The Man Whose Tongue Fell and Other Stories

By Reza Mirzaei

As a violent act concludes, a man tries to escape the horrifying scene with his victim’s blood on his hands. After he eventually falls on the concrete sidewalk with his heart beating rapidly in his throat, an ambulance siren shreaks in the distance. As its lights become larger, one of his pursuers shouts, “That’s him!”

In a collection of compelling stories, Iranian dramatist and writer Reza Mirzaei offers a glimpse into the experiences of diverse characters as man encounters death and time that exposes him to the state of becoming or not becoming. As each character’s experiences lead him to make unthinkable decisions with unique consequences, he must battle and then attempt to overcome his fears, dread, and agony—all while surviving.

The Man Whose Tongue Fell and Other Stories is a volume of tales that delve into the horrors and anxieties of contemporary man in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Sep 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665711005

Reza Mirzaei

Reza Mirzaei is an Iranian dramatist and writer. He published his play, Alexander the Great Returns, in 2019. Reza has written a number of short stories and he is currently working on his third book, a Persian novel.

Book preview

Apocalypse Now

Farid-I

I pulled it out, now he was the one bowing down, nor them all those years. The blood on my wrists and fingers was hot and dark; the diamond -h andle knife was shaking; time halted for me. He was pressing his hand where I had stuck the knife. His white suit turned to the color of his tie. He walked backward as if he was bowing, something that others always did for him. As he raised his head, my eyes fell on his angry bloodshot eyes, which were still wrathful beneath those heavy black eyebrows. His mouth was open; he was moaning as if trying to devour all the air in the large, mirrored hall. The sound of his throat was like that of a man who dropped dead on the concrete pavement yesterday, and people just walked away suddenly as if they had seen a l eper.

That’s it! He’s contracted it! I heard a shout.

I was just standing above the poor man’s head I stepped back involuntarily, and looked around. There was no one; even those few people on the pavement had vanished into the thin air. The ambulance sirens could be heard from a few blocks down the street; they make a lot of noise these days. I looked at him again and then knelt in front of him. I turned the poor man on his back; his eyes were bulging out of his sockets and he was breathing heavily. His mouth was open and his larynx was struggling to devour to suck all the air from the sidewalk into his lungs; his chest and belly were constantly moving up and down. He raised his hand, trembling; I looked at his pallid face and hands. He was wearing a black shirt and a brown sweatshirt... I had one like that; it was the choice of Khatereh. His black eyes trembled in his eyeballs and his eyelids fell as softly as a bedsheet. There was no one around us. I was in doubt, but I did not know why that ridiculous feeling came over me suddenly and then I took his hand. He opened his eyes momentarily, stared into my eyes; at that moment his chest stopped moving and I could no longer hear his breathing. His symptoms looked like those that TV channels had been feeding people right and left in the past two months.

I looked around; he was still walking backwards and his lips were moving. He leaned against the oak wooden table in the middle of the hall, which I remembered as a child; he made decisions and issued orders from behind the desk. I threw down the knife; it was a keepsake, and he called it the diamond handle. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe like that man whom I had seen the day before. However, I ran towards the door with all my might. What if the two were out in the hallway? There would be no choice; there would be no other way. They always guarded him, personal bodyguards. One walked to the right and one to the left, and dressed like himself. I glanced at my hand outside of the door; there was clotted blood on it. In just a few seconds! I strained my ears, the sound of my heart ringing in my head, with breaths that did not have time to reach my lungs. My heart was pounding in my chest so intensely that I thought it would pierce it and throw my heart out. I turned right and ran, stopped, turned again and ran to the stairs, slowed down in front of the hall and glanced through the ajar door, listening sharply to hear it again. I do not know why I felt I should be hearing a voice through it, like in those years. I quickened my pace and in my heart, which was now running at full power like an engine, I wished the two bullies would not pop up before me. I stopped at the first spiral staircase of the mansion and looked down. Suddenly, my head began to swim and the light of the polished stones below assumed the color of the concrete pavement. The stairs spiraled and turned inside and went down so that the bottom step could not be seen, and it turned livid. I leaned against the railing and put my hand on my forehead, but it was still viscid. I looked at the railing, my handprint had remained. I ran up the stairs two by two, turned, and kept going down. It didn’t take that long for me to get up! The shadows cast on the semi-circular glass wall ran with me. The sun also ran and turned with me and slid down. I turned around in front of the stairs in the middle of the hall. I had the same feeling again, this time the stairs were running towards me; the pain in my chest was tiring me out. I bent down on my knees and coughed. I spat out and a certain sound startled me again. I went out of the white mansion. I saw the duo in the yard, and they were striding towards me. The sound of the siren was ringing in my head and I turned around and ran with the trees on both sides of the yard that wanted to hug me. The white mansion was now in my head, and I ran across the courtyard pavement creeping to the opposite garden whose gate stood open at the end.

