“Tell us about you accurately, concisely, and clearly”. “I am a very insignificant man”. “What was the leading cause of your last death?” The judge was quite nervous but tried to hide it by constantly playing with his face, scratching the beard, sticking a finger in the nose, turning it around, and also caressing the eyes and ears with a senseless regularity. Instead, the man of insignificance was deeply relaxed. His look was like a father snooping at a blameable but repentant child. His voice was calm and confident. On the other side, the judge was an entire poor man who wished to end his daily duty as soon as possible and get rid of the high-pressure environment against him. Perhaps, instead of judging, he would have preferred to consult with the insignificant man and find out how he could get to where he is now. “How could insignificance be the cause of your last death? I already warned you not to speak vaguely. I know you, poets, well. So consider that while I’m sitting on this chair, you cannot play with words to confuse us!” For fifty-three seconds, without blinking, he stared at the eyes of the judge with his pitiful gaze. Fifty-three seconds was nothing compared to the fifty-three years of living as a poet, experiencing death in each second. However, it got the cry of the judge to the sky: “Speak it! What are you watching in me?” The audience, the jury, and the court clerk all started clapping and whistling and cheering, as if their favorite wrestler had defeated a stubborn, strong, invincible opponent. When the judge saw that everyone was happy with his triumphant cry, he swelled his double-check, turned his eyes right and left continually, moving his head up and down as a sign of approval and success, and finally joined others clapping to himself. The insignificant man took advantage of the opportunity. His snooping was now covering the scene from a camera lens, watching everything in slow motion: hands coming together frame by frame, touching and separating, lips forming a dark tunnel to whistle, mouths opening the most to cheer highest. This last picture was the most disgusting since their saliva was stretched between the upper and lower teeth, and sometimes drops of it would droop out in the space. The judge, knowing that if the trial lasted longer than this, he might lose everything, hit the table with his hammer and shouted in the loudest, but trembling and scared voice: “I announce the end of the trial! This very insignificant man is condemned to death.” All the audience cried: “Hooray!” The very insignificant man was biting his lips, clenching his fists, and almost jumping up and down, trying his best not to burst out laughing, but in the end, he failed: he laughed so hard that his voice reaches us, in this world.
By: Dr. Mehrdad Nosrati
Mehreshaer
