Please find here some of Anahita's writings that she has selected to share with you.

 

The Little Girl and The Thin Lady - Part 1 by Anahita

Rate: U

A lamp was shining in distance. The night was dark and cold. The little girl wrapped in a blue tatty rag was having her first bite into a half eaten sandwich. She was there on her own. Only moon was her company.

It was pickle and cheese today. She picked it from the park's dust bin. It was fresh as ever. A very lonely thin lady had her dinner on the bench every evening. She never finished her grab, and so the little girl fed herself from the luxurious left over. Sometimes there was half eaten banana for the pudding too.

Something moved from the far end of the park. The monster was approaching. The little girl sensed it. It always came with a shadow that moved away the silver blades of the blue moon. The little girl swallowed the remaining bite and took refuge under the root of the huge Oak tree. The long hands of the cold roots confined her like a protective mother.

Before she knew she was back into a world in which there was still hope to live. Life started to change for better when the thin lady moved to the neighbourhood. She lived in the park keeper’s shelter on her own. The shelter was empty as far as the little girl could remember. There was a huge lock on the gate which ended after a long path to a small wooded shelter in the far end of the park. No one ever passed the gate. No one was ever interested to discover what was in that shelter. It seemed like an old shed that kept lots of rusty gardening tools occupied by the ghosts of the past. There was a small lamp that burnt only a few minutes after the thin lady entered the shelter. From where the little girl hid under the oak tree, the lamp was the only artificial light seen at that end of the park.

Before the thin lady arrived, the little girl lived in more darkness and most of the nights she cried herself to sleep from hunger. Before the thin lady came to the little girl’s life, she never knew how warm it felt to stare at a lamp light coming from a shed window in distance. Before the thin lady came into the little girls life, she had no idea of how the creamy cheese melting into her mouth gave her the energy and warmth she never experienced before. Remaining of the stale bread crumbs thrown away for the birds by the children was her best experience of food.

The lamp in the distance went off. The shadows started to spread faster. Leaves embarked their nightly shiver and the wind began a symphony in G minor. The little girl closed her eyes and stayed still. A black horse popped into her mind as she fell to sleep.

When she opened her eyes for a second, the moon light was gone and so the shadows. She was lost in the void of the night riding a black horse, feeling the cold wind blowing her blue rag away. She rode her horse away from the charcoal faster and faster as she approached the city where the night gives away its hueless being to the indigo of a bleak icy morning, slowly and in a great pain. The dots of black ink started to spread across the indigo background as they began to give away their existence.

The little girl smiled as she recognised the silhouette of the trees with their fingers stretching towards the coming light. And for a lonely little girl another night came to an end and a new day started.

This is the first part of a short story by Anahita Saghafi - Art used in this story is created by Anahita and copyrighted. (There is a little girl in the graphics. Can yo spot her?)

Escape - A Poem by Anahita

Rate: U

I feel shapeless
You are in my mind
Bouncing up and down
On the surface of my contradictions

I try to forget you
To wipe you out of my head
To avoid my final tragic
Destruction

But you come back
Like hail in a hot summer day
To destroy the fruits of my escape
Unexpected

Ten Twenty Eight by Anahita - Anthology 2009 Two Hours Left Theme

Rate: 13+

Society always does not understand what goes in ones mind when they see unusual behaviour.

That morning Gill woke up to battle her own destiny. She knew that she was going to die that morning, exactly at 10:28. Gill looked at her alarm clock to see the dreaded 8:28 and the second hand ticking forward unbelievably slow.

Gill was going to die on the street that morning. She was going to be hit by a red car and her body was going to be thrown to the pavement while a young mother with a baby in a pram was on her way to shops.

Gill was going to look at the woman with open eyes trying to ask for help, but she had no power to talk. She was going to die with her eyes open and the woman was going to rush away from the scene as other started to make a crowd around her dead body.

It was two years ago on 28th of August when she woke up from the scariest nightmare of her life. She saw her twenty year old brother being attacked by eight dogs all at once. She saw her brother being torn and chopped to tens of pieces and each piece was taken away and eaten by hungry dogs. Her brother was backpacking in Germany that day. She saw the watch on her brother's wrist was thrown and got stock to a bush and stopped working. The time on the watch showed 10:28.

