The night is hot and we have gathered on the porch, sipping red wine and talking about Iran. We are unable to divert the conversation. All we can think of, all we can say is of a country we’ve left behind. The uncertainty of tomorrow is what troubles us. The uncertainty of our people’s future, of the youth whose destiny is tarnished is frightening.
The night is hot and in a corner on Branch road, we talk about our anger, a kind of anger that has long been embedded in our veins. The anger over what we are unable to do, now that we sit here, miles away, freely sipping wine and wearing little on a summer night. The anger over what has been done to our people, what has been taken from them. It is our powerlessness that weighs heavy on our shoulders. It is an inexplicable kind of shame that entangles us, the shame that we are here, safe, though our souls are weary. We are safe and untied. They are beaten, pushed, shot, dying on the streets in pools of blood. We are sitting outside, wondering, praying, hoping, and still our hopes fade by the end of the night.
I look up at the black sky, and there is nothing but a curtain of hopelessness, a dark void that I am unable to fill. The night does not end for us and in the streets of Tehran, riots continue, shots are fired, and men and women scream on rooftops.
We hold our breaths, mutter goodbyes and…
We move on.