Right now, as I type these lines, we have no internet. Not even SMS reaches each other. Our only bridge to the outside world — and to one another — is landline calls between people still inside the country, checking who is still breathing.
Let the old memories rest for now. These days, once again, that same wave of defiance, strike, and rebellion has begun to rise.
It may wear a different color and scent, but beneath it beats the very same wound. The wound that, even after twenty years, refuses to rot in some forgotten corner of the heart.
Instead, it sends down deeper roots, withers everything else around it, and eventually claims the whole body. This time I want to tell you another hypothetical memory — and no, I won’t dress it in the innocence of youth anymore.
This one belongs to just two days ago. Right now, as I type these lines, we have no internet. Not even SMS reaches each other. Our only bridge to the outside world — and to one another — is landline calls between people still inside the country, checking who is still breathing.
So I don’t even know whether these words will ever reach Publisha0x one day, or whether they will wait in darkness for weeks.
Today is Day One of the total internet blackout.
I have no choice but to believe it won’t last long. I must keep hope alive… otherwise…
Anyway. I’m going to write — however I can — the hypothetical story of the night a misunderstanding in our small town unexpectedly gathered like-minded souls and quietly birthed a miracle.
January 8th. Across the country a call had gone out: demonstrate at 8 p.m. The young were restless, hungry to pour into the streets. Our pact was simple: stand shoulder to shoulder. Even if the crowd stayed small, at least we would be there.
In our little town such calls almost never draw real numbers. Most people are genuinely afraid to step outside — and who could blame them?
But a handful of us decided: whatever happens, we leave the house tonight. Not necessarily to protest — we honestly expected nothing to ignite. We just told ourselves we would walk the streets together, a quiet symbolic gesture.
I told my friends: “We’re going for a night walk with the gang! It’ll be fun!”
The truth is, none of us had prepared for anything serious. We were certain no crowd would form. No one would show. How wrong we were.
زهی خیال باطل!
How gloriously, wonderfully wrong. As soon as night fell, people began streaming into the streets in waves. Little by little a crowd took shape.
When I stepped onto the main avenue the air already tasted of smoke; tear gas stung my eyes. I could tell it had been fired minutes earlier — people had been scattered from that very spot.
Shouts, explosions, revving motorcycles and sporadic gunfire echoed from the side streets. And still more groups kept joining. My eyes refused to believe what they saw. People of the town — dressed mostly in dark clothes, faces masked, young and old, women and men and even children — flowed toward one another. A crowd of several thousand had somehow appeared.
Almost no one carried much: a mask, sometimes a bottle of water. No one had dared imagine this small city could fill its main artery with with so many. Everything happened so fast…
To be continued…
(After almost 3 weeks of Internet shutdown, the internet is still very unstable and I can hardly open any sites. So, I can’t upload any pictures at the moment. To be honest, I’m just grateful I’m not in the dark anymore!)
