Homesick Mosque

While he walked on the dim path next to the donkey carrying Zarin, Musa pondered his new fate. In the distance, the tall dark mountains stood with their jagged tops, puncturing the blue-black sky. With a fresh sadness, Musa reflected that on the Iranian side of the same high hillsthe town where he was born, got married, and ran into trouble with the secret policewas also waking to a new day. He figured that, for years to come, probably till he died, he would miss the place and its people as he would move farther away, in opposite direction, with more mountains and oceans in between, to separate himself from his home. As they climbed a knoll, Musa stopped to survey a cluster of mud homes in a beehive-like village, surrounded by patches of brown wheat and barley fields, farther ahead. To his side, the donkey, with its head down and the beads jingling, blinked its long eyelashes to keep the unseen flies away. The tall plane trees, their tops touched by the glowing sun, stood solid like a wall. Somewhere in the still dawn, a man from an invisible minaret called the faithful to pray. A pair of hoopoes flew over their heads, heading east for the high hills. Musa watched them with a sudden longing. Excerpts from The Gravedigger.