Day 1
Airplane. The Voice of the Flight attendant is heard.
We will shortly be landing in Edinburgh. Please keep your seat belts on during the landing until the seat belt light is off.
A 35 years old Iranian woman is sitting next to the window. She turns on her mobile phone and checks her messages. She records her voice. She speaks English well with occasional mistakes that become more frequent when she gets emotional.
The Woman: 35 Messages! Are you crazy?! I have not read them yet, and I won’t! I can imagine you, sitting in the classroom, writing messages for me while your students are trying to read A Thousand and One Nights in Arabic. Yes, I can see you pretending to listen to them carefully while doing something else. You are the master of pretending any way!
OK! Let’s speak about the main thing. I left you a few hours ago. And now I am somewhere in the world that you never know. In a couple of hours, I even won’t be here. I am going to be nowhere, so don’t even try to find me. Don’t …Oh what was the word?… Don’t try to follow me…is that the right word? Or don’t chase me? … whatever it is…please , please, don’t try to find me. I have no plan for the future. So please, even don’t try to predict me. You used to call me your predictable beloved! Was that admiration or humiliation , or both? Humiliation because you knew how I hated to be called predictable, and admiration because, because… you know this better than I do, so no need to repeat it. Actually, I was predictable because of English. With you I felt always like a child in front of her father who knows all the words. I was stuck in words … or … what is the better word?… I was imprisoned by words!
But now you know by practice that I am not predictable. Iranians are not predictable at all because they, I mean, we haven’t grown up in predictable conditions. The last unpredictable condition was what I heard yesterday morning. I wanted to tell you, but, how could I? I cried all the morning, and when you came back home everything was as usual: dinner was ready, TV was on, and I was sitting in front of the TV with an IELTS textbook in my hands…I even dropped some Arabic words to make you happy… Why did I do that in the worst day of my life? I don’t know…Maybe because I wanted to avoid the fact that I had to leave you…
Oh! Now I have to go. People are leaving the airplane, and I have to go…I took your violet wool scarf. Don’t look for it. I also took the hairdryer. You don’t need it. You look better with curly hair. I will send them all back once I afford to buy new ones for myself. Don’t laugh to my…, at my English…
How can I live without you?
I Must live without you.
Bye!