I was invited to a ball last week. Not that I am eligible material to be invited to such events; I just met the person throwing the party through another friend I happen to know from high society. And I know him because we attended the same school, and he befriended me to do some of his assignments for him. I think we are still friends because he may need me to do his children’s assignments for them one day. Anyway, I met his friend two weeks ago, over what they called a casual dinner, and I called it the most painful dinner of my entire life. I did not shit for two days after that to get my money’s worth of nutritions out of the food I swallowed that night, which was not even good.
So, we are sitting around the table, and as is usual in the meetings I attend, the discussion gets serious and the fun leaves the soul of every single person around the table, except my friend’s friend who sees potential in me. I start to talk about history of sexualization, the impact of neoliberalism on feminism, and the influence of individualism on depression. My friend’s friend likes what he hears, not because he understands what I say, but because he can use it to get laid. So, he invites me to the ball he is holding the week after. I think he likes to use me to get laid without having to learn the stuff I am talking about. He wants to take me to the girls he fancies, have me speak about complicated subjects to impress them, and to use the opportunity to feed his own intellect, if you know what I mean. He is extremely clever, I give him that; because he knows associations are as important as the substance itself. But I am certain even the fact that I know what he knows cannot help me get laid, and here’s why. The girls sleep with him because they listen to me and look at him. They would not give their flowers away if they listened to him and looked at me, or if I was the single provider of both sound and image. And my friend’s friend knows this very well. He wants to use me as a voice over, to imply to the girls that the intellect between his legs is associated with the brain in my head, so that they can pick and choose their fetish without having to go elsewhere.
Anyway, I attend the party to fulfill my designated duty. Looking around, I realize I am not the only Iranian in the party. Yes. There is another gentleman who is apparently filthy rich, and has found his way to high society through hard work and sweat, which I figure is a fat lie two minutes into the ball. He is most certainly a thief who has fled the country with people’s money, and has obtained Canadian residence by freezing a tiny part of it in a Canadian bank. He has a five-o-clock shadow, brick-stiff high-rising fringe, and neatly-shaded sides with three neatly skinned parallel lines like Adidas on his left temple. He is wearing a slim-fit jacket that is at least two sizes too small with a single button that is begging to pop, and will, as soon as he lets go of his pulled-in Iranian belly. On the bottom, he is wearing a pair of Micheal-Jackson-style trousers that reveal his ankles, a pair of loafers and no socks of course. After a few drinks, he is disillusioned that he is unbearably charming. So, he starts to go from circle to circle cracking jokes and getting rewarded with their laughter. It is hard not to laugh at his jokes though, because he is too loud when he tells them, and even louder when he laughs at them himself. So, people have plenty of choices to pick something to laugh at in addition to his joke. I also think they laugh because the analytical, ethical, and moral superintendents of all present brains in the party are now on breaks and absent from their roles. The consequence of this is that the poor chap thinks he is actually the soul of the party.
I may be wrong about other people’s judgment of him, but I am certain about one thing, and that is the fact that he does not realize how destructive he is to the coherence of my philosophical arguments. I have one eye on Friedrich Nietzsche and one eye on the clown, worrying he may erratically join me and the girl I am trying to mesmerize with my pretentious jibes jabber, and shout as a sign of camaraderie that we are form the same fucking country. I know if he approaches me, he will undoubtedly scream we are both from Iran, will give me a hug and will continue to make inappropriate comments about the success of his brother to pull such a sexy bird, which means I will have to drop Nietzsche and resort to Cyrus the Great and Persian cats to prove Iran has other merits. So, I often keep a good distance from him in order to isolate the brain I am working on from his screams and physical jokes. Yes, physical jokes. In a party where men greet men by gently bowing, and men greet women by kissing their hands, he goes about putting his arms around their necks and almost hanging from them, men and women alike. In one case, he even fluffed a lady’s hair to tell her she is soooooooo bloody cute. Needless to say, the lady excused herself at once and made a half-hour trip to the restroom to try and fix her thousand-dollar-hairdo.
