I’ll write my life story
I wrote the last sentence of the story, closed the notebook and put my hand on its blue and white cover.
I was grumbling to myself: “Why do you write so many stories? You could never publish any of them anywhere?”
Suddenly I felt something moving under my hand!
I stared at the notebook in surprise, “It really has something in it. It must be a cockroach!” I kept one hand on the cover of the notebook and looked for slippers with the other hand. When my defensive position was complete, I slowly opened the notebook and… “What? What is this?”
There were no cockroaches. Instead, a little girl of a few centimetres was trying to pull herself out from between the lines of the notebook. I could not believe what I was seeing. I said to myself, “I must have been hallucinating because I was awake too much.”
The little girl pulled herself out of the notebook, shook her skirt and took a look at my surprised look and said: “What’s that look? Have you never seen a human before?”
+ Wwwhhhaaat aaarrreee yooouuuu?
She sat on the edge of the notebook and said: “You really don’t know me? Look at me carefully”
A girl with black curly hair and round glasses wearing a red dress. My eyes widened in surprise and I yelled: “Bahar?”
- What a surprise! You have been writing about me for a week, but now you don’t know me?
I moved my finger forward to touch her, as soon as I got close to her face, she bit me in such a way that I screamed.
- Now are you sure I’m real?
+ Ye e es! But how is it possible?
- You writers sometimes do so much sabotage that we have to come and fix our story ourselves!
+ Sabotage? What did I do wrong?
She straightened her glasses on her face and said: “Well! We’ll start from the beginning; why am I so jealous?”
+ uuum, because you are a girl!
While she was red with anger and foisted her hands, she stood up and shouted: “I’m going to punch you now! What do you mean because you’re a girl? I was hoping you had at least a reason for it.”
I looked at her with shame and said nothing.
She shook her head as a sign of regret and said: “Why am I in the story?”
+ You are the main character of the story!
- Seriously? So why am I waiting for someone to make a decision for my life and I will implement it? Why don’t I do anything for my life? First of all, I am going to ask my dad to come and fight the guy who bullied me in school, then I am sitting and praying that the handsome boy from the university will fall in love with me, and then we will get married, and that’s it? Was your whole story was about my marriage? Do you want to stop writing please?
She was really angry, anger was pouring out of her eyes. To the extent that I felt afraid of this little girl that I wrote myself!
I said with an embarrassed voice: You are right. It is very ridiculous that you are the main character of the story and have no role in your own story.
I continued: “You are me! I am the main character in my own life, but I have no role in my life. From the day I was born, religion, law, and family decided for me and until now I I only lived the story they wrote for me. Marriage was the happy ending for this story, because I think that if I get married, all these problems will end.
Bahar, whose face was surprised instead of angry, said: “No seriously, something is wrong with you! I mean, do you want to escape from the people who are controlling your life and seek refuge in someone else who is going to control your life? Are you stupid?”
I folded my legs in my arms and tears flowed.
+ What do you want me to do? I am tired of this situation, but I can’t think of any way!
Bahar looked at me sympathetically and said: “Do you have a cigarette?”
+ No, I don’t smoke
- So give me one!
+ I don’t have at all
- No my dear! I mean, draw a cigarette for me!
Surprised, I took the pencil and drew a cigarette and a small lighter in the corner of the notebook. Bahar removed the cigarette from the paper and started smoking. She took a deep puff on her cigarette and said, “Do you really want to change this situation?”
+ Of course yes! Who likes to be someone else puppet?
Bahar shook the dust of her cigarette and said: “Great! You said that I am yours. So let’s start with my story. Why didn’t I fight with the boy who threw my food on purpose?”
+ Because you didn’t want others to dislike you for fighting.
- This is your first mistake. Get your right, even if others don’t like it.
Bahar left the notebook and I corrected the story with a red pen. This time, instead of asking her father for help, she got her right and I could feel the excitement in my veins as I wrote every word. An excitement that I had never experienced!
I wrote the last word and said what’s next?
Bahar extinguished her cigarette on the word “good girl” and asked: “What kind of girl is a good girl?”
+ A girl who listens to everything her family says, wears modest clothes, doesn’t drink alcohol, doesn’t smoke, doesn’t go to parties, doesn’t have a boyfriend, and so on.
