Metropolitan Lines Issue 2 - Brunel University

The newcomers formed six
groups of seventy-two. The
plan was for them to attend the
largest-scale offensive of the year on
the southern front. The schedule
was to start a few days after their
arrival; they’d never announce when
exactly till a short time before the
actual operation. There was a fear
there’d be a rat that the Iraqis could
smell.
Even the nights didn’t cool off
much. You had to own a chafieh, a
one by one metre checked cotton
fabric, loose and ugly, but extremely
useful to wipe off the sweat and
send you to sleep. After the curfew,
the guys normally kept on
chattering, either at the foot of the
man-made hills or inside the
shelters. The flies and mosquitoes
never lost their loyalty to the
conversations. Although the juniors
had their designated holes to live in,
Morteza arranged accommodation
for Habeeb in his own shelter.
Habeeb was a box filled with stories
of his eventful life, whose details
were as hazy as his vision. When he
talked about the prison days, he had
a surreal calm, as if he was only
talking about the daily chores of a
happy housewife. He neither
glorified the revolution, nor played
it down. For him, the necessity of
what had happened was a given, a
simple matter of what was supposed
to occur.
Have you been in contact with
any of the cell-mates?’
Morteza asked.
‘I must admit, I still see
Ebraheem and spend quite some
time with him. I can’t deny that he is
my brother.’ Habeeb was in one of
his funny moods. ‘But, apart from
him, I’ve only seen Majeed twice,
and still keep getting letters from
Alvand.’
‘Do you remember Hameed?’
‘The football-fanatic?’ Habeeb
asked, getting obviously interested.
‘We lost him in Hoveyzeh,
during a siege.’
‘Good for him. I’m sure he’s set
up his own football team with other
martyrs.’ Habeeb nodded.
‘Yeah.’
Morteza was busy lovemaking
the whole morning. He gave
it a nice massage inside out; used
the best lubricant he could find in
his oil box, rubbed it all over, tried
every angle. People, watching him
so passionately cuddling his RPG,
got a sense that the time was short.
In the evening, the meal was quite
substantial. A prolonged prayer
session and then a cleric in uniform
and turban declared the intentions
of God for making nations fight
wars because he loved to see how
his believers were ready to sacrifice,
to forget about themselves, to leave
their dirty, earthly lives and turn to
martyrs. Many were weeping,
envying the fortunate ones that
already inhabited the closeness-of-
God.
‘…Islam is in danger, more than
ever before. Since the bloodthirsty
vulture started his attack on our
homeland; since the infidel started
bombarding Islamic Iran four years
ago, we’ve had a moral duty, a
national and Islamic duty to defend
our land and our religion, our
dignity. Saddam is the Hitler of our
times; he’s done things more horrific
than America did in Vietnam. We’ve
given blood for our Islamic
revolution; we’ve been tortured by
the Shah and his agents of horror.
We are prepared to sacrifice again,
to sacrifice ourselves, our families,
and our blood. This is only a small
token of what we can give for our
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postgraduate fiction
Islam and our Iran. Martyrdom
runs in our veins...’
The priest also gave a heartrending
presentation of how being
martyred on a mine would mean a
shortcut to heaven. He described
the naked angels that would come
to the gates of paradise, exclusively
to welcome the lads and change
them out of their torn garments. He
grinned while predicting the
consecutive events and the different
nature of the heavenly joys: that you
can eat a fruit that tastes of every
fruit all at once; that you can have a
rock-hard erection for as long as you
wish; that there are springs of milk,
wine, honey, and a lot more. The
volunteers were mobilised in the
front, with hungry dicks and raging
desires.
The shameless rain didn’t really
decrease the heat, but instead
turned the thirsty soil to gluey mud.
It couldn’t possibly stop those
giving the commands; several
regiments from different front bases
had already kicked off. The artillery
had been fed with ammunition
during the past weeks and the air
raids were perfectly planned. The
minesweepers worked hard for
nearly two weeks, clearing pathways
through vast minefields for the
troops to cross. The men were
struggling, especially the ones who
had suffered enormous physical
pain in the prisons of the Shah, or
the ones in higher age groups or of
lower athletic prowess. Habeeb had
it all double: both problems as well
as higher spirits; he was limping
with lumps of sludge stuck to his
boots, nearly unable to see anything
in that pitch dark; but, worst of all,
he had to keep silent.
‘God! Please invite me to your
side. Please let me come to you.
Please give me the opportunity to
present my body, my soul, and my
Metropolitan Lines Summer 2008
Paradise, etc.
Ali Sheikholeslami