

Yes, I like paradoxes. I use paradoxical quandary in my cartoons, the last one a progressive backwarded mullah.

Your mentor was right, you should’ve been a poet.


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Azarin Sadegh

Without paradoxes...

by Azarin Sadegh on Mon May 12, 2008 12:11 PM PDT

Dear Omid,

Did you see Nazy's response? It means that I'am already awaken. That the monster is dead…damn!I don’t know about you, but I love paradoxes, or any impossible question; they give me a kind of devilish goal, or even a desperate hope! Without paradoxes, or without hope who could even care to survive? 

My other assignments were "taste", "smell", "going blind for one hour", "describe an object only by its colors" and "Describe an object". Since you like my old assignmnets, voila part of my assignmnet for the "object": 

My hands still on the glass of the window to my backyard. A dead fly smashed somewhere. Or a blind fly, maybe.

The glass.

It's like a puzzle, unknown, by its duality and contradiction, from this side to the other. It is like a sentinel, saving me from storms and rains.  

It's like heaven. It's like hell. Like a bridge, in between. From here to there.

It's like a mirror, reflecting my image,

if I decide to see it.

It's like nothing, if I ignore it.

Like god.

Thanks,

Azarin

PS: Oh my...No wonder Philomene insisted so much on me being a poet! what was I thinking? :0)


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Omid Hast

quagmiry of paradoxes

by Omid Hast on Mon May 12, 2008 12:28 AM PDT

Your question is a delightful quagmiry of paradoxes.  On one hand the universal dream of humanity for hug, touch, and love with the possibility of encountering monsters, and on the other hand waking up to a nightmarish life worse than a fiction.  I wouldn't wake up. 

I enjoyed reading your assignment very much,    


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Mona 19

If...

by Mona 19 on Sun May 11, 2008 02:29 PM PDT

...That dream takes me to the world closer to my mom,I don't want to wake up, and I'd rather to have that Dream every night ...Do not wake up,Mrs.Sadegh, and Happy Mother's Day ;)

 

Regards,Mona

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=XulvnXo6BJk&feature...

 


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Nazy Kaviani

Dear Azarin: This was

by Nazy Kaviani on Sun May 11, 2008 10:14 AM PDT

Dear Azarin:

This was beautiful. Our mothers' embraces gave us refuge from so much that was ambiguous and frightening and unknown. The feelings you described felt so familiar to me.

Though I would hate to contradict Omid (yes, there is hope, thank you!) I think you have already woken up and it will be hard to crawl back under that bed and go to sleep now! Now you will only need to occasionally crawl under the bed to get to your children who might be hiding down there, giving them hope and strength.

Happy Mother's Day Azarin-e Aziz!


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Omid Hast

Don’t wake up

by Omid Hast on Sun May 11, 2008 09:51 AM PDT

Take a chance with being hugged, touched, and loved.

It’s a cynical world out here.


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Azarin Sadegh

To wake up or Not to wake up? That's the question...

by Azarin Sadegh on Sun May 11, 2008 12:35 AM PDT

"Omid Hast" is telling me not to wake up.

"Lost Identity" tells me to wake up.

What am I supposed to do?

...

Azarin


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default

Dear Azarin, It's a

by LostIdentity (not verified) on Sat May 10, 2008 09:27 PM PDT

Dear Azarin,
It's a beautifull writing;
Wakeup, since it's the reality. Hold on to the hands that never disappears - The hands of supreme being which the truth and reality eminates from. The rest will just play out alright.

Hopelessness is the gateway to dissolution!

Peace;


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IRANdokht

Beautifully written!

by IRANdokht on Sat May 10, 2008 05:39 PM PDT

Dear Azarin

It's a beautiful art to make a haunting nightmare sound like a dream. The way you described your mother's touch and your feelings throughout the ordeal, made me think back at those horrible times that I experienced too; then I remembered how comforting it was to have my mom there to hold us tight and warm our shaking hands... 

You took me back there and reminded me that even in those hardest of times when I just wanted to die and disappear, there was a soft voice and a warm beating heart that held on and kept me going.

Thanks and Happy Mother's Day to you

IRANdokht


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Azarin Sadegh

Who was Philomene Long?

by Azarin Sadegh on Sat May 10, 2008 05:02 PM PDT

I'd like to add a little explanation:

The late Philomene Long was my first creative writing mentor at UCLA extension and I had the chance of taking her last class, in the fall of 2006.

This piece is my second assignment for her class and the subject was: “Touch”. Of course, each week we wrote about the other senses :-)

Philomene liked this one the best, to the point of reading it before her own poem about war in a poetry reading at Beyond Baroque in LA! Actually, on that same evening, Majid Naficy, Philomene's favorite Iranian poet, read his moving poem To A Soldier's Wife.

 Philomene passed away last year, only a few months after she retired. The last time I saw her, she was so full of life. To the end, she looked at everything with the wondering eyes of a child.

I still miss her.

Thanks, Azarin


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Omid Hast

Whatever you do

by Omid Hast on Sat May 10, 2008 05:02 PM PDT

..., don't wake up.

There are a lot of awful things happening in this world.  :O) 


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