Publication year:
Number of pages:
Country of origin
Iran
Subject:
Adults/Fiction
Publication
published
Panjshab
In an enigmatic realm, where the boundaries between a psychiatric asylum and a prison get fully blurred, the story of five days of the lives of a group of children unfolds before our eyes. These youthful souls are caught in a world where reality and illusion intertwine. Their innocent desire is simple yet surreal: to play football with a hen, which is, in a strange twist, considered one of them themselves. Shadowy figures, who may be either prison guards or hospital psychiatrists, pursue them, adding to the mystery and tension of their existence. Each day unravels a chapter of its own, weaving through the fabric of their confined reality. As the narrative reaches its climax at the last night, a haunting revelation emerges. The children/adults who are prisoners, along with others who are either prisoners too or seemed the insane confined to an asylum, are being transferred to some psychiatric hospitals. Through this poignant journey, the story delves into themes of innocence, freedom, and the elusive nature of identity in a world that defies understanding.
The first Paragraph of Panjshab
For a hen, nothing is more torturous than the details. Especially when they are compressed and piled up, confined to five days and nights. When, in such a bloody and bent manner, the intensity of details becomes a heavy burden on the eyes. Death pierces through the folds of the veins into the eyes. Those who have witnessed the death of a human has actually seen the death of all. The death of all creatures in the world. They are all sheer corpses and decayed, from pigeons to snakes. When man dies, the world turns pale and tears up and away. I am not an additional load to see everything with more than one pair of eyes. It is just me and you. So, I have to stare at you. In such a manner that my eyes can no longer move; they lean into each other creating a complex landscape. They make some wide and blind corridors that no longer overflow with tears; they frame the distant view. This means crying no longer works. A landscape stuffed with the details bursts within these corridors. It transformed into thousands of colourful appendages embracing each other; resembling a drop of water. You precisely saw all the gaps and crevices. I saw the holes and fissures profoundly. From the holes, you recognized the people in neighbourhood. They would stick out their tongues for me to see if there was a hole or not. Their tongues protruded when they laughed and, of course, all through their horrible cries. That’s why during football, I saw the crack in his sugary lip caught in the gap of that piece of iron sitting on the vertical pole of the goalpost, imprisoned. That gap, unable to satisfy his lip.
