The city lay in absolute silence. It was around three-thirty in the morning, and the taxi driver rested his head on the steering wheel, trying to catch a bit of sleep. He wore a white shirt and worn-out blue jeans, his hair streaked with gray. He had just begun to drift off when he heard the rear door open. An old man, about seventy-five years old, dressed in a suit, got in and sat down.
The driver lifted his head, looked at the old man, and said, “Where to, sir?”
The old man glanced at him and replied, “Take me to the city overlook. I want to see the sunrise.”
The driver smiled and said, “It’s still a long time until sunrise, but sure. I kind of feel like watching it myself, too.”
He started the car and drove off. The journey passed in silence. The driver glanced at the old man in the rearview mirror. He seemed like a strange figure to be out at this hour of the night. The driver’s own father had usually gone to bed early.
They reached the city overlook up high on a mountain. From there, the entire city of Mashhad lay beneath their feet. The old man got out of the car and sat on a bench, staring at the city sunk in darkness and quiet. The driver came closer and stood beside him, also gazing at the city.
They remained silent. The silence was filled with the scent of an old perfume known as Mashhadi, a fragrance with a strangely lasting presence. People sometimes joked that the only way to get rid of it is to burn the clothes or cut off the body part it has touched. The Mashhadi perfume brought back memories of childhood for the driver, unconsciously placing a faint smile on his lips. After a long workday filled with smoke, fumes, and crowds of passengers, some carrying the unpleasant smell of sweat and bad breath, this classic old man and his fragrance seemed to breathe new life into the driver’s exhausted body.
The old man said, “I won’t trouble you. You can go back and get on with your work.”
The taxi driver replied, “I’ve got nothing to do. At this hour there aren’t many passengers anyway. I’ll stay here until sunrise, then go get some breakfast and head home to sleep.”
The old man asked, “So your wife and kids are home alone right now?”
Still staring at the horizon, the driver said, “I don’t have a wife or kids. Years ago I wanted to marry a girl, but they didn’t give her to me. After that, I gave up on marriage altogether. Why are you here? Aren’t your children worried about you?”
The old man looked at him and said, “What a familiar story. But mine is more bitter. Today is the anniversary of my death.”
The driver’s eyes widened slightly. “I don’t understand… the anniversary of your death? But you’re alive.” He looked at the old man from head to toe again, took a deep breath, and murmured a couple of prayers he had learned from his father as a child to ward off spirits and demons. He discreetly blew toward the old man, hoping that if he was talking to a spirit, it would stay away.
The old man smiled. “Many people live, but they aren’t alive. Come, sit down, and I’ll tell you how I died.”
A few nights ago, one of the other drivers had run into a man who had robbed him of everything he had through intimidation. But this old man didn’t seem to need anything that could be stolen.
He glanced behind him and around the area, and when he was sure no one was nearby, he loosened his muscles, took a deep breath, and sat on the other side of the bench from the old man. “Continue.”
The old man looked toward the horizon and said, “It’s a long story, so listen.
“For me, Mashhad was not just a city of domes and pilgrims; it was a city of queues, of waiting, of hands that were always a little emptier than the day before. I had come here from a smaller town to work, hoping to make something of myself. But the poor economy made it impossible to properly chase decent work and earn real money.
“I lived in a rented room near Tabarsi Square, a room with a small window facing the neighbor’s brick wall. Its only light came at noon, and even that disappeared quickly. After a long search for work, I finally became a laborer in a printing house. In the mornings, the smell of printing ink clung to my clothes; at night, I fell asleep with that same smell. My life was so simple that if the price of sangak bread went up one day, my whole week’s plan fell apart.
“This wasn’t the life I wanted. Speaking of sangak, every morning I went to the bakery, bought a piece of sangak, ate it with fried eggs, and went to work. Until one day, I saw Leila for the first time, in the bread line.
“It was six in the morning. Cold weather. A long queue. Leila was standing behind me, quietly grumbling. I turned and looked at her… I had never seen a girl that beautiful in my life. I smiled and said, ‘If you’d come earlier, you’d have your bread by now and be gone.’
“Leila laughed and said, ‘If I could wake up early, they’d call me a rooster, not a human.’
“That short sentence and her silly joke hit my heart hard.
“From that day on, the bakery line became our shared point. At night, I went to sleep just for the love of waking up and going to the bakery in the morning. She came every day too. Sometimes we talked, sometimes we just said hello. Little by little, I learned that Leila worked in a small notions shop. Her salary was low, but her eyes were full of things money couldn’t buy.”
The driver listened carefully. The city had begun to emerge from the darkness, growing a little brighter. Gradually, he felt as if his father from the past was sitting beside him, speaking to him. The father who had never had the chance to sit down and talk with him, to ask how he had managed to build his life or guide him toward a better future. He hadn’t had the opportunity to hear his father’s last words. It was a day like any other when he was driving, and got the call from the hospital. His father had suffered a stroke and passed away before reaching the hospital. Perhaps today, his father would have come to visit him to say that it doesn’t matter how you’ve lived, but now, build the rest of your life. He let out a deep sigh and waited for the rest of the story.
The crow of a rooster sounded from a few meters away. The old man’s body trembled, and he cast a sad look around. He sighed and continued.
“I don’t want to bore you. Our love formed slowly, quietly. No cafés, no cinemas. Sometimes we sat on a bench in the park near the shrine, watching people pass by. Sometimes we walked in Mellat Park. Sometimes we bought a falafel sandwich and ate it by the roadside. Sometimes we bought bread and had breakfast together a few meters away from the bakery before heading to work.