Four hours into the party, I have hypnotized three women for my friend’s friend, who has scored twice through no fault of mine. Some people have left and some are leaving, and the soul of the party is shifting to the second phase. He is dimming the lights without the host’s consent, and is looking for his friend who plays the guitar. He is encouraging people to sit down, but since it is a ball, there are not many chairs around. So, he is basically forcing people to sit on the floor, in a gender-neutral fashion. After he succeeds in making everyone pan out on the floor, he sits cross-legged next to the artist, who he brought with himself as his plus-one. He looks down to convey the message that the moment is spiritual and that everyone needs to shut up. He then gives the signal to his friend, who then starts to sing Sad But True by Metallica. Well, I know the song because I don’t belong here. But browsing other people’s looks, I am certain more than half of them don’t know what it is they are hearing. But they don’t dare complain as the conductor is sitting on his ass facing them and shaking his head to the music; a conductor who has proved over the past few hours that he can fluff your hair without hesitation. Although I still keep my distance, this is the only part of his demeanor I can relate to not because I like it, but because I feel it inside myself too. Iranians are passionate people. If they enjoy something, chances are when they get tipsy, they will do whatever in their power to give you the same experience. If you resist, they will punch you in the face, kick you in the groin and suffocate you until you tap down in surrender. Then in a blink of an eye, they forget they were behind you throat squeezing life out of you, and invite you to see how wonderful the experience is with a wide grin.
The next song on the list is something more vibrant, which is designed to invite attendees to participate. It is a song by an Iranian singer called Leila Forouhar. I think the Iranian has seemingly forced the guitar player to learn the song, because he is from Lithuania and cannot pronounce the words in the lyrics. But thankfully he is helped by the Iranian himself, who is loud enough to mask the guitar player's wrong pronunciations. I wonder if the Iranian brought the guitar player for the same reason my friend’s friend invited me. In a sense, he and I are leg openers, and the Iranian and my friend’s friend are pipe wipers. I don’t like my role. But as I said, I cannot improve my image to match my sound, and I am sure impairing my sound to match my image will have even worse outcomes.
As I am hating the state of my existence, the Iranian gets buoyant with joy for being in his world and with forcing everyone into it. So, he starts dancing in the middle of the room and goes around pulling the-now-panned ladies off the floor to accompany him in the dance. People don’t realize it but his intention is not to have a dance the same way a gentleman would approach a lady with “May I have this dance”. His intention is to get as many people on the dance floor as possible, and he has three minutes left because the song won’t last forever. So, he leaves every person he violently pulls off the floor to their own demise, and quickly goes to the next person in line. People who have been pulled to the dance floor look around bewildered as the person who invited them is inviting someone else. So, they start to bashfully shake their bodies left and right to hide their embarrassments. Sometimes moving is a better strategy for camouflage than stasis. Then the Iranian goes mad with joy and starts shouting with the lyrics, which he has carefully chosen because it has a repetitive choir that is non-verbal, and hence everyone can sing to. So, whenever the song gets to that point, he starts shouting with it, throws punches into the air to invite others to sing along in solidarity, the same way a revolutionary invites people to throw punches in the air, and to repeat after him. People are tipsy and find it funny. I, on the other hand, am cringing my teeth in a corner, and am losing hope for the prospect of opening an extra pair of legs. So, I just focus on my pain and dismiss the last lady with a polite digression from deep meaning to small talk. Girls hate small talk. So, the moment I start to small talk, the lady is voluntarily dispersed and I get to direct all of my attention to the monkey on the dance floor with utmost vigilance to know when exactly is the right time I should disappear from the scene without leaving a trace.
Thankfully, the song that follows is mellow. So people go back to their original disliked position of sitting on the floor and the Iranian shifts to low mode. I think the last shot of tequila he was given when he was punching the flies, is showing him the power of Mexicans in transforming foreign invasion into civil unrest. I can tell because he has his eyes closed and is no longer shaking his head to the song to force others to appreciate the song he has seemingly picked. And every few seconds, he presses his eyelids together firmly and forgets to breathe. Then he remembers he needs air and takes a deep breath that meliorates his condition as long as it lasts. I think he is reaching the moment where Mexicans are pushing for a revolt and it is time for me to leave. My legs are on the move but my eyes are locked on the scene wanting to know how horrible it will be. I want to know because I have to decide whether it is sufficient for me to leave the party, or I will need to leave my apartment, city or even country of residence. But the risk is too high. With people leaving the party, the association between the two of us is becoming more and more pronounced. As the population shrinks, hiding becomes almost impossible. So, before it is too late, I tiptoe towards my friend’s friend, thank him for the lovely party and say goodbye. He is not as excited to talk to me as he was before the party, and I attribute that to substantial loss of energy, or to the repulsion of having to think about losing more semen, which is now my new association. To him, I equal loss of semen as of tonight. But I cannot care about that now. So, I just shake his hand and disappear in the dark and walk towards the nearest bus stop, which is two miles away. Rich people live close to nowhere because they have cars. I wait half an hour for the bus to arrive, get home after two hours, masturbate to the thoughts of the girls I talked to, and sleep hoping I shall never see the light of day.
