MISSIONARY I had been staying with an elderly couple for weeks. Both of them were well over sixty, my only interaction with them consisted of smiling at each other and greeting each other by clasping our hands in front of us. They lived in one of the slums of the city. So much so that I knew that if I didn’t choose to walk there during the day, I would have to risk passing through that slum area, which was seven kilometers long and not illuminated by a single street light, at night. Even so, every day when the sun was about to set, I couldn’t stop myself from getting involved in unnecessary activities and would spend the night on the streets. When the city center was completely gone, I would punish myself by forcing myself to cross that frightening area, in proportion to the regret and anger at myself that gripped my tired body. But most of the time, since I couldn’t find the willpower to carry out this punishment, I would idle around the city center until morning. With the first light of morning, I would head home in the opposite direction of the human movement that had begun toward the city center. When I arrived home, the old couple had already woken up and were just finishing their daily chores in the garden of their modest, single-story house that the state had once allocated to them. After sitting down for breakfast with them, I would retreat to a small section separated from the living room by a curtain. I would fall asleep on an inflatable bed, accompanied by the sounds heard from the television that the old couple was watching next to me, sounds that I felt familiar and warm even if I didn’t understand them. As soon as I woke up, I would find myself in the city center. I would sit cross-legged on a corner and sing folk songs. But now I was starting to feel uncomfortable with my own voice. In this voice that had no equivalent in me, I sensed a rawness brought on by being far from my roots; a lack of identity stemming from being divided between societies and cultures. Perhaps I was ashamed of what I had done. I closed my eyes once and never opened them again. I adapted my rhythm to the footsteps of the crowd flowing in front of me, I was lost. I was grateful for my eyelids, because each one was a shield protecting me from the outside world. Until I heard the sound of a few coins falling into the case of my saz. This jingling was the sound of pity and compassion awakening in hearts. Neither I, nor my voice, nor the gadget in my hand had a response here. I tried not to think about it, but it didn’t work. I just walked away. I had that bottomless nausea inside me that has been coming back more frequently lately. I haven’t said a word since that day. I haven’t taken my saz out of its case during this time. I drag it around with me like a worthless object. The city shopkeepers no longer find it strange that I’m idle on the streets. They’ve also stopped wondering what’s inside the cased object on my shoulder. Apart from the breakfast I shamelessly eat at the old couple’s house, I don’t eat anything during the day. I don’t complain about the way things are these days. On the contrary, I take a strange pleasure in it. I can’t shake the intoxication of being nothing more than a strange footprint on the streets of this city, without making any effort to live. This evening, after walking a little along the Ping River, I sat on the median of the truss-system girder bridge connecting the two banks of the river. I leaned my back on the iron of the bridge that descended towards the ground at a wide angle of about one hundred and twenty degrees. The huge full moon that had been rising over the city at the same time the last few days was right in front of me. From this blind spot where neither the cars passing by me nor the pedestrians passing on the sidewalks at the edge of the bridge could see me, I began to watch the full moon climbing to the top of the sky. I could feel the warm breathing of the river on my face. It smelled like a human mouth, like the smell of rotten meat. Yet I couldn’t help but inhale this smell. The heartfelt melody of a local instrument from afar reached me from the buzz of the city. I listened closely. Strange! The more I felt the contradictory feelings together with a pure feeling, the more I was faced with the illusion that life had a deep meaning. The rotten smell of the river, the heartfelt melody, the breathtaking journey of the full moon and the hunger in my stomach… All of these stuck in my mind like the tip of a pin and pushed me into an endless movement, a bottomless flow, making me restless. But if life is simple and meaningless, why dwell on it so much? Ah! The thought of life and death is cold and heavy like a corpse. There is something vague and longing within me for completion. CONTINUE IN COMMENTS.