Two days later, the news arrived in an envelope with the remains of her brother's backpack and a watch that showed 10:28.

Gill decided she wanted to stop her destiny that morning. She decided that she was going to stay home and to forget about all the anxiety of waiting through the dreaded two hours, she decided that she was going to fall back to sleep with the aid of some sleeping pills.

Gill headed towards the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. On her way, she noticed that she had completely ignored the cat that morning. It was 8:48. She was up for 20 minutes repeating the nightmare in her head. In a normal day by that time she had already put the cat food out and had come out of shower, had a glass of strong bitter coffee and on her way to her desk to start writing.

Gill's last novel about the death of her brother hit top of the paperback charts one year after his death and made Gill a famous writer; something that Gill could not decide was good or bad. She started to write her second novel and to clear her own conscious she decided that this time she was going to die herself.

Yesterday she finished her novel, called "Gill's Destiny" and sent it off to her agent, feeling absolutely satisfied with herself, having the sensation that she had finally redeemed her lost dignity by becoming famous out of her brother's tragedy.

She went to bed early and decided to spend the entire of the following day shopping for a new black dress that she would put on her brother's second death anniversary, but as she was falling to sleep she saw herself in a red dress dancing in a dark room with dogs howling in the distance and as she started to hear the dogs louder and louder, she woke up with a terrible heartbeat, finding herself looking at the clock in the bedroom through most of the night.

"Meow," the cat started to look upset and really unappreciated as she saw Gill staring at herself in the bathroom mirror.

"Oh my god, sorry kitty, I am going to get your breakfast now," Gill took the bottle of sleeping pills from the cabinet and headed towards the kitchen while still in her bed gown.

"Today kitty, I am going to change my destiny. I have written it myself, so I should be able to change it, shouldn't I kitty?" Gill said as she tried to find the last can of the cat food she had in the cabinet.

"Although I decided to go today previously, but now I am going to stay, do you understand? Even though there is no more food left for you you dear, so you have to just drink some milk for today, but I promise to buy the best cat food one can ever get, but that'll be tomorrow kitty, tomorrow, where I live to laugh at death." She filled the cat's food container with some fresh milk from the fridge.

Gill looked at the familiar road outside her kitchen window. It was next to the window where she sat everyday to write her story. From that window she saw the four seasons come to life and die. She knew that nature was a game about life and death. The roses in her little garden knew well about this game and the old apple tree that dropped her half red apples to where they all gradually turned brown and disintegrated into the soil. Their wholesome roundness destroyed underneath the same rays of sunshine that gave colour to their skin once.

"I may be destined to die today, or I may skip it, but the game of nature will go on to be sure," Gill murmured to herself as she viewed the road from her kitchen window.

The cuckoo clock on the kitchen wall brought Gill's back to the reality of how slowly the time passed when one was waiting to fight the known unknown!

Gill decided that it was time to put herself back in bed, where she could spend a while in sleep when time slowly ticked away forward to let her know whether she would live beyond 10:28 that morning. She filled a glass of water with a few drops of water, enough to wash her sleeping pill down before swallowing a couple of them, just to be sure she does fall to sleep faster. Gill then made herself comfortable on the old tatty sofa she kept in the corner of her kitchen. She used this sofa every afternoon to get a quick nap before getting back to her writing. Today she was going to use it much earlier than that.

The world around Gill started to lose colour and got paler and paler. She closed her eyes as she last watched the clock showing 9:08. "Why this darn two hours don't leave me alone, why, why, why?" she repeated to herself as a few drops of tears started to steam down her eyes and disappear into the green fabric of the sofa.

"Your dogs were fierce," she heard in distance. It was her brother's voice. She tried to explain. She even tried to walk towards the voice. But she could not feel her legs. Then she started to laugh which quickly turned to a very loud scream as she found herself surrounded by eight dogs.

