The sunsets of Mashhad always send a wave of longing into the hearts of its residents, but for Saeed the first sunset of the last month of autumn felt heavier than ever. He was a boy of medium height, slightly wheat-skinned, with black eyes and thick hair. He lived in a small basement apartment on Khajeh Rabi Street, near the newly built factory for producing heavy equipment and machinery. The factory’s noise along with the constant movement of newly-hired workers had stripped the area of its peace and quiet, and inside his apartment, his old electric heater grumbled more than it warmed, but he wouldn’t be fixing it anytime soon. For years, Saeed had worked as a street vendor near the entrance of Reza Bazaar selling socks, chargers, and batteries by the shrine. He sold anything that might pull a bit of money from a passerby’s pocket.
It was in those crowded alleys around the shrine that Sara entered his life. She was a girl with brown eyes, black hair, and a slim figure who passed by Saeed’s blanket once a week and always offered him a short smile. Little by little, that smile became his excuse for surviving the hard days. Saeed soon memorized the day and hour of her passing. On those days he tried to look his best so he wouldn’t miss that look and that smile. He had tried a few times to invite her to buy something, but his worn-out and scarce goods embarrassed him so much he preferred that Sara not approach his stall at all.
But one day, as she was passing through that street, Sara turned toward his blanket, glanced at the items, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and said, “I’ve known for a long time what’s going on in your heart. Want to have a tea together?”
That single sentence changed Saeed’s world. He happily accepted, packed up his stall, left it with a shopkeeper, and walked off with Sara. They chose a tea shop that faced the shrine, its golden dome shining like a great lantern over the city of Mashhad. They drank their tea from plastic cups. Something lit inside of them that had no precedent.
They continued to meet whenever they could. Sometimes Sara came to see Saeed, and they continued to drink tea by the shrine and then stroll in the park. Saeed occasionally accompanied Sara to her workplace, where her boss always rewarded her for completing her tasks quickly and well. Each time Sara’s boss greeted Saeed warmly with a smile. Once he told them, “God isn’t a carpenter, but it seems He has fitted the door and the panel together perfectly.” By “door and panel,” he meant Saeed and Sara, who appeared to be a well-matched couple.
Saeed saved money to rent a small shop. Sara did sewing work at night and lived a simple life with her elderly mother so that one day they could live together. They imagined a simple future: two people, a tiny shop, an unglamorous but shared life, and a future full of joy and laughter – children’s laughter.
But when summer came, their lives turned wintry. One day municipal officers seized Saeed’s stall and beat him badly. The officers accused him of obstructing the passage and said he had to set up his stall elsewhere. They took away all his goods and never returned them. His tiny savings were destroyed in minutes. No matter how much he begged to at least get his merchandise back and promised never to set up there again, it was useless.
When he returned to his basement, it felt eerily cold for summer. He sat for hours, staring at nothing. He texted Sara on Telegram, explained everything, and ended with: “It’ll be okay… just stay with me.”
Sara replied with a smiling emoji: “I’m with you till the end.”
Months passed. Saeed searched for work constantly but found nothing. Each day he returned to the basement more exhausted than before. Paying the rent became difficult. In the landlord’s final warning he said, “If you don’t settle the overdue rent by the end of the month, I’ll throw your stuff into the street.”
Saeed’s only comfort was the meeting with Sara. Over these months they had grown closer, yet the demands of their work did not allow their meetings to happen very often. But no matter how busy either of them was, every Wednesday evening at 7 o’clock, they met at the shrine’s crowded entrance, never a minute late. After visiting the shrine, they would go to their usual tea stall, drink tea, stroll together, and then Saeed would walk Sara to her home before returning to his own. They had reached such intimacy that they could read each other’s minds and with only a glance could perceive the depths of one another’s hearts.
