Seas and rivers are not just facilitators of trade, but also metaphors, mythically understood by humans, of openings, of journeys, of cleansing, of hope and utopia, and finally of fertility. Tehran has it's back to majestic mountains and its face to tormenting desert winds. It suffocates in the metaphor of its own geography. By the end of my second year in Tehran, my ritual every morning and many times during the night was to look outside and survey the cars parked in the neighborhood. In politically oppressive societies paranoia is one of the smaller prices one pays for political activism.
Nothing is coincidental.
Every gesture, every move, every anomaly, and every event is a moment of grand, woeful design, and a potential source of danger. But all seemed safe that morning. The last few patches of blue sky were giving way to threatening gray clouds. Snow seemed imminent. I had to be at the minister's house by eight.