- If you said that a girl who never lives the way she likes, wouldn’t it be easier?
Her words hit me like a wet slipper. She was right, I had always tried to be a good girl in the family and because of that I sacrificed many things that I loved to be a “good girl”. I never went to a party with my friends, I never bought that beautiful, short dress that I saw in the store and fell in love with. I never went to a trip with my friends and never got drunk and laughed! I liked these things, but I didn’t do it to be a good girl!
Without any prepositions, I changed this word in the whole story with “successful girl”, “happy girl”, “free girl” and… and the result was much better from my opinion.
I looked at Bahar who was sitting on a pencil case, I could tell from the smile on her face that she was also satisfied with the result. I said “It’s over, what’s next?”
- Why did I choose only universities in my city?
+ Because it is not good for a girl to go to a distant city to study.
Bahar picked up the broken tip of the pencil and threw it at me and said: “So when am I going to learn to be independent? When am I going to understand the power of problem solving and crisis management? When am I going to learn financial management? When am I going to know the real world?” Be quick, take my university to a far city!
Her words were logical. I started writing quickly.
+ It’s over, what else?
- Why did I reject that job offer?
+ Because it was a long way and you couldn’t get home before darkness.
She raised an eyebrow and said, “What a ridiculous excuse! The pay was good and I could have progressed there. I accept it. Fix it.
+ OK. You got the job. What else do you want to do?
Bahar wrapped the curls of her hair around her finger and said: I don’t want that handsome boy either. I like smart people more than handsome people and this guy is not smart at all. In addition, I do not intend to get married, it is not my goal at all.
She got up from pencil case and while walking excitedly and waving her hands, she continued: “Write me a trip around the world, write that I will visit all the countries of the world and try all the delicious foods. I will take souvenir photos in all the cities. I will dance in beautiful bars and clubs, then I will meet a kind and intelligent girl and enter into a relationship and we will continue our tour together.
“Girl?” I screamed.
- Yeah! You didn’t know or you didn’t dare to admit it to yourself yet?
She was right again. I felt it for a long time, but I didn’t even dare to admit it to myself. Bahar staring at my sad face, laughed and said: “Facing yourself is more exciting than you thought, isn’t it?” It’s a very strange feeling when you come out like a phoenix from the ashes of other people’s expectations and desires and find yourself. Scary, beautiful and sad.
I hugged my legs again and said: “It’s the most upsetting for me. You know, many Iranian girls are killed if they are not good girls. The men in their families kill them and say they committed suicide. Sometimes no one even understands that the poor woman or girl is dead. Maybe if I decide to be myself, I will have this fate. No one knows. So I can’t blame myself for not being myself in front of others, but I am sad that I censored myself in front of me. I wasn’t even honest with me.
Bahar stood on the edge of the table and looked at me with her round and marble eyes, which were already kind, and said: “Don’t worry, every person chooses a method to protect herself and her mental health. You chose to deny reality. Now that you have seen and discovered yourself without censorship, everything is going to change.” She laughed and continued: “But first of all, finish my story because I hate it so much.”
I took the pen from the table and said seriously: “Don’t worry, I’ll fix everything.”
I started writing and writing. My mental barrier was broken and my true self was holding the pen and writing. She wrote about my dreams, about who I am, who I want to be.
Behar fell asleep on the corner of the table, on the foot of a teddy bear, I gently threw a paper napkin on her and continued writing. It was eight in the morning when I wrote the last sentence.
Bahar woke up from the sound of a pen being placed on the table and yawned: “Is it over?”
I said with a smile: “Yes, I wrote everything, even the cat you always wanted to have and because of your parents you thought you could never have it! Its name is Pashmeke!”
She jumped up and gave me a few kisses and said: “You are the best writer in the world.”
She looked at her watch and continued: “I’m late, I have to go back. Now I’m very happy that I’m the main character of your story.”
I hugged her sadly and cautiously and said goodbye to her. She went to the notebook with her small feet and disappeared between the notebook lines while waving at me.
I chased her away with wet eyes and when the notebook lines returned to normal, I picked up my phone and dialed the number.
- … Beep…. Hello, good morning. You contacted the human resources office of the newspaper. How can I help you?
+ Hello! You offered me a job as a writer; I wanted to ask when can I start working?
5 November, 2022
