The Frozen Desert by Moein Mansoori Fard (free e books to read online TXT) 📕

the cans is the same as in the list. I open a vegetables can and taste it. Its taste hasn’t changed yet, but by the next five days it surely would change. Except for canned vegetables, there is canned beans in the list. I search to find one of these among the packs. The expiry date of this kind of canned foods is also five days ahead.

I put the can on the stool and then I follow the breeze direction. I wet my finger tip with saliva to find its direction more exactly. The wind blows just from behind the foodstuffs packs. I approach the wind origin as much as I can, but I can’t continue because of so many packs which are in my way.

I check the wall behind the packages. It has different color and is in conflict with the next wall which its color has been scaled. The next wall has the same similarity as well, as if both are made in the same time. Evidently the intention of making these two new walls and link them to the old walls has been to enclose a part of space and use it as a store. Maybe there is a way that links to here and causes the wind flow through here and Karisan’s room. Accordingly, since I am downstairs, the wind enters here through the well.

A sudden breeze of cold weather and a weak tremble shake me when I am amazed and ponder for a while and I keep my balance using the wall. The “well” and the “sinkhole” are the words which associate me the last night dream and is displayed in front of my eyes.

Suddenly I feel someone’s hand on my shoulder. I turn my face like the possessed people and my eyes search for the hand. I see Yatilan and four people behind him. All of them see me like a dead man who suddenly has come to life and with the exchange of their looks, they aim at me. Some pity and compassion for me can be seen in their eyes. They look at me with eyes wide open.

Hey man, let’s see, what happened, are you okay?

Yatilan says that, while is trying to find out something from my look. I don’t know why I couldn’t hear their footsteps. I shake my head and then, to justify my action, I say:

The taste of the canned foods hasn’t changed yet.

I give Yatilan the opened can.

Yea, I hope we’ll be lucky they decay later than the expiry date.

Then he shakes his hand and orders his colleagues:

We should take them all to the upstairs. Some people are going to leave here. Please stand at a distance from each other so that we be able to move them easily.

I ask him:

Are they determined to leave here?

It’s so better than they stay here and die.

Then all of his colleagues execute his order and they stand at a distance from each other.

But it’s not certain that what is lying in wait for them outside of here.

Staying here means staying alive just up to next ten days, naturally, if the nomads don’t attack.

The last one of Karisan’s colleagues stands near the manhole, up the ladder. I also, comply with them, stand ahead and hand the heavy packs to others. It takes about two hours to take the package out of the store and transfer them to the counters of the ground floor and first floor through the people who come to help us. My shirt is completely wet and it sticks to my skin when I touch it. With each breath, I feel as if my soul is leaving my body. The sores on my soles also ache because of the weight of the packages, but I forget the pain when Yatilan gives me a rather cool beverage.

He asks me:

How was that?

Cool and delicate, thanks.

It’s made of yellow plant, I mean a mixture of some products and then make it to a powder. I think it is sweet even without sugar.

I shake my head:

It’s marvelous! Its taste is special.

Yatilan smiles:

Remind me to show you something in an occasion. Now get some rest.

Then he winks at me and goes toward Karisan’s room. My eyes search for an empty chair. Nina is sitting at the last table on a corner of the shelter and is drawing. No one notices her. When our eyes meet, she smiles. Then she hints me and I go toward her. While looking my face, she shows me her drawings and waits for my opinion:

Is it your drawing? It’s unique!

She sneers and then rises from her chair. She gathers her outfits with the help from me and put them on her small bag. She holds my hand and takes me to her room. I guess what she wants. Probably she wants to attach her drawing to the wall.

We enter Karisan’s room. Due to the patients, Nina goes slowly toward the bookcase. Here is too dark. After that my eyes adapt to darkness, I see Karisan sitting on a chair. He is beating an irregular rhythm on the table with his fingers. Except for the moans of patients, it is the only sound that can be heard.

What happened?

Yatilan goes away from the wall and says:

Nothing.

Have you got something about the nomads?

The wounded man feels better now, but he has nothing special to tell. He says that the nomads appear from nowhere. The death angel would be in front of you in a wink.

Have they sent any message?

No one has ever heard their voice. They’re called silent angels.

I met two of them before I enter the shelter.

Karisan narrows his eyes. I continue:

They attacked someone called Wildi and killed him with knife.

Karisan says:

Where’s his corpse?

They threw him into a well.

How you managed to escape?

They left me alive.

Karisan takes a deep breath:

I’ve no idea. Can you show me its place?

Sure! I want to take Wildi’s body out of the well. He was my friend.

