Death: A Stranger Whose Being I Dread

In the memory of Nader Ebrahimi and his stories



I hate death. I know death is a part of life and that without it we would probably suffer from immortality. But, I still hate death. I don't even know if it looks like a scary beast or a beautiful figure who, one day, puts you on her soft wings and takes you above this world and shows you the real deal!

Who knows?

A great Iranian author passed away yesterday. He was very sick for the past few years. I am certain that he had mastered thinking about death during all these years of illness and silent flow of thoughts and memories. A writer who could not even write by the end of his life...How scary that is? A writer who could not write.

It agitates me when I think about all these amazing older authors, artists and thinkers of Iran. They are all from a generation that got trapped between the two eras of the pre- and post Islamic Revolution; a revolution that is the creation of their own minds and fists . They are the generation of terror. They are a generation of much unspoken and unwritten stories. They are a generation whose real stories we still do not really know. Many of them are taught to hide their illicit adventures and their mistakes in the closet. They are the generation whose stories and experiences we need in order to go forward. And yet they are getting older and uniting with death without having left us their real legacy: their stories. And a few of them who have given us the gift of words and stories, are leaving us to sleep a deep sleep in their state non-existence.

Nader Ebrahimi, too, flew away....May his memories and his stories remain with us and with those who come to this world after we depart...