Exhausted Engines

Translated from the Persian original.

Ever since the first time my balloon burst when I was a child, I've never felt good again. Many times I felt better, but good, no. I mean, everyone loves their balloon, but well, they buy another one. What made me feel bad was that a big balloon that had been bouncing here and there so light-winged suddenly, after bursting, became so small and ugly and useless. Right there I realized that something in this world isn't right. From then on I wrecked all my toys and smashed them against the doors and walls; with whatever tool I could find, I wanted to break them and split them open to see what was in the middle, to see where the flaw was that made them so mortal. Once I took the little electric motor out of a remote-control car and connected it to a battery with a wire and saw that it spun and made noise. I took it into the storeroom, shut the door and said, were you the one running this whole car? It said yes. I said, why do you just spin around yourself like that? Do something, all those plastic gears are looking to you and all you do is whine nonstop. It said, but my job is to run in place and give my power to the rest. I said, do you have any idea how many times I smashed this car you were the motor of against the wall, and nobody made a sound? It said everyone says we motors are very important, but nobody cares even about how we look; they always fit us in somewhere down underneath and make the other things pretty, and down there, in our place, we do the more important work. It said that ever since it realized it has to spin around itself in one place, it has never felt good again. My dear, right there I realized the flaw isn't in the toys; the sturdier things in the world get buried down underneath, like the concrete of buildings, which, ever since they realized they always have to carry the weight of towers down there, have never felt good again; or that same balloon, whose carcass they threw away between two fingers, with disgust, but the air, which was lighter, went back to join the rest of the air in the room. My dear, if they drew a line across the ground with the ink of everything I've written for you, you'd see I've come the whole way on foot; I brought you the whole way, carried you here, down underneath, like that motor. The reason I'm such a mess is that they built me on the philosophy of motors. My dear, your balloon tries its hardest to make you happy, to keep a whole lot of air pressed together in one place for you, so you can play; it only wants to look after your air, because you had blown into it; it held your breath with all its being until its skin wore thin from the flicks of your fingers; it gently set your air up there, and grew ugly itself and fell down. My dear, ever since the day I fell in front of a door and my knees and palms got dirty, I've never felt good again, because I cried right there and my father said it's nothing, there's nothing to be ashamed of, and I realized there's a more important reason to cry than pain. My dear, since the point where I set you down and you left, no, not anymore.

I was so tired that how I felt no longer mattered.

Download PDF