It Was Almost Morning and I Still Hadn’t Slept

It was almost morning, and I still hadn’t slept. I got up and went to the shore. The sea was restless too, as though it waited for the sun in a strange fever of anticipation. The wind had begun to sing and was caressing my face. Yesterday’s words weighed terribly on my chest. I wanted them to spill out of my heart. I stood looking into the distance, as if searching for a rescue ship due to reach my shore from beyond the sea. I walked a little and came upon a young man who had lit a small fire by the water and was playing a harmonica. I stopped to watch. He smiled and said, “If you want to feel lighter, take off your shoes and walk barefoot.” “Be a friend to the earth, the beach, and the sea,” he said. “Feel them.” “The world feels like a stranger to me,” I said. He replied, “Take off your shoes. Let the sand caress you and the sea wash away all that bitterness.” I walked barefoot toward the sea. I couldn’t believe it. The sea sent a wave toward me and cooled my breath. It drew back, seeming to carry all the heat of my body away with it. I asked myself whom I had been estranged from. Why had I been so far from myself? What had this world full of superstition done to me? What had ignorance done? Why had I believed until today that shoes would protect my feet, when the shore was the one friend that freed me from pain without asking anything in return? My fellow Iranian, a piece of my own flesh, perhaps it is time to take off the shoes of false beliefs and trust the shore of reason and knowledge. Perhaps the shoes of religion, votive offerings, and prayer have kept you and me so far from freedom that we see it as a wish across the sea. When all the while it is right here, in our hearts and what we believe. Long live Iran. #بازگشت_به_ایرانیت