It’s him! Wait! One of them shouted.

But I was close to the door, and it was just the sound of a siren, and my heartbeats continuing in my throat. I went out and ran down the street as far as I could. I still had the same feeling on the stairs of the mansion, it was endless! There was only the sound of an ambulance in the street that could be heard from afar. The virus must have done its job and the people were quarantined, damn it! It was everywhere and it was taking a toll on everyone. I turned and looked back a few times. No one was following me, and the white mansion was still vanishing and sinking into itself. I turned my head, fell down, I remembered the down alley but no, I got up and ran straight ahead. There was no one in sight but the damn siren that didn’t wish to stop chasing me. I felt like I had gone far enough, as all my childhood behind me. I turned and looked back. I do not know why I felt someone was running behind me all the time, but no! There was no one, not even those two bullies.

I stopped and gave my poor heart a chance, but I couldn’t. I bent down and laid my hands on my knees, stopped, and looked down the street, watching those houses approaching me slowly. I raised my head, it shone up there. That must have been the reason why they had withdrawn all the curtains, but no, they must have been afraid of the benighted virus that had ravaged the whole world and devoured people. I turned and looked back from where the siren sounded. I wanted to walk but I felt my knees could not carry my weight. It was as if they were not mine at all, I did not have them, like the usual uphill I always saw in my dreams, but they were not strong enough to move me up. My heart did not tend to give up at all. I tried to swallow my saliva, the end of my throat sticking to the palate. No, no sooner had I taken a step than I felt the houses and cars sinking one by one into one another like train carriages, approaching two-by-two. I fell on the concrete sidewalk. The sound of an ambulance siren ran from the end of the street into my ears, and then its lights got bigger and bigger than my eyes, swallowing them.

One shouted, That’s him.

Ibrahim-I

S he had left me before I groped out for the phone. The pillow was still smelling of her head and neck, I pressed my head into it as usual. The phone! it might be from the office. How many days had passed? I do not remember when I quarantined myself at home. Forough had said it was almost fifteen days, not me, herself. And me? Including yesterday, it might have been three days. It was all on account of that damn virus that did not give up. But isn’t it Friday? No, it must have been Saturday because Forough said it was fifteen days right now, and I confirmed it. The damned phone kept ringing. It was from the office. I picked up the phone, my guess was right. Over the phone, my boss says that someone has been killed and I have to get to the office soon. I explained to him that it was not my shift and that today was Friday. I was wrong, it was Satu rday.

No one is available and this is really important, said he.

