Sharp things.

Bare feet on the cold white marble floor, I open the front door of the house. I see a man in the hallway, only a few meters away from me. Surprised, he turns around, and now, with an intent look on his face, he is coming for me. I should close the door, but my body can’t seem to move -I wish I hadn’t opened the door… Then suddenly, just before he reaches me, he turns around and runs in the opposite direction. I don’t understand what came over him, but I’m sure this is my cue to slam the door shut. No one’s getting in through here! The heavy metal front door of the house closes with a loud bang that ricochets throughout the entire stairwell outside.

With my face still inches away from the now closed door, I take a breath in and breath out. It’s like I’m just coming back to my body. And when I do, I start to feel the wooden handle of the rather large sickle I’ve been holding in my left hand -a souvenir left behind by my then friend Essi, who had a thing for such sharp things, like axes and machetes and sickles. He was my partner in crime, up until I kicked him out of the house. Mostly of course, he was my partner in getting high. And together, we smoked glass in this house.

Now people are trying to get in. They are here for me. And, we’re talking a large ground-floor family apartment with more means of entry: there are windows on the street side, and there’s a balcony and more windows at the back, towards the garden. These people… I don’t know who they are, but somehow I knew they were coming. And so I had “prepared”: I had changed all the locks, I had bolted certain window panels, and I had put metal bars behind some windows -specifically, behind ones through which a grown man would fit. And despite all my preparations, and despite having felt “smarter than all of them” at the time, I am not feeling particularly safe right now… In fact, I’m scared -really scared! And I’m alone -so utterly and hopelessly alone.

This house has been my island. On it, in my sister’s old childhood bedroom is where I’ve been keeping my invaluable finds of Tehran. I’ve got them in a small wooden drawer: the green stuff, the brown stuff, the glassy crystal things and the black gooey stuff… All tested to be of highest quality. The instruments of my peace-of-mind. The embodiment of my every-need-met. I was to take my stand here. Thus medicated, I had broken all barriers of self-doubt. I had managed to kick this chronically unfaithful woman out of the house. I had managed to expel this ungrateful bastard of a friend, and I had instituted boundaries. Boundaries reinforced with steel -literally! But, ironically, these boundaries are now to be violated all the same.

So the phone keeps ringing, and different characters come to the door. One minute it’s the next-door neighbor, another it’s my aunt, crying, pleading for me to open the door. And yet another, it is the police constable, whom I called to protect me from the strange man at the front door. Now, I can’t let the police in either! And that’s on the count of my wooden drawer -the one chock-full of illicit drugs!

Of the sheer amount of substances I have in the house, suffice to say that, with some unbelievably shaky hands, it takes me a very long time to flush everything down the toilet (and still, apparently, I leave behind various bottles of liquor, which, in Iran, are banned just the same. Later on, my uncle, who had kindly orchestrated this violent abduction of the delusional junky, makes me sign a commitment letter promising not to ever have drugs in the house again. “The cops require it.” he says. I can tell he’s only trying to scare me, but mostly, this serves to humiliate me.)

So at some point, I decide that it’s time to get out of the house and face the music (obviously, after flushing all my stuff, there is no point in staying anyway!) So when I do, I think it best to go straight out, through one of the windows that open to the street; the thought of being alone with the strange man outside the door scares me to my core -a man who is not a cop, is not in uniform, has gotten into the building secretly, not introducing himself, not announcing his arrival… I want to get out into the daylight were there’s people. And, by God, there is a crowd of people waiting for me out there! My exit must be quite the spectacle. In fact, I feel like tickets must’ve been sold for this, or that there might be a concession stand somewhere!

As soon as my feet touch the ground, someone twists my arm. He’s got technique. I cannot move. I’ve definitely given up, but for them, it doesn’t hurt to be sure. Then a car comes to pick me up, and to my amazement, it is an ambulance! Am I sick or something? Then, as I’m being not-so-cordially invited into the dark and claustrophobic window-less back of the ambulance, I catch a glimpse from the corner of my right eye, of my uncle. A little ways down down the road, he is disembarking his crappy old Pride Hatchback, victoriously, seemingly, to join the post-hunt celebrations. Obviously, being the hunted animal that I am, I have no dialogue with him. But he looks sharp, with nice pants, shoes and jacket. And he is so clean-shaven, that it feels like I can smell his cologne from distance -even though I most definitely cannot.

When I get in, I realize that I need to be on friendlier terms with the giant who is getting in the back of the ambulance with me. So I commend the big man on his grip whilst twisting my arm, and ask if this was “jiu-jitsu or something.” He’s puzzled by my remark and does not respond. Later, I find out that this was in fact some kind of a Kimura grip. This I will find out, because by that point, I will know jiu-jitsu.