Cyril (Archbishop): “The church does not condone these infidelities. Philosophizing is corruption. Women doing math, inventing, or reading books; this cannot be!

The mob raided her house. Yet Hipatia did not escape.

Hipatia: “I shall not sneak into holes and basements like a mouse. This library is the only shelter I seek. I do not fear to write. The magic of words is what I believe in. I shall stay here and embrace the death”.

The astrologist was talking and I was standing there with a disfigured face from the shock. I have done practical work my whole life and now this astrologist claims that he can predict my life by reading a table and a few numbers. It still drives me crazy when I think about his self-confidence when he was talking about my future, and I just want to disappear from this universe. When I said jeeringly that I do not believe in metaphysics, he told me that I have been destined to believe it. My whole life, I fought myself and tried to become an academic person and do not believe in these superstitions. I have always tried to base my words on facts and evidence, especially when it comes to politics that is intertwined with political games and apoliticism. If you want to discuss this field or carry out any practical work in this regard, you need to have an integrated and disciplined mind; otherwise, you are just a babbling jerk.

I have hearth every star to be a world of its own

Hast the earth and heavens of its own

As we inquired how that form was

We observed improbable this meaning was

Now with less than five months left from this program, I am thinking about the past; about everything that happened, everything that the bloodsucker astrologist was unable to prove scientifically, yet I have felt them with my soul and have been experiencing them one at a time. He talked about all those things in my life that now I have cautiously taken up an Agnosticism stand concerning them; all those stuff that gullible people mix with superstition and believe. Extremists, as I used to be, question their basic concepts. The interesting part is that Mr. astrologist claimed that this knowledge, yes Knowledge! is something of a sitting target for both contradictory attitudes of over-pessimism and over-optimism.

Despite Negar who was tickled pink every time one of the predictions of that wretched astrologist turned out to be right, I had a mental breakdown. I started doubting everything I knew and learned and I asked myself, “Is everything planned ahead in this life?” “Are we merely a reflection of the placement of planets in the Milky Way when we are born?” “Do we have to add the cosmic determination to cultural, economic, geographical, and biological determination?” It became creepier when I found out that despite the fact that astrology is not an academic course, NASA has a research astrology division, which has designed software to examine and interpret the birthday charts, and updates them on a daily basis. Wow… a science with thousand years of history whose even scientific basis is in question, yet NASA never invests in something without a valid reason, does it?

It was the third time that Khosrow and I broke up and I was not feeling very well. The thought of those heart-stopping moments made me smile. Yet, it filled me with rage to remember the moments before and after that and how I had given up and he had even filled my place with another one in his schedule. I did not save his number so that I may not be tempted to call him. We did not call until the next Tuesday, around six when I went out of the university.

Several students surrounded me in front of the university and were asking nonsense questions, which were pretty difficult to answer at the end of the day. However, I politely tried to give proper responses to their questions, responses which were both short and convincing. Haniyeh was in the same situation. We were standing a couple of feet apart in front of the university with students surrounding us. I still did not know anything about Khosrow. I preferred and thought that nobody else knew anything about him. Not knowing that before we meet, the events were already written and they were way ahead of us before anything even happened between us. Everything was already plotted and they were meant to guide us in our path.

• Send me your proposal to read.. we will talk later… at this moment my mind…

The sound of car brake and his voice:

• Gheysar Nejad…

I turned toward the street while I was talking. It was Khosrow. He stopped in front of the university. He rolled down his car window. “Haniyeh… University security… students”. I freaked out again. My students were looking at us with curiosity.

• ..
• I’ve bought something for you, it is on my car seat, you can take it.

Two cars were behind him and they kept honking. I hastily opened the car door. There was a brown, gray, and vintage green wooden box. The ones that look like vintage boxes with a red lock on it. A cute relationship gift for the time you just started dating and want to steal her heart. It was quite big, almost twice the size of my purse. I was looking at it with my eyes bugged out. He realized that he made me uncomfortable, and he was enjoying it. It was like a game for him. I took the box. One of my students helped me to close the car’s door. He shook his head and said:

• Till later…

Honked and started to move. He saw Haniyeh and honked for her as well, and then, he left. “Do Hanihey and Khosrow know each other? What the heck am I supposed to do now?” The student took the box off my hand and said:

• I can carry it to your car.