I think Nina is waiting for you. When your job finished call me.

I rise from the chair and all of a sudden I see Nina beckons me. When I enter the room, she comes down of her bed and shows me her drawing on the wall. Now, there is no sign of that two patients who were in this room before. Maybe they are in fine fettle now, maybe… however Nina is released from the wandering.

Suddenly I see the drawings which are waving like the sea. I look around to find its motive, but I don’t see any cooling or heating equipment in the room. Again, I look at the drawings so that I can find the air current. The air waves are coming from behind the bookcase and Nina’s commode. But Nina doesn’t notice the wind flow at all, as if it is common thing for her. An edge of her drawings which is at a distance of the wall, sticks to the wall again. I go toward the commodes to check them, but I can’t find any way to see behind them. Again, I look at the drawings. Air flow stops and I hear a low shout from the outside.

Chapter 8

 

 

Frustration

 

 

 

 

 

A weird fear makes me to go out of the room. Karisan is standing near the black man’s bed and examines him. The face of the black man seems to me a rather familiar. I guess he is the same man whom Karisan was applying an ointment on his skin upstairs. The pulmotor is connected to him. His upper body is limp and his breast goes up and down fast and irregular. Rakovan is looking at that man while his breast goes up and down as well.

Finally, Yatilan breaks the silence and says:

What happened? Those drugs had no effect?

Karisan stops examining and, while ponders, says:

I can’t find any remedy. He becomes worse momentarily. We’d better be ready.

But its signs haven’t appeared yet, only his breathing has become more quickly. It may work. Be patient.

Rakovan shakes his head hopelessly and says:

No, he’s the fifth one who is struck by this. All of them had the same symptoms. He also shows the same signs. It went wrong again.

Karisan lifts his eyebrow to give Yatilan a sign to perform his order.

Come in and close the door.

I enter and stand near the door. Then he turns toward Yatilan and says:

Do a favor and take Nina out of here. I don’t want she becomes worse than this.

I see Nina that appears in front of the door when she hears Karisan’s words. Yatilan lifts her in his bosom and goes out. He seems he is afraid of the scene which is going to occur. Time passes in silence for a while since they went, and I can read the instability through both Karisan’s and Rakovan’s eyes. Although the chaos can be seen clearly in their faces, yet hope glimmers once in a while in their eyes. I can see the sweat on their faces which comes down to their chins, yet they don’t move even their heads.

A horrible silence, in which just the sound of their breathings can be heard, fills the room. All of a sudden, while all expect good result and success, a weak tremble and then violent convulsion, shake the black man.

They take and hold his hands and feet immediately, and I help them. I push on his legs but a force from his weak and feeble body, which is unexpected, shake us a little. Then he calms for a while. All of the people in the room are shocked by this scene and anxiety shimmers on their faces. Then, the breathing of the black man becomes more quickly but we hold him, just in case.

Again, time passes in silence for a while. I see hope returns to their faces, but anxiety ruptures their hopeful faces. Yet they try to hide it by pressing their lips and frowning.

After a while, again at the peak point of expectation his breathing becomes slow, insomuch that he seems not to breathe. Rakovan, as if he already prepared himself for this event, takes the electro shocker, but Karisan stops him and begins to give artificial breathing to the black man. Yet, no change can be seen. Then, when he sees his efforts are ineffective, he calls Rakovan.

Rakovan charges the shocker for the first time but it is ineffectual. The second time is the same. Rakovan gulps his saliva and charges the shocker for the last time. Again it has no effect, just the sound of shaking body of the black man echoes through the room.

They lower their head as if they have reached the end of the world. They breathe a deep sigh and dip in the sea of sorrow. The black man’s eyes stared at the ceiling, as though he wants to follow his soul to the heaven. Karisan, while is sorry for the black man’s death and for being unsuccessful in his work, sits on the ground and puts his head between his hands. Rakovan gazed at the black man while the electro shocker is in his hands.

Adding the third element, that is, the death of the black man, to the darkness and disappointment, the atmosphere of the room becomes so sad insomuch that it drags me down. I lean to the wall while I sit on my feet. The sound of a beat on the table makes my look to move from an unknown point toward the sound. I see Karisan that pounds with his fist on the table:

Damn! Everything fucked up.

Rakovan, in an encouraging tone, says:

No, things aren’t as bad as you say.

Karisan insists on his words and shows this with another beat on the table:

It is so! Didn’t you see he didn’t change even a little bit? He died like others.

You’re wrong. It’s true that the death, through all other events, repeated like the rest death, but there was five minutes interval between the convulsion and his death. The rest of patients went into convulsions soon