"I want to die on the road," Gill shouted, "I want to be killed by a car and die with open eyes watching a new mother rushing away from me", she screamed even louder. I don’t want to die here, being eaten by these dogs, piece by piece." Gill’s voice passed through the half open window. "Somebody help me please, I want to go back, go back, go back. I want to wake up. I want to live my last two hours of life shopping for the clothes I am buying for George’s death anniversary. I want to to wake up."

Gill woke up in sweat and limped towards the front door. She tried to open it, but it was locked. "I want to get out of here, damn it," she swore as she looked around for her keys.

Then the phone rang in distance. At the beginning she thought it was the door bell, but then she rushed towards the handset that was hidden somewhere between the sofa and its cover. Just before she picked the phone, it went to answering machine and a voice told the caller that Gill was away and they should leave their name and a short message along with a contact number so that Gill could get back to them.

"Hi Gill, I just finished reading your new book. It is pure genius. I am coming to see you now. I will bring the bubbly. We should celebrate. This will be even a bigger success. See you my dear," the phone clicked.

"Who wants the bubbly after they died," Gill picked up the phone a second too late. "What do you care about, nothing, and nothing at all. You just want money, my money, my blood money. The price of my life, and my brother's life. You know nothing about humanity, love, belonging and life.. You know nothing at all, nothing at all,” Gill sobbed as she dropped the handset back on the sofa.

I am getting out from the back door. My destiny is to be out there at the right time. I will die with my body all in one piece. I will be hit by a car as it was written and as it was proved to be true in my nightmare. I will die my way, not your way George. You cannot force me, not after I killed you the way I wanted it to be. Nothing of you should have been left at all. That bloody watch should have been destroyed by the dogs too.

The dogs were getting closer and closer. "Hey kitty, where are you?", Gill looked around as she rushed towards the back door. A fragile small meow turned into a scratchy scream as Gill suddenly grabbed the cat’s tale and lifted it up in front of her chest. "Here is what you get from me. That is all you can expect to get you demon wolves," Gill dangled the cat in the air in an attempt to distract the dogs.

Gill opened the back door and ran to the road. For people who saw her last few minutes of life, she had a cat’s tail in her hand dangling it around in the air, talking to herself and running straight to the middle of the road.

A red car blew its horn before bashing to some unknown object. A dead woman watched another woman rushing away with a pram.

"Society always does not understand what goes in ones mind when they see unusual behaviour. " Gill added as the last sentence in her book.

“Hi George, guess what, I just finished my second book!” Gill left a message on the phone as she looked at herself in the mirror. I guess the next story would be about my unborn child!

The clock on the wall showed 10:28.

No Hay Banda - A view on Mullholland Drive by Anahita

Rate: 18+

Mulholland Drive, Directed by David Lynch - 2001 is a film to watch times and times. This is a mysterious thought provoking monster of a picture that takes the viewer to the deep hidden tunnels of human soul, desires, happiness and sorrow.

Success is the name of the game, and so the search for identity and the craving for love!

Contained within the original DVD release is a card titled "David Lynch's 10 Clues to Unlocking This Thriller". The clues are:

1. Pay particular attention in the beginning of the film: At least two clues are revealed before the credits.
2. Notice appearances of the red lampshade.
3. Can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?
4. An accident is a terrible event — notice the location of the accident.
5. Who gives a key, and why?
6. Notice the robe, the ashtray, the coffee cup.
7. What is felt, realized, and gathered at the Club Silencio?
8. Did talent alone help Camilla?
9. Note the occurrences surrounding the man behind Winkie's.
10. Where is Aunt Ruth?

The film is starred by Naomi Watts and Luara Harring and yet another of David Lynch's films with characters playing in parallel universes of the same physical location.

Here is my piece of writing on the film. It is not a review as it is impossible to review this movie, but only a view that cannot explain the vast topics of human psychology and universe together.

There has been an accident. Someone is in the search of her identity…. An accident is a symbol, symbol of destruction… something so shocking and unexpected, something that can mess your life, your stability, and even your identity.

An accident may want you think who you really are, and what is happening to you. An accident may be the start of a self search, or start of a dream, a dream that you preferred happened, something that puts you back in charge, in control; something that you wanted to be, you dreamt of being.