He said that forty-eight hours had passed since then and they were constantly following it up, and that they were racking my nerves. He must be an important person for he had been so troubled by the news. You could feel over the phone that they were giving him a hard time. I said the city was quarantined and they told us not to leave the house. He burst into a peal of laughter, Never mind Ibrahim, come here immediately. There is no one here. He was right, we both knew I was making excuses. The virus was doing its job, and people were doing theirs. . I hung up and left the room. Who the hell kills someone in this situation? Maybe he should have waited for a little while until the damn virus itself took its toll. When I saw her, I found her staring at the breakfast table in the kitchen, constantly spinning the empty glass in her hand. She was down in the dumps as always. It was almost fifteen days since she had not seen her parents and she was crammed up in the house, so she had the right to lose her mind. No one was around her, but she pretended she hadn’t noticed this. She was wearing the same top she was wearing last night. I was going to take a shower when she asked me, was it from the office? As always, I could not lie, no way, she guessed right. I said it seems someone had been killed. She smiled and said, He got rid of it sooner. I was upset, but I shared a similar feeling too. She told me it was high noon and that I should eat something before that. I just remembered that I had to look at the clock, the dim light of the room had deceived me. She put a morsel in my mouth and I looked at her out the corner of my eye. She was right. My eyes fell on the cleavage of her white breasts, which seemed firm and full. I wore my clothes soon after the shower and ran out of the house. I was putting on my shoes when she asked me, When are you coming back? As always it was just a simple sentence but I do not know why I got stuck with it as always. Unable to raise my head, I said, I do not know, I can’t help It. again as usual. I arrived at the office, it was like the streets of Tehran, only a few people were wandering about as if they had learned about the murder. The city was bleak and bare. I do not know, maybe they had taken refuge in their homes, maybe not, they might have gone on a trip. I went to the boss’s office and found him looking stern and he was gazing at the clock on the wall to make me understand that I was late and I for my part I took him for my balls., playing ignorant He passed the file over to me, saying that the guy was one of those big shots, but it was clear that he was talking nonsense and did not know what the man’s occupation was. I asked if he was a political, religious, mafia, or businessman. He did not know it and only kept regurgitating the same word impatiently. He got up and explained to me that he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for two days and that he was being pressured to put all the blame on those who had arrested him and to bring the case to an end. I stopped flipping through photos and reports. Raising my head, I asked in surprise, Is anyone arrested?

Yeah, one of his mistresses, he said, staring into my eyes.

I do not know why, when I heard this, I associated his name with a list of words such as bitches and whores and so on. Probably in this situation, their business had also deteriorated. How ridiculous! How a tiny virus could do! Of course, we were also only on the same bed. It was just called a bed. I soon asked, Is she here now? Who’s arrested her? The boss explained to me, NO, she wasn’t arrested. The woman went to the police station on her own and explained what had happened. They also sent her here. Then we went to the mansion and saw what a hell had happened out there; blood was everywhere. When he was saying this, he was constantly pacing up and down in the room and mentioning the name of the guy, reminding me that I should start my work as soon as possible. And never mind the situation in the country and quarantine and stuff like that. I said, Well, why the fuck didn’t you tell me at that moment? I said to myself as if he had read my mind. I asked if she had confessed, and the boss said, That is the problem. I was surprised. She had allegedly confessed to killing only two of the guards and did not know who had killed Kabir Khan. Kabir Khan! Three murders! I still had a feeling I did not know what it wanted to do with me and what I wanted to do with its, but I knew I had this feeling before, over and over again, a kind of joy that I had to retain and it pushed me forward. Kabir Khan was dead! Before going into the room, I looked at her body through the glass door. Earlier, I told the boss that I had to see the woman first and then go to the mansion. He said, Please hurry up, Ibrahim, there is an army of people behind this Kabir Khan. He was talking nonsense. Truth be told, she was beautiful I had seen many of them by then, not to mention that I had slept with some of them, but this one was really a morsel. This filthy Kabir Khan had such a good taste. The girl had black eyes, tanned skin, and was relatively tall. Even from behind the interrogation table, where she had put a few cigarettes off in ashtray, she looked tall, taller than me. I pulled a chair and sat in front of her, placing the file in front of me. She glanced at it and then stared blankly at it while smoking. In her gaze, mischief and lethargy and, of course, fear could be seen. Her makeup was awful, of course. I was concentrating on where to start, the name of that damn virus kept popping into my head.

So what? she asked me.

I did not answer; instead, I looked at her breasts, which looked tight under her white coat. I asked if she had any children, and she replied instantly that she had not been so silly yet and took a puff from the cigarette. I pursed my lips and raised my eyebrows, sighed; I was acting up; a kind of thinking. She was too smart for me; she grinned and looked coquettishly at me through the smoke of the cigarette and with the same mischievous look; everything was so obvious, I noticed that. I pulled the file, opened it and asked her how she killed the two guards, and where she had procured the gun. As if remembering something, she started puffing successively, and before she had finished smoking, she took another out of the pack and lit it with the last one. She wanted to put it in the ashtray when I grabbed her hand and didn’t let her. I put the half-smoked cigarette to my lips and puffed at it as