Marziyeh Choopan – Toronto
“How are Mom and Dad? Where are they? Are they safe?” “Yes, they are in Dubai.” “Oh, that’s good… I’m relieved.”
I haven’t slept for three days. For three days, I’ve been walking around the classroom with my earbuds on all day, and when I come home, I don’t even change my clothes—I just keep pacing. The radio is on loudspeaker; I don’t want to miss a single piece of news.
“Why are you so worried? Mom, Dad, and your sister are safe.” For three days, I have been playing “Ey Iran, ey marz-e por-gohar” loudly as I walk.
Is homeland only mother? Is homeland only father? Is homeland only sister? Are my people nothing but my mother, sister, father, and brother?
My loved one, under the night bombs, looks up at the sky. She tells her little daughter, “Tonight, the shooting stars are coming.” Aryan says, “Marzi, come on, let’s go to the airshow in Toronto this year. It’s amazing!” I say nothing and just stare at her quietly. “Mom is missing again, no one knows where she went.”
She does not understand what an airshow means to me. She does not know what it means when a fighter jet swoops low. I’m sure when she hears the sonic boom, she will cheer and jump up and down with excitement. And I, at five years old, was stuck in the bathroom when the sonic boom cracked, trembling on the bathroom floor, screaming. That nightmare still haunts me.
Homeland is the heart. Homeland is the lungs. Homeland is the brain. If you lose any of these, the body stops working. You die.
Last night, we agreed to gather together, hoping to lift our spirits. A plane flies loudly overhead. Nasim and I jump up, startled, look at each other, and hold hands. I say, “Nasim, we are in Toronto. We don’t have to run. That’s a passenger plane.” But the war is in our hearts. The war is somewhere around our throats.
My colleague is inflating balloons for the kids’ graduation party. One balloon pops. She screams, clutching her heart, trembling as she sinks into her chair. “Tell Miss Hala I won’t touch these balloons anymore.” I’m sitting across from her. I’m filling the balloons with helium. I don’t take my eyes off her.
And what do you know? What does it mean when bombs and missiles fall from the sky into your home? That terrifying uncertainty of not knowing where it will land… That horror of not knowing whose hand to hold… That terrifying sound… That shrill, endless siren…
My mom and dad and sister and brother? Yes, they are safe… But the homeland is my innocent people. The homeland… Ultimately, that homeland is my very life. If it does not exist, then I am dead. And what use is a dead person to mother, father, sister, or brother?
Oh Iran, oh severed branch from my own blood…
