A stone bench, on the southern side of City Park. Autumn walks across the pavement, making the yellow, crumpled leaves dance.

He says, “Want me to tell you a joke?”

“Go ahead!”

He pushes his messy hair aside and moistens his cracked lips with his tongue.

“One day, someone says hello to a dead man in the street.

The dead man says: ‘Hello? No hello! Ma’am, I’m dead!’”

His sunburned face lights up with a smile.

“Another joke!”

“I want to go!”

“Just one more!”

The cold of the bench has settled into my body, but he seems comfortable. He has thrown a shabby blanket over his legs and is indifferent to the cold.

“One day a dead man goes home, okay?”

“Okay!”

“He wasn’t supposed to go, but… something happens and he goes. Then suddenly

he sees…”

Silence. The autumn dusk suddenly rushes over the park.

“Well? What does he see?”

“He sees his wife with another man!”

“Well?”

“The woman notices him and screams. She runs into a corner.

The guy just freezes.”

“Well… then?”

“All of a sudden the dead man bursts out laughing… he laughs and laughs… loud, roaring laughter… At first the woman and the guy are confused—they don’t know what to do… but when they see the dead man collapsing with laughter, the two of them start laughing too…”

His eyes fill with tears.

“They laugh… all three of them… they laugh!”

---

Note

I first read this story in one of the creative writing workshops I attended with Mr. Mohammad Mohammad Ali in the early 2000s.

The professor seemed to approve of it kindly. At that time, blogs were very popular, and it was decided that this story would become the opening post of our writing workshop’s blog, which Amirhossein Yazdanbod*—an engineer who was also a writer and later published a short story collection—had taken responsibility for.

Many years have passed since then…

Writers emerged from those classes—unfortunately, I was not among them.

Amirhossein Yazdanbod moved to Canada; I do not know whether it was before the professor or after him… In one session, I saw Yazdanbod and Mohammad Ali sitting together, talking.

Mohammad Mohammad Ali passed away last year…

And we continue circling through night and day—

still.

This story is dedicated to the memory of Mr. Mohammad Ali, who, beyond being a writer, was also a noble human being.

*Amirhossein Yazdanbod is an Iranian writer. He received the Houshang Golshiri Award and the First Book Award for his short story collection Portrait of an Unfinished Man.