Mahmood was forty-two, but he felt much older. Not in body—his back was still straight, his hands still steady from years of accounting—but in the way time seemed to pool around him like stale water. Every morning, the same breakfast, the same cigarette on the porch, the same weightless silence between the words of his mother and his wife.

His mother coughed a lot now. Since spring, the cough had taken a deeper tone, like a warning. She never said what was wrong, and he never asked. Some things passed down like tradition. Like silence.

Mahmood had grown up in this same wooden house, under the shadow of his father, a retired lawyer who only believed in reason, not kindness. He used to beat Mahmood and his sister, Sima, for the smallest mistakes—a broken glass, a forgotten prayer. One time, he slapped Mahmood so hard his ear rang for two days. No apology followed. Just: “You must learn to control yourself.”

Control was all Mahmood ever knew. He learned it so well that he forgot how to feel. Even among friends in Gilan, during his mathematics degree, he smiled with a tightness that wasn’t joy. He watched them hug, laugh, fall in love—and felt nothing but a silent jealousy for their ease with each other. He knew something was missing in him, but didn’t know what to call it.

Hedie called it distance. That’s what she told him, one night after the children had gone to bed.

“You never reach for me, Mahmood,” she whispered. “Even when I cry.”

He wanted to say something. Anything. But the words stayed inside him, like prisoners too afraid to leave their cell.

They met in university. She had soft hands and a thoughtful face, and he thought maybe marrying her would fix the silence in him. It didn’t. They had two children. That didn’t fix it either.

His job at the sawmill kept him busy. But lately, the building needed repairs, so he had been off work. The empty hours started piling up like dust. He took longer walks. Noticed posters on walls. One day he saw it:

Festival of Dancing Foxes – Saturday, 11 A.M., Central Park

The image was bright—sharp oranges and reds, painted tails in motion. Something in it stirred him. Maybe it reminded him of a toy he once loved. Or a drawing Sima made, before she stopped drawing altogether.

Saturday came. He put on his faded gray jacket. As he was tying his shoes, his mother spoke from her seat near the window.

“Don’t go today,” she said.

He paused. “Why?”

“Because Mitookht might see you. And then… it can’t be undone.”

“Who’s Mitookht?” he asked.

She didn’t answer. Just stared out the window, her breath slow and strange.

He left anyway.

The festival was surreal. Children laughed. Paper foxes danced in circles, animated by wires. Music played—something upbeat, but sad underneath. Mahmood watched, arms folded. For a flicker of time, the sharp colors—orange, blue, crimson—seemed to swirl into each other, pulling something loose in him. He remembered a red ball he once owned. A game he played alone in the backyard. His father's face scowling from the window.

For the first time in a long while, he felt… odd. Not good, not bad. Just odd.

He came home an hour later. The sky looked darker than it should. As he reached the door, he saw his mother sitting outside. She looked at him with an expression that made his stomach tighten. Her eyes were cold, like stone.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

She didn’t reply. She just stood and walked inside.

The house was unusually quiet. No children’s noise. No clatter from the kitchen. Just a deep stillness. He closed the door behind him and noticed something strange—a gun on the table. A black one, small. He didn’t own a gun. He stared at it. Touched it. It felt too real.

He turned on the TV to distract himself, flipped through channels. An old Persian love song played from somewhere—he didn’t know where. As he sat, he felt a buzz in his skull. Like a mosquito trapped inside.

Then he heard a voice—not his own. Not anyone’s he recognized.

“You remember what you did.”

And suddenly, the room tilted.

He saw images, like torn pages from his life:

A girl named Roya, whom he courted once in college, who sent him letters and once said, “I’m going to end it, if you don’t care.” He didn’t reply. He’d torn up the letter.

A younger Sima crying, holding her arm after their father hit her. He had looked away.

Hedie in labor, sweat on her forehead, crying out—and him, pacing silently in the corner.

He blinked. The gun was gone. The air had turned cold—unnaturally so. It was summer outside. But his breath misted in the air.

The walls of the house started to warp. A jungle crept in through the cracks, roots twisting along the floor. A rainbow hung crooked above the hallway—vivid, trembling. It whispered to him.

“Do you still want to go back?”

He nodded. Tears began to fall—unexpected and hot.

“I don’t know how,” he whispered.

He stumbled into a room he didn’t recognize. No windows, no doors. Just wooden walls and that same, humming silence. On the floor, the gun was back—and this time, blood pooled beneath it. He couldn’t tell if it was real or just a smear of memory.

He saw Roya again—her eyes wide, lips blue. He saw his father, standing with arms crossed.

“You’re weak,” the ghost of his father said.

“I tried,” Mahmood whispered.

“No. You pretended.”

He fell to his knees. “What should I do?”

The rainbow spoke again. “You can’t erase cruelty. But you can stop choosing it.”

Mahmood picked up the gun. His hand didn’t tremble.

Back in the silence of that windowless room, he sat down. He pressed the barrel gently to his lips. His breath slowed.

Everything inside him—years of silence, numbness, guilt—waited.

Then, nothing.