In reality, things may be absolutely different from what most people want, and so it was for so called Diane Sylwyn.

Diane auditioned for the lead part she wanted to have in the film “Sylvia North Story” and she did not get the part, instead Camilla Rhodes had the part. Camilla Rhodes was the one owning the dream Diane wanted to have and the irony was Diane loved Camilla, so deep inside she did not want to complain, although she knew perhaps she was the one who deserved the part, and she knew that the reason Camilla had the part was not just her talent.

An there comes the accident, the shock. Telephone rings, Diane’s phone, the black one with square buttons next to the ashtray. Diane is set to attend a party. She gets a lift which is supposed to get her to Mulholland Drive. The car stops somewhere that we sawthe accident happened in the beginning of the film.

This accident is really happening to Diane. It is the shock. She gets stopped at the point of accident and she finds out Camilla is coming down the road to get her out of the car. In her mind she wants this to be her moments to win Camilla’s love… after all she lost the fame and the glamour, so she wanted to keep the love….As they enter Mulholland Drive, she witnesses a party in Adam Kesher’s house.. a party for Camilla by Adam, instead of a party for Diane by Camilla. And the point when they are announcing their plans is the breaking point for Diane’s identity…

From then she is in a loop of messed up identities. Diane meets the hitman in the Winkies…. She has money in her black purse and a picture… she claims “This is the girl.” A blue key becomes the symbol here…. Blue perhaps for death, for coldness, for showing “THE END”. End of something precious, as precious as life itself…. Diane asks “What does it open?” There is a guy at Winkies that is standing at the cash point, looking at Diane… Is this Diane’s conscious? Or Diane associates it to her conscious? The key opens a box… A blue box… And Diane has lost this box… Diane want to find this box..

A girl at Winkies is serving Diane and the hitman. Her badge reads “Betty” and this is the place that Diane does not want to be Diane anymore.. She had done something that killed her conscious … Pay attention how that guy at Winkies shown scared in the beginning of the film.. trying to figure out that ugly face he saw twice in his dreams was not true….. But that ugly face was true.. and Diane conscious dies when she realises that the ugly face was not just a dream, but a monster in reality…

By now, reading my review, you may have just figured out that everything in the film, is part of Diane’s fears and hopes….But the beauty of the film lies with the fact that it loops back to itself and gets convoluted with people who lived in the past…. This is the spooky bit I enjoyed a lot.. The fact that in Adam’s party, we figure out that Aunt Ruth is actually dead (Point 10 in David Lynch clues), but she was not a glamorous actress… in fact she wanted to be, just like Rita in the film Gilde, as pictured in her apartment in the beginning of the film….

So perhaps Betty is Ruth and Rita is Camilla… So there are two versions which somehow identical here:

Version 1. This version is what Diane wanted to be in the reality.. This is Diane’s dreams and hopes …. Diane becomes Betty in this version and this is the name her sub conscious picked up from the badge of the waitress girl in Winkie.

Betty arrives at Los Angeles… To live in her Aunt Ruth house in one of Hollywood’s prime locations, Sunset Boulevard.

She says goodbye to Irene…. But who is Irene..

Irene seems to be the most complicated clue to this film for me… Irene appears in the following scenes:

In the beginning when there is a dance contest, we see Betty (the successful version of Diane) appears as the winner of the contest, surrounded in fog and smoke between Irene and partner. (Point 1 in David Lynch 10 clues)

We see Irene and partner in the back of a taxi, laughing in an unusual way, looking happy. Irene taps on her partner’s lap….

Irene and partner come back and get in as very tiny people to Diane house from under her door and haunt her. This seems to lead to Diane’s panic, and finally suicide. (See version 2, where the ghost of Aunt Ruth plays Diane/Betty).

Irene and partner get out of a trash packaging thrown to the floor by the bum guy in the back of Winkies, as tiny people again.

So what is Irene? What aspect of Diane she presents? And where does she appear when Diane is her successful version of herself, Betty.

