The Winnowed Wheat
A Jam of Jar - The Winnowed Wheat
Mr. Ahmar’s office was locked on one condition: when the list of new martyrs was received. If his desk drawer was also locked, undoubtedly the name of some of the colleagues’ family members and relatives had been on the list. And this meant I couldn’t wait until Mr. Ahmar’s arrival. I used a pen to picklock the door and entered the room. The room seemed strangely cold. Unfortunately, the drawer was locked, too. I searched and found the key in the album of captives’ names by chance. I took out the list of the martyrs, went straight to the last name on the third page. I couldn’t believe it. 120 martyrs! It was strange. After a few seconds, I returned to the names to double check. It didn’t take so long to find my brother’s name, Ali Akbar Salari, on the first page, third row. My hands and feet felt cold. I sat right there on the chair. I put my elbows on the table and held my head, but it was heavier than I could handle. My mourns filled the martyrs’ affair room. I don’t know how long it continued, but Mr. Ahmar hadn’t arrived by that time. I stood up and put everything in order again. I knew I had a few days before the arrival of the bodies. My family village .was nearby. I saw them almost every day Mr. Salari is not well; I will tell the rest of the story. No one understood Gholamreza Salari and the pain he carried in his chest had reached his head. He was shocked a few meters from his father’s house. He saw a big pile of wheat in the yard and all the relatives and neighbors were threshing the wheat and his dad was sifting. He thought what if his dad had sifted his sons so Ali Akbar would have been still alive. He got so sad thinking about this. After a little pause, he got close to his dad and greeted him. “What’s all this for dad?”, he said. His father suspected. “We are going to take the wheat to mill. We have lots of guests tomorrow”, he said. Gholamreza got nervous and hardly gulped1 . “Why guests, dad?”, he asked. He knew the answer, but he doubted if his father was also aware of the news. His dad looked at him with more suspicion. “What about with the latest mission? We have suffered a lot of casualties, haven’t we?”, he asked. “No dad, it was normal”, Gholamreza hastily answered. His dad didn’t have the nerves to argue with him. “We suffered three martyrs in our own village here, how is that normal?”, he continued. Even Gholamreza didn’t know that, but Mr. Ahmar might have told him. “How do you know?”, he asked. His father held his hand, looked around to make sure no one listens. “I saw a dream, don’t tell your mother. There was a huge flood in the village and all the alleys were flooded. There were three beautiful flowers on the water which were clean. The flood took the flowers around the village and brought one of them into our house. Do you see, son? This means Ali Akbar is now a martyr, your brother is martyred, and we have two other martyrs in our village along with him”, he said. He waited, looked at his son and said, “Well, now you say Gholamreza was silent like a suspect who his words might get used against him in the court. “You say nothing, but they will break the news soon. We should grind .the wheat.”, his dad whispered One or two days later, a team of IRGC Cooperation was sent to the village and announced the death of martyr Yavari, Heidari, and Ali Akbar Salari. They were brought to the funeral on the shoulders of .people of the village His dad had brought the sifted wheat to the mill and made flour with them. He had plowed the garden, and now he was planting .his three flowers in the village garden
