Sarina says, I fall in love through looking. I must see Abdullah’s eyes.
I say, dear Sarina, Abdullah’s eyes are closed. Sarina insists that Abdullah open his eyes so she can see him.
I say, Abdullah has large eyes and a masculine gaze. He has masculine hands. He hasn’t attended school since the age of six. With his small, masculine hands, he wove carpets to help support his family. They lived in a humble, ramshackle house in the Hojjatiyeh neighborhood. There were seven brothers and sisters. As Abdullah grew older, he helped his father with farming. After that, he worked as a digger for a while and finally decided to become a plumber. Master Abbas agreed to teach him plumbing. Every day, Abdullah walked a long distance from the Hojjatiyeh neighborhood to the Ghasemiyeh neighborhood on foot to secure the plumbing tools on the back of Master Abbas’s motorcycle, then he sat on the back of the motorcycle, and together, they went to people’s homes for plumbing work.
Last Wednesday, Abdullah was busy with work and didn’t realize he had turned 17 years old. Therefore, today, Wednesday, the 8th of Azar, 1357 [November 29, 1978], Abdullah is exactly 17 years and 7 days old.
Here, in front of Qazi Mosque in the city of Aran and Bidgol, amid the protests—or as they call them, the riots—a live bullet pierced his heart. Abdullah had toiled hard since childhood, but today he departed easily because the bullet of an M1 rifle hit his heart.
The only photo left of Abdullah was a picture of his corpse at that moment with his eyes closed. Abdullah had no other photos because he hadn’t gone to school.
Now, 17-year-old Abdullah should open his eyes somehow so that 16-year-old Sarina can see his eyes.
I tell Sarina, “A hundred meters away, Javad Abdullahi has fallen to the ground, has surrendered his soul to the Creator, and his eyes are open. He’s just like you, 16 years old.”
Sarina says, “No, I’m staying here until Abdullah opens his eyes.”
I tell Sarina, “Two hundred meters away, Mohammad Javad Assarpour, 15 years old, has fallen to the ground, and his eyes are open.”
Sarina says, “Mohammad Javad has been shot in the leg, they’ll amputate his leg at the knee, but he will survive.”
Abdullah’s body was moved from house to house so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the authorities.
The quarrel over the body intensified. The influential figures of the city mediated and reached an agreement with Lieutenant Asghar Naseri, the head of the Gendarmerie station of Aran and Bidgol, to bury Abdullah at midnight with only a few family members present.
They buried 17-year-old Abdullah and returned. Everyone left.
But 16-year-old Sarina hasn’t left. She says, “I’m staying here until Abdullah opens his eyes.”