A flight to a new place means a new beginning, start of a new hope, a longing for a dream change…. Irene is with Betty when this change happens…When she is scared of the unknown in front of her…But Irene leaves Betty on her arrival and wish her success.. So is we say, Irene is part of Diane who makes her dependent on the comfort of others to face the unknown, and Diane wants to let go of it, and so Betty the successful version departs from Irene, as she want her success to be her own, not her dependency on others … Her success in the dance contest in the fog, was dependent on Irene,,, she was there sharing this success… Betty the new version does not want to share success… She wants to be the person who gives comfort as opposed to be the person who gets comfort… And there Irene goes in the taxi… separated…. Gone….

Betty now in her pink cardigan faces the new independent herself in a new place. She has this big smile on her face as she tell the taxi driver her destination.

Adam Keshers’ mother becomes Coco the manager of the apartments Aunt Ruth lives in… And Aunt Roth is not dead in this version.. She is also a successful person, who is out to Canada for filming…

But right from the beginning, this new version, Betty has to face an old wound straight away….. And she is completely on her own….Betty finds Camilla who has been in an accident and lost her memory…. She is in the search to find out who she is .. And Betty, independent and successful, comes to rescue.. .Here she is the one in charge, she is the one with power….She has switched places and now the person in trouble is Rita..

Rita is not real and we can see that from the beginning of her appearance… She possesses a purse with no identity card, but with a huge amount of cash, and a key, a blue key, a wooden strange blue key. What does this key open? There is no box to go with the key in the beginning…. But this key has a hole in the shape of a triangle….

Triangles have come to serve many opposite meanings, depending on which whey you look at them. They may mean danger or safety… They come to represent fire and water both, while depending on how they stand in front of you, the ymay mean male or female…..Especially in female case, they may represent homosexuality….

Now we start to feel sympathy for Diane, now Betty, trying to help Rita to find the box that the blue key opens….Why blue… Doesn’t blue represent the presence of depression and sadness?

Rita is lost and depressed…. Betty is in charge now… So she gives Rita the red robe (Point 6 in David Lynch 10 clues), the one that Aunt Ruth specifically left for her … Betty supports Rita and tries to let her find her identity and in the process, they become lovers, while the film tries to show in fragmented pieces, what Diane wanted to be the reality.

Castigliane Brothers and whoever Diane assumed were involved in the unfairness of her not being taken for the lead part, get to be ridiculed and get into trouble all through the film. For example, Castigliane Brothers, who somehow supported the blonde Camilla Rhodes, were ridiculed by showing the spit of the espresso over the napkin. The cowboy is another example.

In the process of searching her identity, Rita and Betty visit Diane Sylvin’s house, where they found Diane’s body decaying after committing suicide. Rita seems to be somehow responsible for Diane’s suicide, and so she feels she is her killer, and this leads her to change her hair style and put on a wig, and this wig makes her to look like Diane. They sleep after this event and become lovers and as this unity happens, somehow an awakening makes Rita to take Betty to club Silencio, where Betty who was all smiling, all happy all the way, suddenly becomes depressed and cries, as she come to realise all this was a dream… a tape, no hay banda… And that is the point that a box appears in Diane’s purse…. A box that will lead to Rita’s identity. But when they get back to get the key and reveal the secret, the film folds back in time, as the box drops on the old carpet and Aunt Ruth comes in the room looking as she heard something…. But we all know that Ruth was dead.

And this all leads to the second version of story.

Version 2. This is exactly as the first version with a small difference… Diane is actually substitute for Ruth, who committed suicide and her spirit has come back in future. And Camilla is Rita, Ruth’s version of Camilla, all very convoluted as I explained in the beginning.

The film finishes with the appearance of the blue hair lady in club Silencio, to remind us again that: no hay banda… It was all a tape, all recorded, an illusion ….

When God Fell to Sleep! A Short Sci-Fi Story by Anahita

Rate: 13+

*Happiness is not something found in science labs or even the heaven. Happiness is when we unlock closed doors and create something extraordinary.*

On a clear starry night, a black hole was about to open its gateway to a timeless tick. The universe was at its quietest moment ever. God was asleep and didn’t know that one of his naughtiest children was about to find his way out of the eternity.
There was a gate and the key to open it was locked in the infinity of repeated mirrors.

