1) Omid, the teenager in our story, had a mother named Mahin and a father named Aqā Vali. Aqā Vali was a talkative, boastful, yet unemployed, addicted, and penniless man. Omid was often hungry. His father forced him to beg and transport drugs. Aqā Vali was also violent. He sometimes beat his wife and son to the brink of death. Mahin was a kind, noble, and very beautiful woman. Mahin and Omid did not have a single happy day in their lives. Omid sometimes cried in solitude and wished to himself that he too had a healthy, kind, and wealthy father like other kids, who treated him and his mother with kindness and provided comfort and happiness for them. In his heart, Omid wished that his mother would divorce his father as soon as possible and marry a wealthy man so that instead of a cranky and poor father, he would have a kind and wealthy stepfather. Omid thought to himself that many men longed to have a wife like his mother, who was unrivaled in beauty and nobility among the women of the town. Omid said, although no man enters this life with the intention of making me happy, there surely is a man who, driven by the desire to be with Mama Mahin, would step into this life, and undoubtedly, such a man could also provide for my happiness and ensure my interests and future through this path. Omid knew that a stepfather would never become a father, but with the suffering he endured, he had concluded that a good stepfather is better than a bad father. If the leader of a government, due to misguided policies, brings a sick and bankrupt economy to his nation and constantly treats his people with harsh and security-driven methods, stripping them of their freedoms under various pretexts, such a nation will turn to prayer and wish that a hand from the outside world would appear to save them from this suffering and quagmire. Woe to the people who have such a leader, and pity that leader whose people prefer a stranger over him and wish that a foreign man would save Mama Mehan from his grasp.
2) I have a car that, due to a driving error, has fallen into a ditch, stuck in the mud, and I am unable to pull it out alone and continue my drive. I am sitting inside the car, thinking about whom I should ask for help. In front of me, there’s a partially constructed building with some workers busy building it. At this moment, a truck full of construction materials stops behind me. The truck driver tells me to move my car, as he wants to unload the materials for the unfinished building here. I tell him, you see my car’s wheels are in the ditch and stuck in the mud, and I cannot move it now. The truck driver calls for some strong workers from inside the building, and together they pull my car out of the mud with one move and solve my problem. See, in this instance, the workers and the truck driver, by doing so, actually secured their own interests, because my car was blocking the unloading of the truck and the delivery of materials to the workers. But with this action, while striving for their own benefits, they simultaneously met my needs as well. I mention this to say that we do not expect anyone to prioritize our interests and country over theirs. If anyone, from anywhere in the world, decides to pull our car out of the mud for their own benefits, we, for our own interests, will also grasp their helping hands.
Mohammad Mahdavifar
Isfahan Central Prison
4 Bahman 97 [January 24, 2019]