I cannot recall what I told to the poor student. I guess the student realized that I was in another world at that moment. At that moment more, I preferred to run away from Haniyeh’s scolding look. Fortunately, Haniyeh is not the type of person to call for follow-up on this type of stuff. Unlike me, she is quite patient in these situations. As she herself says, we will talk about it when the right time comes. It’s not the end of the world. Maybe the end of the world for Haniyeh is when she is whining. She is always whining about her job. She is nothing like her motivational and ideal claims, but when it comes to old wives’ tales, she is in no rush to know the details.

I pushed the gas pedal and fled the scene. I stopped in one of the alleys close to the university and opened the box. I was dying to know what it contained. There were about fifty small glass bottles with corks. Each bottle contained a special essential oil and each oil was in a different color. There was a notebook in English in the corner of the box. It was about aromatherapy and described the properties of each oil in the glass. It was mesmerizing. “Punctilious son of a bitch”. I have not yet heard about his famous gifts. But his first gift for me? I was high-as-a-kite. He hit the bulls-eye. What should he have done after that so that I would become infatuated and call him, and then, find myself in the night schedule of his bed? “The one that knows and knows that he knows!”.

• Thou received me as milk with honey, yet why wouldst thou shut the door on me?
• Speak in a language that I can understand. We have gotten to a stage that I, a student of humanitarian science have to tell you, an architecture-painting student to speak in a less complicated language.

That amused him. Smiled as Tom smiled at Jerry’s door:

• Where did you go last week?
• I was busy
• Doing What?
• Busy with part-time Khosrows.
• Were you comparing?

We both laughed. He suddenly turned around and looked at me, as if every part of his face was mocking me. His pupils were trying to dig up my soul:

• Don’t tell me that you envy me hooking up with Negars?
• Having two lovers is not a sign of a united heart! Having a doubtful heart is not the path of a wise man! You do not need me and my love! You play me when making love! Cut that shit then,… Neither am I jealous of you nor are you of me. Zip it and don’t turn this into something romantic in your favor!
• Yea? Weren’t you the one who told me to speak the language that you can understand?

I laughed… He said again:

• So what?
• Life is too short, either good or bad, it will pass soon no matter how you live it. I translated the previous one and you’re asking so what? Figure it out yourself.
• Did you just call me a bastard? Negar is a son of a bitch? Besides several Labors, now you have a collection of swear words as well?
• It’s just you and Negar. You two are different from others. If I have achieved any triumph, I was young back then, that is the power of youth. Will you stay the night?
• That rhymed. I know you’re going to chew my ears off by your poems. Tonight you are going on a date with Farhaz Zegond or Khosrow Prim?

His white and perfect teeth were shining with mischief. Just like in cartoons:

• Tonight Ms. Negar is down with the red tide.

I hit him in the face with the pillow

• Why do I even agree to see you every time?

He laughed. As if the whole universe was making its best to entertain him. Nothing could upset him. He cared for nothing. Everything in life was just a game for him. It was like a cinema. It was like a theater for him and he had planned to make every moment count.

• You overlook your hot temper; Will you keep counting my errors? Will you stay or not?

Now I was exploring the depth of his eyes. He laughed.

• Try a bit more till I make up my mind. When you read poems you make me feel like I am Shirin and you are Khosrow who is trying to chat me up.
• For only one night hold me in your arms; such that I kiss the earth to reach your house.

He brought his face close to mine and tried to kiss me. I bit his chin. He retreated.

• You’re savage[1]. Such lips sweet as honey yet far from me; when I approach, you sting me like a bee?
• It’s not Vahshi, it’s Nezami
• I meant you’re a savage. Do I have to read every verse about Khosrow’s bootlicking to have your consent?
• Why lick boots? There are so many other good things.
• You have no shame!
• Shirins’ kiss is every heart’s yearning; for the sweetness of her lips comes from within. That’s what I meant, you and your filthy mind!
• Yea, I bet you did!

We were inspecting each other with our smiles like two people who duel. When I took my cellphone to call my mom, he left the room.

To be continued

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[1] Vahshi is pseudonym of an Iranian well-known poet.