For A Firefly
Mehram Maleki
A long time ago, early in Spring 1350 (April 1971), together with
a neighbor who was a childhood friend of mine, Homayun, we
decided to get into and up the mountains just north of us and
have a little relaxing good time. We used to do that every once
in a while since the mountains were very near and it didn't need
any planning or preparation. You could just decide to do it in an
instance of caprice and 15 minutes later you were walking on your
way there and half an hour or more later you reached where you
would "camp" depending how deep and high you wanted to penetrate
into that area. But aside from the relaxation and exercise that
we would get, almost always it would also put some of our skills
to the test. Back in childhood years, for example, some kids on
their way back from mountains would start to cry for no reason as
they got nearer to home, so the rest of us would see how stronger
or different we were. Or the degree of cooperation or handling of
emergencies in a person always showed themselves to be very
different from individual to individual. A cousin of mine lost
his jacket in a small river (Shahabad river) in the mountain and
from then on all the way until we came back home he was one
shattered helpless soul; or on other occasions someone would
skillfully instigate some sense of fear among us and it would
seriously disuade some of us from continuing the climbing and the
whole plan would collapse and we had to abort and come back. So
it was really a bit more than just a trip to "Karaj" or just some
relaxing time. Anyway, we got ready to do it again. It was about
2 pm.
There were two ways of approaching the sharply ascending hills,
one by walking through downtown of the ancient village of
Jamalabad which itself was formed on the very steep foothills of
those mountains, and the other by avoiding that village and
pacing through the dry uncultivated field patches in between
cherry fields and strawberry and raspberry fields that laid here
and there around it most of the way to the mountains. Crossing
these little field patches was itself fun. They had
characteristic flora and fauna that we remembered since
childhood.
We took something along with us to eat. Some cans, hard-boiled
eggs, bread, and this time also coffee. We weren't coffee
drinkers of course but the proper way Homayun had opined one
should make and have coffee up there was by using a
"ghahve-jush", an odd looking aluminum container he had seen in
our house for years which had a conical shape, flat and wide at
the bottom and narrowing toward the top and widening again just
before reaching the rim. It had a disproportionately long handle
sticking out from it in a 45 degree angle as if you would want to
lower it inside some furnace in the ground. It was ugly and
looked like a laboratory container because only practical
considerations were applied in its built, not a bit of art
whatsoever. I knew we had a bag of coffee beans from aeons ago
that we tried once and put aside for later never-coming use.
So we got our backpacks filled, took even books (...) and Homayun
put his little portable radio-cassette player (a somewhat new
item in Iran back in those days) inside his pack among an
assortment of little glass bottles of salt, pepper, traditional
pickles, aspirin; and cassette tapes of western wal-mart music
(he had recently stopped listening to anything else- 17 years old
he was, he was pretending to have risen above rock music). Soon I
found out the ghahve-jush was a problem to carry. It was a little
large and its bulky shape and long handle didn't conform to our
little backpacks. I wanted to forget about coffee but Homayun
insisted and later agreed to carry it himself. The way he managed
to carry it was to somehow contain the bulk of it inside his pack
and letting the long handle stick vertically out from top of the
pack, so when he was carrying it on his back the handle could be
seen from behind his neck going up at least half a meter above
his head into the air. That was probably why we decided to avoid
the Jamalabad village and choose the deserted lonely fields to
get to the mountain.
You would first reach "The Mine" (ma'dan), a huge void left at
the foot of the mountain after extracting building stones from it
for many years. So many workers had been killed in there that
they eventually banned its use and it was left there as a sudden
absence of a corner of the mountain because around it there was
no infrastructure of any sort to warn you of its existance. It
just had to catch your eyes, and big as it was it would. From
below of course one would confront it and detour around its rim
going up the mountain, but from above, when descending, this
hazard laid right under your feet without any advance notice
until you would get to the very edge of the rim. Then you would
see that the rest of the mountain in front of you was simply
missing and two more steps would give you a free fall through a
height of about 200 meters onto the rocks below at the bottom of
the mine. There were many make-shift graves at the bottom and on
the side, supposedly of those who worked there and got killed. I
knew a poor family who had buried their little daughter there,
his brother had shown the place to me a few times. Once also a
darvish had committed suicide jumping down into it.