“What is behind there?” Jack remembered asking his father.
“Nothingness,” He replied.

“What is nothingness?”
“Absolute void, my son.”
“Can I see it?”
“No.”
“Can I go there?
“No. It is forbidden.”
“Why?”
“Because of time.”
“Time?”
“Yes, my son. Time is a weapon. It will kill you.”
“Kill me. Then what happens.”
“Nothingness.”
“I want the key to there dad,” Jack said.
God smiled: “That gate is not an exit. It is an entrance.”
“You mean we can’t go outside?”
“No, because we are already outside living in infinity”
“Show me a way to there dad,” Jack begged his father.
“You see those two mountains in the distance facing each other my child?” God said in doubt.
“Yes….”
“They are made of mirrors…,” He continued.
“Yes…,” Jack said impatiently.
“The key to the gate is between them. No body can unlock the gate without that key.” God knew deep inside that Jack also would not be able to get the key.

But Jack did. When everybody was lost in the fake reflections, Jack reached the mountains and found millions of virtual keys floating in space. But which one was real? Jack covered the mountains and there it was, one key to his freedom.

Jack instantly was on Earth and soon he figured out that he was invisible within human world. Jack decided then to be a human!

Soon he met a lonely girl, called Lily. A small built, shy research fellow at the Central University, Lily seemed to live in her physics lab.

“Can I …..help …..?” Lily asked while shaking from the shock.

“Hello! My name is Jack.”
“How…. I mean how… did….”
“This is not the first time I pass the locked doors,” Jack smiled and looked into Lily’s eyes.

Lily looked down and blushed. Jack entered Lily’s world.

“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do,” Jack replied knowing it was very important for an Earthling woman to be loved.
“My mum always said that, somewhere out there in that starry sky, there is a star for you,” Lily whispered to Jack’s ears,” I became a cosmologist to find my star, never knowing that mine was actually so near to me,” she continued.
“Where you thought your star was?” Jack replied with his fake human voice.
“The universe is so vast. You never know, you could be living beyond time,” Lily joked.

One hot summer, when Jack and Lily were kissing each other under the umbrella of a starry night in the rose garden, Lily started to cry.

“Why you are crying?” Jack wanted to know.
“I am so lonely, even with you, even in my rose garden, even with all these stars twinkling their smiley little faces at me,” Lily murmured.

Instantly Jack realised that he never saw Lily so unhappy. With his absolute knowledge Jack was still a child of God and therefore lacking a sense… sense of feelings. Jack knew that he had to cry and he had to laugh, but he was just a player on Earth, nothing more. 

“I long for a child,” Lily said all of a sudden.
“I don’t understand,” Jack said in shock, but Lily was already asleep.
“Father… Help me if you can hear me, I want to live on Earth with Lily. She is mine and I am hers. But why? Why you do not let me? Why?” Jack found himself pondering around between the rose bushes and jasmine trees, not feeling what Lily always described as sweet smell of jasmines and soft petals of red roses. For Jack the garden was a frozen photo.

“Why did you leave me?” God answered.
“Because I hate closed doors,” Jack howled.
“You are behind one now….” God smiled in his absolute calmness, “find your way out.”

When the first rays of sunshine sparkled over an early morning dew of a distant rose bud, Jack knew he found his key. He picked a jasmine flower and rushed towards the glittering rose. Jack poured his invisible blood over the jasmine petals.

And there it was, a spark went from Jack’s finger to his heart and he felt butterflies in his stomach. Something started to beat inside his chest. His face started to warm up and before his eyes the whole garden was on a sudden bloom with jasmine petals snowing over the fiery roses. Jack inhaled the air. There was something there he never experienced before; the sweet scent of jasmines! For the first time he felt the rose’s soft velvety skin, when he kissed it.

“I am human,” he screamed from happiness, as he tasted the salty tear on his warm lips.

Over at the gateway to Jack’s world, a black hole disappeared forever. God was sleep again and did not see Jack unlocking the gate to Lily’s eternal happiness.

"Anahita RainStar"