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BASEMENT COMMANDMENT. Edited by Rowan Silva
Edited by Rowan Silva
Bahram Zaimi
Editor Rowan Silva
© Bahram Zaimi, 2019
ISBN 978-5-4496-1497-1
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
1
Seeds
She turned to face the window. The tomatoes were ripe and crimson. She had planted the seeds in a rectangular flowerpot, fitted wall to wall of her wide windowsill. The plant had overflown the pot’s edge, rolled down, and reached the deep ledge, free-falling all the way down to the old hardwood floor in green and red. Hundreds of tomatoes with gripping, thick green stems covered the wall below the sill. The shower did not stop on the floor, amplifying in number and depth to flood broadly through the living room.
She thought, Wasn’t it yesterday that these colorful invaders were still on the windowsill? They have stealthily night-crawled the hardwood, overcome the thick margin of the yellow carpet, flooding fast to my bare feet on the carpet as if aimed to sink me in waves of green and red. Three days! I planted the seeds just three days ago. Stranger than the rapid growth is the smell: not the type of a vegetable. It goes down into my lungs and reaches the soul, I succumb to a devilish temptation of the wild. The aroma floats in the air of my apartment, I see souls dancing around me, sometimes in flesh. I bite; the wild taste of fresh kill, the red juice fills my mouth, overflowing from the sides of my lips, running to my chin. I enjoy the dripping, red stains on the yellow carpet.
She rubbed her feet against the sofa, the tickle went away. She leaned the nape of her neck on the back of the sofa and looked at the wall right across the living room. Not all mysteries are pleasant. Who painted this wall white? As long as I can remember, five years ago, when I could afford to rent this miserable apartment, everything was yellow: the color that I hate. Walls, floor, doorframes, ceiling, even the old rug under my feet. I don’t think the greedy landlady sneaked into my apartment to give the wall a fresh paint job as a surprise gift to me. I don’t hate white, I fear it.
She wanted to put her leg on the long sofa to stretch, and then lie down and rest. There was another smell mixed with the aroma of the tomatoes which didn’t leave her free from thoughts. Normally, she was able to ignore her problems, to skip over them and forget her bad memories. This was a technique which her eight psychotherapists had taught her in over eleven years. The plausible technique did not solve the problem; nevertheless, she could waste her life without worry. She gave up on the idea of resting on the sofa, with so many thoughts whirling and wandering around in her mind it was not possible.
She blamed, it was his fault, the ninth one, or I should say the first psychoanalyst because of the method he chose for me after the failure of treatment of the eight psychotherapists before. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe I’ve mixed it up. He had to change the trend completely. I guess he was right because I remember none of what the eight before had said, but word for word the talk of the last.
‘Consciousness was your enemy for the last twelve years; it removes the problems to allow the comfort of routine, because it cannot stay for long under the surge of inexplicable questions, let alone the benefits that it provides. That being the financial support of Victim Support Organization, and public pity for a presumed rape survivor, the common assumption.’
‘But I have been suffering for twelve years. I cannot remember anything; all I remember is blankness. I have spent these years in fear of something hidden behind a white flash.’
‘Nothing is behind white; it is in the white.’