But one Wednesday, Sara did not come. Saeed called and called, but her phone was switched off. After standing anxiously for an hour, he returned home. Late that night, still full of stress, he tried calling again, but her phone was still off. Saeed’s heart pounded. The next morning he went to Sara’s house, but there was no sign of her. For three consecutive days there was no news, and her phone remained off. Those three days felt like three years to Saeed. He checked every hospital and police station. At night he wandered the alleys around the shrine. He went to her house, but even her mother was gone, and no one knew where. He called her name. The only answer was the wind.
Months passed. Saeed found a job with minimum wage and managed to keep the basement, while searching every corner of the city for Sara. He had given her photo to all police stations, but still nothing. Saeed slowly began to doubt whether he had dreamt her up. Whether Sara had ever existed.
One night, while Saeed returned late from work through a narrow, dim alley with half-dead lamps, a woman in a black shawl passed by. Saeed froze when he saw her eyes. He swore they were Sara’s eyes. He hurried after her, calling out a few times, but the woman walked on indifferently and after a few turns entered an old house. Saeed stood by the window and examined the house. The girl came to open the window, and for an instant Saeed saw her face. He was stunned. He called out, “Sara… Sara…”
The woman gave him a cold glance and left. Saeed knocked on the door but no one answered. He pounded with fists and kicks, but still no sound. He waited until midnight, then entered through the back wall. The yard smelled sharply of medicine and alcohol. With a trembling heart he approached an upstairs window. The room inside was dark, and a woman lay on the bed motionless. It was Sara on the bed.
Saeed stepped in quietly and said, “Sara?”
The woman turned her head and gave him a cold stare. Saeed knelt beside the girl’s bed, took her hands in his own, lifted them to his lips, kissed them several times, rubbed them against his face, and then said, “I finally found you… You heartless girl, where did you go? Didn’t you think what would happen to this damned heart of mine?”
The woman pulled her hand away from Saeed’s and weakly said, “My name is Nazanin… Who’s Sara? Who are you?”
Saeed said in a shaky voice, “Don’t play games with me. This isn’t funny. How could you not be Sara?”
Nazanin closed her eyes and stopped moving. Saeed called her several times and shook her, but it was as if she were dead. Frightened, he glanced around the room and noticed a stack of files. He opened one and saw photos of several women who looked exactly like Sara.
On the folder it said: “Experimental Project No. 5 – Human Genetic Replication.”
As Saeed read the text, his hands began to tremble. His head spun, his legs weakened, and he nearly collapsed. He lifted his head just as the door swung open. A man with a salt-and-pepper beard entered. It was Sara’s employer, the man who had said God must have fit Saeed and Sara together like a craftsman. He held a gun.
Saeed shouted, “What is this nonsense? Where is Sara?”
The man gave a cold smile. “Which one?”
Saeed clenched his fists and charged toward him with speed, but a gunshot rang out and everything went black.
Saeed opened his eyes. He lay on a bed in a white room with blue lights. His hands were strapped down. The same man stood above him with two others, examining Saeed’s eyes with a flashlight. After checking him and slapping him a few times, he said to the others, “This version shows good stability. With this cloning process we can mass-produce free labor. By eliminating day workers, the companies’ profits multiply. You see how with a single gunshot and no trace we can dispose of them and quickly replace them with the next version with slight memory adjustments.”
The two other men took notes in a notebook.
Saeed tried to scream, but no sound came out. He looked around and saw several other beds with three identical women, one on each bed. They looked familiar to Saeed. One of them glanced at him, said nothing, and gave him a faint smile.
Something inside Saeed collapsed. His body grew hot. He looked to his right and saw a man with a gaping, bloody chest lying on the floor, his cold eyes fixed on the ceiling.
The first man said quietly to the others, “With the death of the previous version, the consciousness is still alive. As you can see, we successfully tested emotion and love on this new version. Now we have a super-worker completely under our control. We can use him however we want. If you’d like, we can move on to signing the purchase contract.”
The two men whispered to each other, and one said, “Excellent. Let’s go.”
All three left the room.
A tear fell from the corner of Saeed’s eye. He looked at the bed beside him. The girl was still smiling at him.
