The Stationery Shop of Tehran

by Marjan Kamali

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

No one can take that education away from you once you have it. Do you know? You can take your degree from the university and put it in your pocket and it will be there for the rest of your life.

You might think that the world is complicated and full of lost souls, that people who’ve touched your life and disappeared will never be found, but in the end all of that can change. One shop, one glass of tea, and all of that can simply flip.

Maybe old love just ran through the decades unfettered, unimpeded, even when denied.

She pressed her cheek against his heart and lay there, grateful for the time she’d had with him, however short or long it had been, grateful she had known him, grateful that once, when she was young, she had experienced a love so strong that it did not go away, that decades and distance and miles and children and lies and letters could never make it disappear. She held him in her arms and said to him all she needed to say. For that fraction of time, he was entirely hers.

Look at love How it tangles With the one fallen in love Look at spirit How it fuses with earth Giving it new life

She would not have understood, then, that time is not linear but circular. There is no past, present, future.

The past was always there, lurking in the corners, winking at you when you thought you’d moved on, hanging on to your organs from the inside.