FROM THe DesK OF:       Abbas Safai

HEDĀ
(Eyes heavy with sleep, but fighting it, voice small and hopeful)
Will Daddy be the conductor?
FATEMEH
(Begins humming a faint, haunting lullaby—the same one Mehdi used to sing. She strokes Hedā’s hair.)
He’ll be the whistle cutting through silence. Sleep, my dear.
HEDĀ
(Suddenly slaps the manuscript with both palms, jolting awake)
No! Read it! Baba always shared stories from this book!
(The air in the room shifts—light softens, sounds muffle. Storytelling becomes ritual.)
FATEMEH
(Traces Mehdi’s margin notes with reverence—“The 10 o’clock train never moves”—then closes the manuscript with deliberate care. When she speaks again, her voice is formal, enchanted, as if stepping into another world.)
Alright.
(Pause. She takes a breath.)
Once upon a time, beyond a forest where trees drank starlight…
HEDĀ
(Slams the manuscript shut with surprising force, voice sharp with accusation)
“This isn’t Father’s story! You twist his words!”
FATEMEH
(Clutches her key pendant—a tarnished family relic etched with fading names. The broken chain saws into her wrist, drawing a thin line of blood. Her voice is taut, questioning.)
“Does force absolve duty? Or do the shackles we forge become our own scars?”
GRANDFATHER

(Removes his spectacles completely, eyes raw and glistening. He reaches out and traces Mehdi’s handwriting on the page; the ink seems to bleed under his touch like a fresh wound.)
“Responsibility? You mean…
(His voice cracks.)
…confessing I chose this? Or the rot festering in my bones?”
FATEMEH
(The pendant cuts deeper; a single bead of blood wells on her wrist. Her voice is a taut wire about to snap.)
“Responsibility means—”
HEDĀ
(Shakes the manuscript violently, eyes blazing)
“Read! Or burn it!”
FATEMEH
(Voice hollow now, distant, as if quoting from memory)
“The village headman said…
(She traces a smudge of ash on the page with her thumb.)
…the true test isn’t in the strike, but the wound it leaves.”
HEDĀ
(Leans forward, eyes wide, voice suddenly lyrical)
“Once upon a time—when the sea whispered secrets to the forest!”
(Fatemeh freezes—struck by the child’s words.)
FATEMEH
(Traces Mehdi’s hidden margin note—“[Forgive me, Father]”—her voice fraying at the edges. She looks at the Grandfather, then at Hedā, and finally surrenders to the tale.)
“Yes. Once upon a time… Beyond the sea’s lament and the forest’s sigh, at the mountain’s scarred crown—a village where children’s laughter crackled like fire in dry thorns. Mischief-makers scaled pines older than memory, stealing walnuts bitter as regret. At dusk, their shouts herded sheep homeward—but the elder, beard heavy with lies, sat on his porch, waving at ghosts. Whispers coiled: he feared his seventh son—the boy who dragged his legs like shattered vows… and the Storyteller Woman who arrived on lightning’s forked tongue.”
(She pauses, looking at Hedā.)
Shall I unravel further?
HEDĀ
(Kicks her legs impatiently, voice bright with anticipation)
“Start where she enters! The Woman Who Bleeds Tales!”
FATEMEH
(Presses the key pendant to her chest; ink from the manuscript stains her gloves like spilled night. Her voice deepens, resonant with myth.)
“To be responsible means planting your shame deep in the earth and vowing never to nurture it…”
(She flips the parchment. The pages rustle like whispers of old ghosts.)
“One night, a tempest’s breath tore through the village. Lightning split the ancient cedar—a sentinel that had weathered empires—leaving it a smoldering skeleton. Dawn vomited fog so thick, it strangled the sun. When it lifted… there she sat. Cross-legged on roots scorched by fire, hair a storm’s wild bride, eyes reflecting unborn constellations.”
HEDĀ
(Leans forward eagerly, her jade hairpin catching the lamplight)
“Skip to where she enchants the children! The magic part!”
FATEMEH
(Voice drops to a whisper, drawing the audience into the tale)
“The children skipped home, cheeks flushed with stolen figs, laughter ricocheting through marble courtyards. Only the seventh son lingered—”
*(She traces a gilded margin note in the manuscript: “Legs like shattered vows.”)
“—cradling a boy whose limbs were as delicate as Qajar porcelain. The village choked on silence—no clink of samovars, no rustle of brocade—only the wind’s mournful hymn. Inside the elder’s home, voices clashed like drawn scimitars.”

