Apocalypse

I am watching a disintegration — a drawing near to abstraction, an emptying of reference, and a fading of meaning. All of this, as long as I do not think about the context; as long as I do not look at the name and number written on the margin of the Polaroid, and do not remember.

But the moment that condition breaks, meaning awakens, memory is stirred, and bitterness fills my mouth — even though the tangible presence of that collective memory is nowhere to be seen in this decaying landscape. That memory perhaps belongs to somewhere in the scorched middle of the image. Its evocation, however, hangs on that name and number — trapped in that date and location. The image imprinted on the corrupted paper may be dark, burned, and deteriorating, but what it awakens is as clear and certain as the very existence of this small photograph.

Even if those crowded streets and tall buildings of Tehran were to burn down completely, even if the sun were to collapse, and nothing remained in the sky but the last rays of its red light — I would still remember you, and people like you. I mourn for you, even if many years have passed. I clench the hand of my memory to guard the thought of you — in the sweltering heat of the apocalypse.