Page 45 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION

sector of Tehran. It is located in a narrow alley with a little stream running through it.

When I was about five years old, I used to sit on the stairs watching that small, dirty

stream, waiting for a fish to pass by! I even tied a rope to a branch to fish there. How
foolish! How hopeful! The sturgeon lives in the Caspian Sea and is valued mainly for its

caviar. The Caspian Sea is actually a closed lake and is getting more polluted every day.
The problem began after the Soviet breakup when the new countries around the lake put

aside any restraint in fishing sturgeon. I have brought the Caspian Sea to my grandma’s

alley to be with the sturgeon there. And, as in a nightmare, the fisherman comes out of
the windows above to fish us. I hug the sturgeon to be with her, to be part of the same

destiny. Under the net...it is a ruined dream.

CASPIAN TIGER

Acrylic and oil on canvas, 2011, 117 x 190 cm

In his habitat he was called the “Red Lion.” Actually he wasn't a lion, but I must admit

that he was red; he was bloody. The last one was killed in 1959, but there was no

funeral and no one cried. I don’t know where his tomb is to put flowers on it. I can only
wail and mourn his passing in my own way.

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