Maybe it’s already too late, but I’m writing so you understand that a preposition is more than what they taught you in school—more than: on, to, from, with, in… (in Persian, the same word also means “extra words”)
I’m writing so you remember how a preposition (i.e., “extra words”) can become a problem for an ordinary person. I’m writing this on a few sheets of paper that cost me the price of two packs of red Winston cigarettes, and I have to write without crossing anything out, because there’s no time left, and no cigarettes either.
Here, whenever someone asks about my crime, I say I’m innocent. Truth is, all prisoners are innocent. For everyone, a small mistake happened and brought them here. Prison is the only place where criminals feel peace and security. I have no room left for “extra words”; in these twenty-something years I’ve said enough for a lifetime.
Now all of Ahmad’s words keep replaying in my mind, flashing back one after another. My brain is full of these flashbacks—if you could see them, you’d think of 21 Grams. I don’t know if you’ve seen it.
When Ahmad played the recording of my voice talking to Niloufar from his phone, my mind kept flashing back—to the nights I spent with her, to all the pleasures, the intimacy, the breathlessness, waking up together. To the times I’d go to her house and, as soon as she went into her room, I’d call her phone. It was always my habit. Completely normal, without realizing I was adding “extra words.” I’d call, and we’d make love over the phone until our batteries died… and then I’d go into her room, onto her bed, and…
Or my mind would go to the times my mother kept asking about my prayers and fasting, and I didn’t know that she, Ahmad, and several others had heard my conversations with Niloufar. Only she didn’t believe it. Only she had made vows at the shrine, hoping it was all lies and tricks, not real. She heard me insulting her leader over the phone, and still didn’t believe it. She told Ahmad: that’s not my son’s voice.
Ahmad had many videos of me, from the election days, when I had become a kind of activist, like many young people, speaking at open forums. We saw his friends filming and never imagined those bastards were doing this for real. Ahmad would show me the videos, and again I’d remember all those “extra words” I had spoken, how I had stirred things up, how after the election I had caused unrest. My mother couldn’t believe it. Maybe when she saw the videos, she remembered my childhood, told Ahmad I used to attend religious gatherings, memorize the Qur’an, showed him the certificates on my wall. She knew his job had no mercy, no family, and told him: I am the son of a martyr—this cannot be my son.
Or maybe she believed it and complained to the shrine that her vow (a promise to give something—often money or food—in return for divine help) hadn’t worked. She had a habit of making the vow first, then waiting for the answer, as if trying to shame the saint into responding.
I lived like any ordinary person. I had my youth like anyone else. The only difference was that Ahmad was my stepfather, and since childhood, my words had driven him mad.
He had gathered so much evidence that now I was both a political criminal and a moral offender, a rapist.
In court, Ahmad read the indictment. My mother was sitting there. She was no longer crying, no longer worried. With all the recordings she had heard, all the photos and videos she had seen, she realized I didn’t match her beliefs, her religious teachings, the sermons on religious radio. She accepted that her husband was a “hidden soldier of the Imam of Time” (a term used for intelligence agents in Iran) and had to fulfill his duty. She accepted that her son was “corrupt on earth” (a legal-religious charge in Iran: “mofsed fel-arz”), a traitor. I had to pay for my “extra words”—the words I had spoken at open forums, to her husband, on the phone, with Niloufar…
Ahmad read from the indictment: that I had raped, caused unrest, and betrayed the country, and he asked the court to treat me according to the Qur’an.
I wanted to say: the Qur’an itself says—an eye for an eye, an ear for an ear.
So if the verdict is truly Qur’anic, then shouldn’t it be: rape for rape, unrest for unrest, betrayal for betrayal?
For example, sentence me to ten years of experiencing betrayal, unrest, rape…
The judge’s gavel snapped me out of my thoughts. The verdict was postponed to the following week.
The next week they came to the ward and said: the court had first sentenced me to stoning, but then it was reduced to execution. They said it was because of Ahmad’s efforts that the sentence was reduced. They said it would be carried out next week.
They said: don’t commit suicide. They said: always have hope—hope is a door that must be kept open—maybe something will enter and you won’t even notice. They said: stay hopeful until the day of execution.
Until the day I am executed for speaking “extra words.”
So you understand that a preposition is more than what they taught you in school, more than: on, to, from, with, in…