MAN
(Voice booming from the shadows, laced with venom and scorn)
“Why brand her a witch? Let the Alborz wolves feast on her!”
VILLAGE HEADMAN
(Rises slowly from a chair upstage; his cane strikes the floor like a death knell. He speaks with the weight of history.)
“When the river devoured Golabdareh’s bridges, she rode a cedar trunk through its churning jaws—a spectacle for trembling cowards. When blizzards buried Darabad, she carved paths with hands raw as butchered lamb. And when Mahan’s bear—starving, maddened by our fear—stalked the flocks, she slit its throat at dawn, leaving its carcass as her sigil.”
(He leans forward, breath heavy with the scent of rosewater and decay.)
“Now she returns—not as storm, but as flood. To drown our established order in her riptide.”
(A grandfather clock chimes distantly. Simultaneously, Hedā’s small music box on the table grinds out a lullaby—missing half its notes, warped by time.)
FATEMEH
(Gently closes the manuscript, glancing at Hedā, who has slumped against her, fast asleep)
“Heda, my sweet… she’s asleep.”
(She starts to rise, but the Grandfather’s hand—veined, trembling, yet firm—rests on her wrist, holding her in place.)
GRANDFATHER
(Voice frayed with grief, tears pooling behind his cracked spectacles)
“Stay. Weave this tale… let it be the balm for my rotting soul.”
FATEMEH
(Swallows hard, tears glistening. Her ink-stained fingers grip the manuscript like a lifeline. She speaks softly, quoting as if in prayer.)
“The tender gaze of a lonely girl…
(A pause. Her voice echoes the cadence of Octavio Paz’s Piedra de Sol.)
…who sees in her father the innocence of a newborn son. Baba… Baba…”

GRANDFATHER
(Gently lifts his hand from Fatemeh’s wrist; his palm is etched with deep lines—scars of decades of silence. His voice trembles, then breaks.)
“Every word, my daughter. Each syllable.”
(Sobs rupture his speech; he bows his head.)
“Now I accept… I take responsibility… I loved her more than breath. May God’s mercy drown my sins.”
(A heavy silence settles between them, thick as velvet. The only sound: the steady ticking of the gold-leafed grandfather clock upstage. A single tear traces a slow path down the Grandfather’s weathered cheek.)
FATEMEH
(Voice low, returning to the tale—but now layered with grief)
“Until then, the villagers reveled in her tales—rivers shimmering beneath starlight, bears vanquished at dawn. But now…”
(She flips a page; the sound is like autumn leaves skittering across stone.)
“…a man snarled, ‘What do we do with her?’”
VILLAGER
(Voice sharp, laced with venom, from the shadows)
“Cast her out!”
CROWD
(A distorted, hushed chorus—voices overlapping like wind through cracks)
“Yes! Cast her out!”
FATEMEH
(Clutches the key pendant so tightly it digs into her palm; a bead of blood wells. Her voice cracks with emotion.)
“Yet the headman from the lower village—a man who’d buried his name with three wives—rasped, ‘No. Let this place be her sanctuary. Not the village above, nor below. Bury her here…’”
(Her voice shatters.)

