The Story of Third Person Singular, Absent and Deceased
Short story by "Mohammad Reza PourJafari", Iranian writer and translator
Reprinted from: Global Seminar of Fiction and Dialog Among Cultures, Farokh Negar Pub., Karnameh, Negar EskandarFar, 2004









You may call it a story or an essay or a poem or maybe a cool joke or nonsense. You are free at will. Be. You are free. Like breeze or hail storm. But, you are standing in front of me, the third person singular, and the other "he", of "him". I swear that I am not acting. Because, I have written a story about the late third person singular, a prisoner of our thoughts for thousands of years.

I don't know about you. I have freed him. The same one burdening your all sins on his shoulders. Your egotism deceitfulness, jealousy, retard ness and corrupts. Yes even, Personality Corruptness. Even your heroics and abilities for the hear of it possibility to be considered as sin. The he sits at the table or on the floor, lying or writing in dreams, the past stories that never occurred and never occurs, put as burden on his shoulders. A good storyteller, isn't he? You are not double dealer, he is. Violent and the one who makes war between people. You yourself are coward, but you call him coward. It is good that you consider your reputation. This is another deceit. You attribute bravery and self-sacrifice to him. You know this adjective is equal to foolishness.

He is the one. You are not. You take him where you want. You pass him in gangs to kill in cold blood. You like him this way and you say he has done. In necessity, even otherwise, you write big books in one thousand and two thousands and more pages. You put whatever you want on his shoulder. He is your real self; you are caricature at most. You use past tense and past perfect to avoid being caught red handed. You have considered it: If you say, "He does."

One might ask. How do you know? What do you do for him as a reasonable cause? What do you do for other "He"s?

You see that it is impossible to deal with it. But, when you use past tense, everything is dead. And you can say whatever you whish. Because, there is nobody to try you. Besides, when you are asked, you can tell that there is a written confess of late "He", and you have seen it. If somebody wants to see it, you will claim that his people destroyed it. All these will make a story and you can call "him" guilty, for that.

But, he is free now. I cross my fingers I swear that he is "me". The very self of me. I have decided, he will read you a story, my cowardice is equal to his brevity. Today, I gain the price of my deceit and pass it as a privilege.

From today on, I have decided not to say: He was Hassan, Taqi said, an official life, a merchant bankrupt. All these people are still living.

I am tired of introducing a third person singular as the cause of failures. Third person singular has helped me a lot. And saved me. I have done many things in secrecy and he has compensated. I oppressed everyone as I could, and everyone has oppressed me as he could, and I have accepted.

But, third person singular, the distinguished He, who has an immortal life and his endless abilities in everything burdens our sins. No sir, I could continue. Fifty years has passed and he was the sole rider.

Fifty years has gone away. He should disappear. I want to carry out my own burden my cross at the poet says. I don't need a savoir. We have destroyed the world. The destruction is due to the third person singular. It seems that he invades all the time, puts fire in everything and watches us in an unknown corner and mocks us. I do not participate in this destruction. Yes sir. You claim you are responsible for building the world. But, why is it so ugly? Isn't it for such an ugliness that you attribute everything to him? I will not contribute to this building, either. Otherwise we accept that everything is our own responsibility, and "He", the most common character of theses periods, is not guilty.

I claim here, in a loud voice. I apologize for all torture, cruelty, cowardice and most of all his foolishness. I you have accompany him, please relate my apology to him. I think he is the very person, like very free men, free for choosing his own desired life. I have freed him. What about you?


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