The voice of my interrogator rings in my ear:‎

‎-I will fire the last shot ..:‎

The line has multiple people abreast. It is warm, very warm. They make us run. We are ‎the extras. We have just returned from a three-question court session. But where are we ‎going? We begin to run. I fall and get up. One of my slippers is left behind. I am now the ‎last person in the line.‎

‎-Run, scumbag, you are worse than a dog.‎

Someone hits on my head. I run. I have become a dog again.‎

I bark whoof, whoof, … I am a spy .. whoof, whoof, “Islam is victorious while the left ‎and right are condemned”. I take off my other slipper. I feel the heat under my feet. We ‎go down somewhere. As I take my next step, I fall. Down the stairs. Others fall on top of ‎me, and some below me. But the stairs don’t seem to end. The Passdars laugh loudly.‎

‎-Get up, swines

It is a large area, it is half dark. Pipes run on the ceiling. There are people hanging from ‎them. ‎

They have hung them till they dry up ...‎

Again they make us run. We run, and run into each other. They twist and their slippers ‎fall off. They make us sit. There are more people hanging from the pipes. Some Passdars ‎arrive with wheelbarrows. They throw some of the hanging bodies into the cart. The ‎bodies are half dry. They will go to Hell and dry up completely. ‎

The wheelbarrows fill up, and they are taken out. A hand is hanging pit, and it rubs the ‎earth. A pair of spectacles are crushed on the ground by the wheelbarrow. Another ‎wheelbarrow twists and its contents fall over. These are people, people and more people.‎

A Passdar yells:‎

‎-Roll your sleeves up

 

It is illegal to wear long sleeves. It is a sign of corruption, they say. God does not like it. ‎

They yell.‎

 

We roll up our sleeves.‎

A fat Passdar holds a bucket in front of us. There are magic markers in them. We each ‎pick one. ‎

‎-Write your name and the name of your grouping on your wrist:‎

Everybody follows. All over Iran, people are writing their names. They have been writing ‎it for a month. First the religious ones. Then the communists. Then the Jews, Armenians, ‎Bahais, Kurds, Turks, Baluchis, adolescents, and the aged; then mothers and daughters, ‎and sons. They all write their names. They do this in the Dachau camp of Rajai Shahr ‎prison in Iran; in the Srebrenica prisons across Iran; in the Iranian Auschwitz prison at ‎Evin. After they write their names, they are taken to be hanged, in groups. ‎

They took their bodies at night in the wheelbarrows and dumped them in the trucks ‎waiting outside. The Muslims are buried in a separate grave, while all others, i.e. the non-‎believers, are taken to an abandoned graveyard in West of Tehran. It is called ‎Laanatabad, i.e. cursedville. Our bodies are thrown on the earth and trucks pour earth ‎over us. People throw flowers on us. Passdars push each other. They laugh with loud ‎voices as they pluck the best flowers of Iran.‎

‎-Anyone who hangs more, will go to Heaven the fastest.‎

They are sending us to Hell. It is hot. There are snakes and dragons there, holes filled ‎with excrete, they shove hot iron up our anus.‎

And they go to Heaven. Wide and large gardens await them. Beautiful women await ‎them. White, plump girls. Seven angels every night. They make love until they get tired. ‎Seventy of them every night. We burn in fire while they make love. We will burn till the ‎end of the world as they make love. They drink milk and honey from the streams of ‎Heaven. Sometimes they take us out. God laughs at us and says:‎

‎-Again.‎

We yell for merci and ask for water.‎

Brother Hamid and the interrogators show up and say:‎

‎-No.‎

Then come the fat guys to hang us. They Passdar clothes are dirty. Their hands are ‎bloody. It is black under their finger nails. They talk like hooligans. The court judges ‎bring death on a stretcher. They push the gold curtain aside. They bring out the Heavenly ‎half-bitten apples. Each is fanned by a thousand angels. The fat men bow to the death ‎judges.‎

‎-I have killed a hundred

‎-I killed a hundred and fifty, … one of them was from our own street, … he spitted into ‎my face … ‎

‎-I killed more … more than anybody else … one of them yelled, I cut his tongue and ‎shoved it up his … ‎

The first judge begins to talk, as the other murder judges begin to dance.‎

‎-We said and we said …, it was the gentleman’s order, … it was the order of God.‎

 

The hooligans shouted:‎

‎-And where are our angels?‎

 

Then come the angels. They fill the heavenly cups. The hooligans drink. They throw up ‎on the Passdar uniforms. They dirty up the angels. They push the angles into the Kowsar ‎pond .. .‎

They take away those who are in front of me. Then they bring in the wheeled round ‎tables. They put the men on top of the tables. At lunch, they ate on this table, now they ‎use it to hang people. A couple of fat Passdar climb the table. They throw the snoozes ‎around the necks of the men. ‎

‎-Allah-o Akbar … Khomeini is leader.‎

 

The Passdars chant prayers in unison and pull the tables away. The men hang in the air. ‎They sway. They are so many that there is no end to them. Then they bring in the next ‎group. A man approaches me. He looks at my hand and begins to laugh. He yells:‎

‎-Haji, come have some fun …‎

 

 

‎------------------------‎

An excerpt from my book under publication, “The Young and the Executioner” which is ‎being published on the occasion of the massacre of political prisoners in Iran in 1988.‎