Ghrubdar 

In the declining years of his life and waning his strength and enthusiasm, Gholamreza, a man in his 60s, is furiously struggling against Sundown syndrome; in fact, he is in a fierce combat with a merciless enemy which has seriously attacked his neurological condition. This cruel enemy does not bring him anything other than confusion, illusion, memory loss, and identity dissociation as day light starts shutting down in the twilight. This tale unfolds in the course of a single tumultuous day in Gholamreza’s life, when the fragile threads of memory unravel as the sun starts declining in the infinite horizon. As the daylight fades, two distinct personalities, or better to say two new identities, —each as a fragmented reflection of the other— emerge within Gholamreza.

Before the sundown, a semblance of clarity resides everywhere, but just after it, a shadowy figure grappling with the void of forgotten moments takes its place. Amid this twilight struggle, his devoted granddaughter, Parnian, becomes his anchor. With her genuine tenderness and indomitable will, she gently guides him through the labyrinth of lost memories, striving to keep his essence intact until dawn’s first light breaks, offering a fleeting respite from the night’s grasp. In this poignant narrative, love and memory intertwine in a delicate dance against the encroaching darkness, revealing the enduring strength of human connection and the ephemeral nature of identity.

The first paragraph of Ghrubdar 

Sunrise

Parnian gently and kindly rubs the white dust of plaster on her palms on the ponytail of her hair and leans over the first step that connects the yard to the rooms of her house; to the corridor and three exit routes. Three rooms; like three pieces of clothing. Each room and each house have their own garments. Garments beyond and much larger than those covering those settling there. And they are three decrepit and attenuated ones; in garments so unfitting and loosely awkward. And the whole house the same. In such a way that as if she could hear the sound and sense the smell of the wails from the cracks in its walls; impuissant to recognize what is ruminating the sounds, to recognize to which larynx, and to which window, each sound belongs. The sun fades away into the cracks of the sky, and the house unbuttons its shirt one by one to breathe with the darkness, foul the light, and enslave the memory. And now, Gholamreza knows the whistles of his wheezing, which is mixed with secret howls, because the sound of his own wheezing is slowly getting like the house. The wall of the house becomes more like a pillow. At such times, when someone faces something like it, they, intentionally or unintentionally, lean on it without knowing what to do a few moments later. When someone leans his head against the wall and watches the connection of a night to a day, they indeed watch the repetition of stitches. Gholamreza’s mother used to lean on the same pillow when she wanted to see off the girls to school or to their husbands’ houses with a hug.