“I loved it when Leila talked. She talked a lot about the past, the future, the present. Leila was an orphan. She didn’t know where her parents lived. She had stayed in an orphanage until eighteen, and after leaving, she managed to rent a room and survive by working at the shop. She talked, and she liked that I listened.
“One night, as we were eating sandwiches by the street, she turned to me and said,
‘Do you know what the worst part of being poor is?’
“I said, ‘What?’
“She said, ‘That even when you’re in love, you don’t dare to dream.’
“I said nothing. I just looked at my shoes, worn down at the heels. Leila knew that with my salary and this economy, I couldn’t give her a good life.
“I thought a lot. I thought maybe it would be better to let her go, maybe someone else could make her happy. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t. I couldn’t live even one day without Leila.
“So one rainy evening, with a hesitant voice, I said, ‘Leila… I have nothing. No house, no savings. But I love you. I want to marry you, but I’m afraid of the future. I’m afraid I won’t be able to make you happy.’
“Leila paused. She smiled, then softly said, ‘I have nothing either. But if we’re going to have nothing… I’d rather have nothing with you. I prefer being poor with you to being wealthy with someone else.’
“We made a simple pact. No official engagement. Just saving money. Maybe a better room. Maybe a life with a little less pain.
“But life doesn’t listen to these ‘maybes.’”
The old man stood up, walked a few steps toward the edge of the mountain.
Now the city had grown brighter, and a battle between darkness and light had begun, with the light slowly gaining the upper hand. The driver thought to himself how many hundreds of times the old man must have revisited these memories to remember them so vividly.
The old man turned back and looked at the driver. “Did I talk too much?
Gently tapping one of his feet, he said, “No, sir. I really want to know. What is Leila doing now?”
The old man turned his face toward the city and remained silent. After two minutes, he came back, sat beside the driver, and said:
“Life has many games. The printing house went bankrupt. One day they came and said, ‘We’re shutting down.’ No insurance. No compensation. I became one of the thousands of unemployed men in this sprawling city.
“When I told Leila, she smiled and said, ‘It’ll work out.’ But she herself didn’t know when it ever would.
“I looked for work everywhere: labor, guarding, anything. Most of the time, the answer was no. I was ashamed in front of Leila. My pockets were completely empty. I was carrying so much sorrow that I couldn’t even take her out anymore. I was ashamed. I couldn’t borrow money from my family either. I’d only hear reproaches about how I was supposed to become rich.
“One day Leila said, ‘I know someone… he works at a distribution company. Maybe he can help you.’
“We were both so happy. It felt like a good job was on the way. But her acquaintance only made promises. Nothing ever happened. I still don’t know why he didn’t just say from the start that there was nothing.
“I became more desperate by the day. Sometimes I did manual labor just to earn enough to survive, but it wasn’t a life.
“Leila started working overtime. She grew more tired. She laughed less. Some nights I called her, but she didn’t answer. In the morning she’d text, ‘I fell asleep.’
“One of the few times I saw her—by then very rare—I asked, ‘Leila… is something wrong?’
“Impatiently, she said, ‘No. I’m just tired.’
“But I couldn’t understand how tiredness turned into coldness.
“After a few minutes of silence, she suddenly said, ‘Hamid… I’m… getting married.’
“It felt like someone smashed my back with an electric cable. For a moment, the smell of blood hit my nose, as if I had a concussion… my body went numb, and I felt a jolt. I couldn’t say anything. Stuttering, I asked, ‘When did you meet him?’
“She stood up, turned her back to me, and said, ‘That doesn’t matter… what matters is that we can’t see each other anymore.’
“That’s when my tears finally fell. I asked, ‘Do you love him?’
“She picked up her bag, didn’t look at me, and said, ‘It doesn’t matter… I have financial security with him.’
“Financial security… I didn’t chase after her. She was right.
“That night, I called her again and again. She didn’t answer. I wanted to see her one last time, but it didn’t happen. The world felt too small. I had no motivation for anything. At home, I smoked cigarette after cigarette.
“Weeks passed, and I finally pulled myself together. For several days, I went to a different bakery to buy bread. Then one morning, when I woke up, I unconsciously walked toward our old bakery. I didn’t plan to, it was like something pulled me there. I wanted to turn back, but it was quiet, so I went in and bought bread.
“I noticed people whispering in the line. Curious, I asked the baker, ‘People seem more talkative today… did something happen?’
“The baker said, ‘Haven’t you heard? Leila, the girl who lived alone in the neighborhood? She threw herself off the bridge last night and died.’
“It felt as though for a moment the world had stopped, and the blood in my veins ceased to flow. The baker continued with his work, as if nothing had happened, as though a life had not been completely destroyed and another lost. For him, dough and bread were all that mattered, and for everyone else, it was merely a matter of nodding at the tragedy they heard, pondering whether to eat it with cream or cheese, exactly at the time when my life had been shattered forever.
“That day, I died too. For forty-five years now, on a day like today, the anniversary of the day Leila died, I come here to watch the sunrise.”
The old man fell silent. The driver stared at him, stunned. After a couple of minutes, he asked, “What did you do after that?”
The sun had risen. The red disk of the sun was climbing above the city. The old man stood up, gazed at it, and said, “It doesn’t matter… what matters is that I never lived again.”
The driver stood up beside him, placed a hand on the old man’s shoulders, and together they looked at the sun.
Another day had begun.
