I open my eyes.
And I find myself in a small, windowless room,
tied to a chair.
There is nothing else,
except me and the chair.
And a crack of light at the threshold;
the only light brave enough to trespass.
This stench of damp and ordure…
How many days have I been here?
The last thing I remember…
feeding the stray cats in the park.
That day,
everything was serene.
Ordinary.
The tranquility of sparrows’ song…
But now…
What has happened to me?
I can’t remember.
No more images come to my mind.
My throat burns.
“Can anyone hear me?”
I try to call out.
But I can’t.
My throat burns too much.
My wrists ache.
I struggle,
yet a violent pain breaks my back
as if I’m a fallen tree, split in half.
I’m terrified,
but I must go on.
“Take a deep breath, stay calm!”
repeats in my mind.
The door opens,
a blinding light hits my eyes.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I blink and blink
until I see…
Standing before me is a gigantic rooster,
dressed in a guard’s uniform.
A crimson comb on its head.
Confused. Terrified. I only stare.
It steps closer.
Its eyes lock onto mine.
In a deafening voice, it crows:
“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
Its piercing cry cuts through,
snapping the rope around my wrists.
And a warm drop trickles from my left ear—
Blood.
Have I just gone half deaf?
Before I can utter a single word,
it grabs me,
hurls me into its feathers,
and dashes out.
Toward an unknown destination, it sprints.
What if I fall off?
Through the gaps in its feathers,
I see a mansion with countless rooms.
From some come desperate cries for help…
Human voices, they are!
The rooster slows down,
and that scares me more.
It halts.
Its golden beak finds me
hiding among its feathers
and throws me into a cage.
There is no escape.
I blink and blink,
yet the scene before me still makes no sense.
More than fifteen gigantic roosters stand outside,
staring down at me.
There is no escape.
I don’t understand what’s going on.
I’m dazed, confused…
in pain.
Suddenly, I hear
a faint groan,
a human’s…
I turn around.
A young man lies on the ground,
his head, blood-covered.
I go to him.
With each step,
pain pierces deeper into my back.
I kneel beside him and ask,
in a voice barely audible:
“For what crime?”
He lifts his head,
looks at me,
yet no words.
I ask again,
“Why are you here?
What is this place?”
He opens his mouth.
His tongue—cut out.
Terror.
Pain.
Speechless, I cry.
His eyes, desperate, pleading.
I try to lift him up,
but to no avail.
All of a sudden, more roosters appear,
throwing more people into the cage.
One has no hands.
One has no legs.
One has no eyes.
One has no ears.
All terrified.
None know where we are.
None know why.
None know what awaits us.
There is no escape.
I’m suffocating.
The stench of ordure churns my stomach.
The roosters keep staring.
More prisoners keep arriving.
In a corner, I wait.
More people keep falling in,
there is no air to breathe.
The cage grows tighter
and tighter…
Then,
out of nowhere,
one opens its beak and lets out a deafening, drawn-out crow:
“Cock-a-doodle-doooooooo.”
Earsplitting.
Incessant.
Our hands over our ears,
praying for it to end.
When its speech finally ends,
I lower my hands,
and open my eyes.
Bodies everywhere—
torn apart
by the sheer force of its crow.
The warm smell of blood, everywhere.
A black rooster comes,
collects the corpses,
and walks away.
And I watch as those once alive
are casually carried away.
Only a few of us remain.
I hold on to the bars,
barely keeping myself up,
when a sharp pain in my arm
jolts me up.
It’s the roosters again,
attacking, pecking at the flesh of those
pressed against the bars.
As if they’re herding us toward the center.
They keep pecking and pecking…
Until, in the end,
an invisible line divides the twelve of us
into two groups of six.
We stand facing one another.
Our stances resemble those of fighters.
We stare at one another,
each more terrified than the other.
The one standing opposite me
steps forward,
and in a quiet voice, he says,
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry.
It’s either you or me.”
He chokes me…
chokes me.
I’m choking…
choking.
There is no escape.
There is no one to help.
All are fighting.
Helpless.
Hopeless.
I struggle to survive.
Yet no matter how hard I fight,
it’s useless…
pointless.
I’m on the verge of collapse
when, suddenly, blood splatters across my face.
He is dead…
by the hand of another.
His killer steps closer.
“Give me your hand!
We have to run,”
he says.
He pulls me toward a corner,
where the bars are bent apart.
Coughing, I do nothing but run.
Pain shoots through my back.
My arm, my ears… I’m bleeding.
Behind us,
the frantic clatter of clawed feet,
they’re closing in.
Panicked,
we just run.
To where?
Ahead.
At last,
a door appears in front of us,
and we rush inside the unknown.
The door is too small
for the gigantic roosters to pass through.
Once inside,
we take a moment to breathe,
and I finally see the one before me.
He is a man.
Dark skin.
Brown eyes.
Covered in blood.
No scratches in sight.
Suddenly, our eyes lock.
“I’m talking to you.
What are you staring at?
Come on, let’s go!”
he says.
Slowly,
we find our way forward.
A long, long corridor.
The farther we walk,
the brighter it becomes.
We walk, and walk.
It stretches, and stretches.
Keep going, and going.
Finally,
a blue door appears.
Behind it,
we stand.
Terrified.
“Ladies first,” he says.
Petrified,
I say nothing.
I open the door,
and step inside.
I wait for him to follow;
he doesn’t.
I turn around…
I see him now,
he is no human.
A rhinoceros… a rhinoceros!
He slams the door shut.
Click.
The light is gone.
I’m locked inside.
My heart is about to stop—
this is the same room as before.
The stench of ordure lingers.
What is this place?
Where am I?
I scream, and scream.
No sound comes out of my burning throat.
Pain shoots through my back,
and spreads through my whole being.
I collapse on the ground.
And I fall asleep.
Wails.
The smell of blood.
The smell of dust.
The smell of ordure.
I fall asleep,
hoping to wake up from this foolish nightmare.
I fall asleep…
I open my eyes.
And I find myself in a small, windowless room,
tied to a chair.
There is nothing else,
except me and the chair.
And a crack of light at the threshold;
the only light brave enough to trespass.
This stench of damp and ordure…
How many days have I been here?
The last thing I remember…
feeding the stray cats in the park.
That day,
everything was serene.
Ordinary.
The tranquility of sparrows’ song…
But now…
What has happened to me?
I can’t remember.
No more images come to my mind.
My throat burns.
Translated by Negar Masroori