So, we are sitting around the table, and as is usual in the meetings I attend, the discussion gets serious and the fun leaves the soul of every single person around the table, except my friend’s friend who sees potential in me. I start to talk about history of sexualization, the impact of neoliberalism on feminism, and the influence of individualism on depression. My friend’s friend likes what he hears, not because he understands what I say, but because he can use it to get laid. So, he invites me to the ball he is holding the week after. I think he likes to use me to get laid without having to learn the stuff I am talking about. He wants to take me to the girls he fancies, have me speak about complicated subjects to impress them, and to use the opportunity to feed his own intellect, if you know what I mean. He is extremely clever, I give him that; because he knows associations are as important as the substance itself. But I am certain even the fact that I know what he knows cannot help me get laid, and here’s why. The girls sleep with him because they listen to me and look at him. They would not give their flowers away if they listened to him and looked at me, or if I was the single provider of both sound and image. And my friend’s friend knows this very well. He wants to use me as a voice over, to imply to the girls that the intellect between his legs is associated with the brain in my head, so that they can pick and choose their fetish without having to go elsewhere.
Anyway, I attend the party to fulfill my designated duty. Looking around, I realize I am not the only Iranian in the party. Yes. There is another gentleman who is apparently filthy rich, and has found his way to high society through hard work and sweat, which I figure is a fat lie two minutes into the ball. He is most certainly a thief who has fled the country with people’s money, and has obtained Canadian residence by freezing a tiny part of it in a Canadian bank. He has a five-o-clock shadow, brick-stiff high-rising fringe, and neatly-shaded sides with three neatly skinned parallel lines like Adidas on his left temple. He is wearing a slim-fit jacket that is at least two sizes too small with a single button that is begging to pop, and will, as soon as he lets go of his pulled-in Iranian belly. On the bottom, he is wearing a pair of Micheal-Jackson-style trousers that reveal his ankles, a pair of loafers and no socks of course. After a few drinks, he is disillusioned that he is unbearably charming. So, he starts to go from circle to circle cracking jokes and getting rewarded with their laughter. It is hard not to laugh at his jokes though, because he is too loud when he tells them, and even louder when he laughs at them himself. So, people have plenty of choices to pick something to laugh at in addition to his joke. I also think they laugh because the analytical, ethical, and moral superintendents of all present brains in the party are now on breaks and absent from their roles. The consequence of this is that the poor chap thinks he is actually the soul of the party.
I may be wrong about other people’s judgment of him, but I am certain about one thing, and that is the fact that he does not realize how destructive he is to the coherence of my philosophical arguments. I have one eye on Friedrich Nietzsche and one eye on the clown, worrying he may erratically join me and the girl I am trying to mesmerize with my pretentious jibes jabber, and shout as a sign of camaraderie that we are form the same fucking country. I know if he approaches me, he will undoubtedly scream we are both from Iran, will give me a hug and will continue to make inappropriate comments about the success of his brother to pull such a sexy bird, which means I will have to drop Nietzsche and resort to Cyrus the Great and Persian cats to prove Iran has other merits. So, I often keep a good distance from him in order to isolate the brain I am working on from his screams and physical jokes. Yes, physical jokes. In a party where men greet men by gently bowing, and men greet women by kissing their hands, he goes about putting his arms around their necks and almost hanging from them, men and women alike. In one case, he even fluffed a lady’s hair to tell her she is soooooooo bloody cute. Needless to say, the lady excused herself at once and made a half-hour trip to the restroom to try and fix her thousand-dollar-hairdo.