After climbing by the mine we soon reached the point where a sign
was posted into ground with some text explaining that from there
upward it was considered royal hunting ground ("shekArgAhe
saltanati") and therefore forbidden by anyone to traverse. After
we read the full text Homayun took the usual course of action
that had developed since it was posted in late 1960s. He urinated
below the sign on the pole holding it, and we kept climbing up.
We knew where we were heading. There was this steep sandy part to
climb (without sliding back down and doing it over again) then a
long less steep climbing over a ridge with large round bulky
stones sticking out and lots of green/red rhubarb plants
scattered around and along the way. When climbing it Homayun's
radio was quietly murmuring George Harrison's ".. really wanne
see you Lord but it takes .."; then a steep ascend through
melon-sized loose rock, and then at once you found yourself in a
large horizontal field on top of that part of the mountain
roughly twice the size of a soccer field mostly in length than in
width, covered with a shallow layer of almond-sized chipped grey
stones. In the event that you would fall on that ground your
knees would meet what hid below these loose pieces of stones: a
two-dimensional array of sharply carved upward-pointing
stone-blades weathered by time and erosion. If the timing was
right we would see this whole field covered with white and red
wild tulips like many times before during our childhoods but it
was either a little too early or a little too late, although I
could see a few of them over a distance down on the slopes on the
other side of the mountain. There we "camped" and sat down to
rest and enjoy.
Soon we had our fire and taste of boiled "coffee" (poison
rather), from which Homayun got stomach-ache and I was saved
because I couldn't go further than two or three sips. There
wasn't much time, but enough so we ate and talked and looked
around and pondered and relaxed. The books and some other things
we brought never got a chance of course. In some other occasions
some years earlier someone had even brought a soccer ball to play
in there which obviously lasted about a couple of kicks and then
went down into the uncharted territories of nature.
We watched the sunset, down there on our right, from begin to
end, then got ready to go back. Going back was much faster and we
reckoned we would get home in one hour at most if we did it fast.
While packing, as soon as it was twilight I noticed a few
unusually bright fireflies flying around. They were much brighter
than those we sometimes saw close to home. I ran after one and
caught her. She had a bigger belly and lots more pulsatingly
shining area on her. To make her more comfortable while I watched
her I emptied Homayun's little salt glass container and cleaned
it as best I could and put her inside and put the lid on. It had
enough ventilation and I could comfortably see and study her from
all directions. I would of course set her free before moving down.
Then things started to change. Really during seconds. It became
breezy for a moment and very soon after, we saw lots of clouds
forming right above us and it started to become dark and cool
fast and some rain started to fall. We hurried packing our things
and as we got ready to leave suddenly a series of unbelievably
loud thunders and bright flashes followed which couldn't have
been more than a few tens of meters above us. I have not heard
anything as loud since (I didn't go to the war). Getting hit by
lightning was eminent and we became sure at any moment one or
both of us will be hit into pieces by it, and there was no place
to hide. So we ran for our lives each trying to get to the edge
of that flat field so we could descend and hide from open spaces.
In seconds it got completely dark and a wild shower started and
lightning and thunder was never ceasing. I lost contact with
Homayun and after I got to the edge of the flat field embarked on
descending as fast as I could without watching what was happening
to him. I remember I was astounded by the surge of energy in me.