“…in a grave no pilgrim will ever find.”
(The Grandfather’s weeping swells into quiet sobs. A tear falls from Fatemeh’s cheek and splatters onto the manuscript—ink bleeds outward like a black rose blooming in real time.)
VILLAGE HEADMAN
(Slams his cane down with thunderous force, silencing the crowd instantly. His voice booms with finality.)
“Yes—but we will not bury her! Lest her grave become an altar for fools. Cast her into the river! Let the chaos of waters drag her corpse and memory to the endless sea of oblivion!”
(A sudden wind howls through the space—raw, primal, like a scream from the earth itself. Fatemeh rises slowly to her feet, the key pendant catching the lamplight and slicing it like a blade.)
FATEMEH
(Voice sharp as a scimitar, cutting through the storm)
“The seventh son lunged toward her cottage as storm clouds devoured the horizon. Inside, the Storyteller Woman folded her tales into a moth-eaten satchel.”
SEVENTH SON
(Clutching her wrist desperately, a dried rose crumbling to dust in his other hand)
“Let me come with you!”
STORYTELLER WOMAN
(Backlit by a guttering candle; her silhouette flickers, dissolving into shadow. Her voice is calm, ancient.)
“My existence is woven from threads of stories—this path admits no companions. Unless you too become a weaver of tales—”
(She opens her palm—scarred by ink and time.)
“—you’ll only tread ashes.”
SEVENTH SON
(Voice cracking like parched earth, raw with devotion)
“Let me stand with you! Face the mob!”

STORYTELLER WOMAN
(Dips her fingers into ash from the charred cedar and smears a mark across his brow—a blessing, a warning. She cups his face gently.)
“I fear no mob. My stories will outlive their torches—sung to children not yet born. But you…”
(Her eyes search his, filled with sorrow.)
“…you’ll grow to hate these tales. Where will I hide then? Who’ll shield me from your disillusionment?”
SEVENTH SON: (Crushing the rose to dust) “I swear—by my father’s name!”
STORYTELLER WOMAN: (Eyes glinting like fractured glass) “If only we… if only…” (Steps back, voice a dying ember.) “Farewell, seventh son.”
The tempest erupts. The cottage door explodes inward, roof torn asunder. A maelstrom of dust and parchment swallows the stage—fabric strips spiral like vengeful spirits. Villagers swarm the ruins, lanterns casting fractured light. The Storyteller Woman vanishes, as if seized by the northern wind’s talons. Silence falls, heavy as a burial shroud.
VILLAGERS: (Chanting, voices curdled with spite) “Cast her out! Cast her out!”
The seventh son collapses, clutching the satchel’s remnants—a final spark—before darkness swallows all.
VILLAGERS: (Swarming like carrion crows, lanterns casting jagged shadows) “Where is that woman? Where has her cursed shadow fled?”
SEVENTH SON: (Clutching a withered rose, petals brittle as forgotten vows) “The river’s claimed her—body, memory—drowned in the endless sea of oblivion!” (Voice cracks, then hardens to iron.) “But I’ll follow! Across plains, over mountains, beyond seas—to the edge of darkness itself!”
(He shoves through the crowd, limping toward the horizon. A lone wolf’s howl pierces the night—its mournful cry dissolving into the wind. He vanishes, leaving trampled petals and ashes in his wake.)
(Lights shift. Grandfather slumps, breath shallow. Fatemeh drapes a velvet blanket over him and Hedā, its embroidery a labyrinth of cherry blossoms. She descends marble stairs, manuscript clutched to her chest, key pendant glinting like a dying star.)
FATEMEH: (Voice resonant as a temple bell) “Years later, on a night twin comets scarred the smoke-laden sky, villagers glimpsed two luminous clouds—entwined, inseparable—dancing above the charred cedar’s grave.”

CHILDREN: (Offstage, laughter like wind chimes) “Look! The Storyteller and the Seventh Son! Their love stains the heavens!”
(Projections of cherry blossoms bloom across the ceiling, petals dissolving into constellations shaped like ancient Farsi script. A wolf’s howl harmonizes with the wind—a dirge for erased histories.)
FATEMEH: (Closing the manuscript, ink-stained fingers trembling) “And so, the tale became legacy. Village children whisper it to their own, voices weaving a bridge between earth and stars. For their story burns eternal—(presses pendant to her lips)—a flame no sea of oblivion can quench.”