My Darkened City by Ani Kazarian
Sometimes I still see myself as a refugee, a small child with thick black hair that people like to pet. I grew up in America, the pinnacle of the modern West, but my reality was another world. I was fetching groceries for my grandmother, cooking, cleaning, holding on to small pieces of gold jewelry in case we needed to escape.
I was born in the war and I like to imagine the story that my mother told me many times. It makes me feel like there was a time when we were a family, that my father loved us, cared for us. The sirens across Tehran blared as war planes could be seen overhead. The government shut off the electricity so that planes couldn’t target buildings. My mother, in labor, sat in the backseat as my father drove through the darkened city. With the headlights off, he had his head out the window, shouting, Get out of the way. I’m coming.
My father died twice. First, when I was young and we were new to America. I remember him leaving and I remember being sick afterward. I didn’t see or speak to him again for twenty-five years. I don’t have a dad, I’d say. I wore it proudly. My close friends had single moms. I was uncomfortable in two parent households. But when I got the call that he was on his deathbed, I left work and went to the hospital. I asked the clerk for his room number. It struck me that I hadn’t called for anyone with my last name since my brother died. And this would likely be the last.
I stopped in the bathroom before heading to the ICU. I wished I’d done my hair better that day, wished I wore a different shirt, wished I’d lost weight. In that hospital mirror, I realized how deeply I felt that if I had been good enough, he wouldn’t have left. That if I had been prettier, more put together, more presentable, we would have been a family. That if we were a family, my brother wouldn’t have died.
The nurse outside my father’s room asked who I was. I didn’t know how to respond. “Only immediate family,” she repeated. My father’s wife came out of his room. His third wife. I’d only just heard of her. She told the nurse I could come in.
My father looked like my brother did when he was dying. The same molasses colored skin and bald head. Wires and machine sounds. He couldn’t speak. He moved like he was in pain, gasped for air with his mouth open though he had an oxygen tube in his nose. I cried. Now he really would never reach out, never want to know me. I found myself mourning dreams I hadn’t been aware of.
We never made eye contact. I wondered what he would see if we did. What he saw when he looked in the mirror. What moments in time trapped his spirit so that everything after was like driving through a darkened city.
Artist’s Statement
After meditating on the nature of fear for several days, my writing coach prompted me to write about who I am really. When this micro poured out, I found the content surprising and illuminating. For me, the practice of writing is one of self-reflection with the intention to expand my awareness. The resulting narrative is often the subconscious response to conscious questions.
Ani Kazarian is a writer and professional development coach, both of which, she believes, come down to clarifying our vision and following our intuition. Her publications include book reviews, essays, and short stories that have been featured in Consequence Magazine, Agni Online, Sampsonia Way, Aster(ix) Journal, and The Tishman Review.