The leaps I took on my way down inside that pitted darkness, each
one of them, under usual circumstances would have cripplingly
injured me. My ankles and feet were coming down on loose gravel
and melon-sized stones and somehow would not get stuck but would
move as the pile of stones did in such amazing harmony that only
the association cortex of the brain could take control of it. I was
simply jumping as wide as I could into dark space in front of me
and landed on stones on two legs and would do the same as soon as
I would compose myself. When I reached the firm ground things
were worse. There was no sign of relief from the thunder and
lightning and no matter how I tried to shout calling Homayun
didn't work a bit. I really couldn't even hear myself well. So I
ran downward again this time with much more difficulty taking
shorter and faster steps since ground wouldn't let my feet slide
and attenuate the impacts, plus every now and then I would step
right into those horrible thorny bushes ("katirA") or a piece of
stone sticking stiffly out of the ground would rearrange my
balance and orientation. By the time I got to the end of that
long piece of track, right above the steep sandy part, the
thunder, rain, lightnings everything was over and it was dead
silent and dark. In every way I could think about it it had been
a close call. I shouted Homayun's name and nothing happened.
Shouted his name a few more times and listened carefully for
answer. There was no response. After some time I put my backpack
down, sat down and started thinking. To make sure, I walked a few
steps up and again called his name as loud as I could. There was
no answer so I came back and sat down and got ready to deal with
it.
Something had happened to him. He didn't survive it. Most of us
have had those moments when we were a few seconds away from
certain death, and usually during those seconds the mind goes
5000 times faster and the whole childhood and after become
vividly screened in front of the eyes in a few short moments,
almost all at once. But it is very different when someone other
than self has just been lost. There is no racing of mind, rather
a slow implosion. A certain shock starts to creep in that is
really an intensely concentrated form of the feeling one gets in
observing that a process is too damn early to start a fraction of a
second before it starts, and a fraction of a second after it is
over, it is too late to reverse. An absolute, sudden, and at the
same time senseless loss of a dear thing. But this is not the
whole story. Very soon I came to my senses and realized there
were tougher things to deal with. How on earth were I to tell
this to his mother? How would I walk down to town alone to their
door and knock, and give them any conceivable explanation for
what had happened? Going back up was useless, I couldn't see
anything and even if I would find him I needed help from many
others to do anything useful, and it would take much longer going
back up. I had to go back home and come back with flashlights etc
and a few other people to help. After a very long pause, a little
before I lift my head and start climbing down, I heard some
sluggish steps above in the dark coming down.
I called his name again, and after composing myself asked him why
it had taken him so long to climb down and why he hadn't answered
my calling him. Instead of answering me he said: "That
motherfucking handle of the ghahve-jush sticking up on the
backpack was attracting all that hell so I threw the whole godamn
pack away while running for cover. After it was over I couldn't
see a damn thing so it took me a while to find it again and come
back down." He had heard me a couple of times climbing down but
had stayed on the top flat area all along and was way too far to
hear me later. He had also relieved himself up there because of
the stomach-ache and all the commotion. So the chemistry of my
brain went through another major change this time to normal and
familiar. In no time we were laughing our hearts out and sat down
to make a blind inventory of what was left of our stuff. The
books were ruined and we threw away the remainder of food and
coffee beans. Then we sat down and spent another hour enjoying
the beautiful air while watching parts of Tehran lights that had
just become visible.
It was then that I took notice of the firefly. The bottle was not
among what was left in my sack. I searched for it again but it
wasn't there. It must've been thrown out of the sack while I was
jumping my way down. Then I remembered I had closed the lid and
while she could easily breathe in there she couldn't get out. The
bottle couldn't have been broken on its impact with ground, it
was very sturdy and thick. My heart began to sink. Deep into
mountains away from all the menace of the city and the runaway
population of these humanoids, out of nowhere, I had appeared to
this creature, caught her and imprisoned her forever inside a
tiny glass salt-shaker, and had left her there to die. I haven't
quite gotten over this. On our way down we took care to carefully
work our way around the invisible mine.
Half an hour later I was at home breathing comfortably, watching
my father and sister silently getting ready for dinner. I got
into a very comfortable suit and sat down with them to eat. While
we silently ate, I was so much aware how that very moment could
be so easily and so entirely different, and felt guilty and
ashamed for recklessly subjecting them to the possibilities of
such agonies and pain. And when I noticed the glass salt-shaker I
knew she was still alive up there struggling. The feeling was not
new to me. There are just these things I sometimes do that can't
be undone forever. And everytime I dig them out to check I find
them there fresh as ever.
Mehram Maleki
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