Four hours into the party, I have hypnotized three women for my friend’s friend, who has scored twice through no fault of mine. Some people have left and some are leaving, and the soul of the party is shifting to the second phase. He is dimming the lights without the host’s consent, and is looking for his friend who plays the guitar. He is encouraging people to sit down, but since it is a ball, there are not many chairs around. So, he is basically forcing people to sit on the floor, in a gender-neutral fashion. After he succeeds in making everyone pan out on the floor, he sits cross-legged next to the artist, who he brought with himself as his plus-one. He looks down to convey the message that the moment is spiritual and that everyone needs to shut up. He then gives the signal to his friend, who then starts to sing Sad But True by Metallica. Well, I know the song because I don’t belong here. But browsing other people’s looks, I am certain more than half of them don’t know what it is they are hearing. But they don’t dare complain as the conductor is sitting on his ass facing them and shaking his head to the music; a conductor who has proved over the past few hours that he can fluff your hair without hesitation. Although I still keep my distance, this is the only part of his demeanor I can relate to not because I like it, but because I feel it inside myself too. Iranians are passionate people. If they enjoy something, chances are when they get tipsy, they will do whatever in their power to give you the same experience. If you resist, they will punch you in the face, kick you in the groin and suffocate you until you tap down in surrender. Then in a blink of an eye, they forget they were behind you throat squeezing life out of you, and invite you to see how wonderful the experience is with a wide grin.
The next song on the list is something more vibrant, which is designed to invite attendees to participate. It is a song by an Iranian singer called Leila Forouhar. I think the Iranian has seemingly forced the guitar player to learn the song, because he is from Lithuania and cannot pronounce the words in the lyrics. But thankfully he is helped by the Iranian himself, who is loud enough to mask the guitar player's wrong pronunciations. I wonder if the Iranian brought the guitar player for the same reason my friend’s friend invited me. In a sense, he and I are leg openers, and the Iranian and my friend’s friend are pipe wipers. I don’t like my role. But as I said, I cannot improve my image to match my sound, and I am sure impairing my sound to match my image will have even worse outcomes.
As I am hating the state of my existence, the Iranian gets buoyant with joy for being in his world and with forcing everyone into it. So, he starts dancing in the middle of the room and goes around pulling the-now-panned ladies off the floor to accompany him in the dance. People don’t realize it but his intention is not to have a dance the same way a gentleman would approach a lady with “May I have this dance”. His intention is to get as many people on the dance floor as possible, and he has three minutes left because the song won’t last forever. So, he leaves every person he violently pulls off the floor to their own demise, and quickly goes to the next person in line. People who have been pulled to the dance floor look around bewildered as the person who invited them is inviting someone else. So, they start to bashfully shake their bodies left and right to hide their embarrassments. Sometimes moving is a better strategy for camouflage than stasis. Then the Iranian goes mad with joy and starts shouting with the lyrics, which he has carefully chosen because it has a repetitive choir that is non-verbal, and hence everyone can sing to. So, whenever the song gets to that point, he starts shouting with it, throws punches into the air to invite others to sing along in solidarity, the same way a revolutionary invites people to throw punches in the air, and to repeat after him. People are tipsy and find it funny. I, on the other hand, am cringing my teeth in a corner, and am losing hope for the prospect of opening an extra pair of legs. So, I just focus on my pain and dismiss the last lady with a polite digression from deep meaning to small talk. Girls hate small talk. So, the moment I start to small talk, the lady is voluntarily dispersed and I get to direct all of my attention to the monkey on the dance floor with utmost vigilance to know when exactly is the right time I should disappear from the scene without leaving a trace.
Thankfully, the song that follows is mellow. So people go back to their original disliked position of sitting on the floor and the Iranian shifts to low mode. I think the last shot of tequila he was given when he was punching the flies, is showing him the power of Mexicans in transforming foreign invasion into civil unrest. I can tell because he has his eyes closed and is no longer shaking his head to the song to force others to appreciate the song he has seemingly picked. And every few seconds, he presses his eyelids together firmly and forgets to breathe. Then he remembers he needs air and takes a deep breath that meliorates his condition as long as it lasts. I think he is reaching the moment where Mexicans are pushing for a revolt and it is time for me to leave. My legs are on the move but my eyes are locked on the scene wanting to know how horrible it will be. I want to know because I have to decide whether it is sufficient for me to leave the party, or I will need to leave my apartment, city or even country of residence. But the risk is too high. With people leaving the party, the association between the two of us is becoming more and more pronounced. As the population shrinks, hiding becomes almost impossible. So, before it is too late, I tiptoe towards my friend’s friend, thank him for the lovely party and say goodbye. He is not as excited to talk to me as he was before the party, and I attribute that to substantial loss of energy, or to the repulsion of having to think about losing more semen, which is now my new association. To him, I equal loss of semen as of tonight. But I cannot care about that now. So, I just shake his hand and disappear in the dark and walk towards the nearest bus stop, which is two miles away. Rich people live close to nowhere because they have cars. I wait half an hour for the bus to arrive, get home after two hours, masturbate to the thoughts of the girls I talked to, and sleep hoping I shall never see the light of day.