When I told my friends the story, at first they fell silent.

Then Dr. Nazari asked,

“You shook hands with him?”

I could still feel the warmth of the man’s wool‑gloved hand in my palm.

I said,

“Yeah, why? What’s wrong with that?”

One of the other guys said very seriously,

“Well, you might as well have kissed him on the cheek! Maybe you should’ve handed him your money with both hands, too!”

And everyone who was gathered that early morning in Dr. Farzin’s pharmacy burst out laughing.

It had been a few months since I’d come to City A for my specialist service program. I was the first specialist in my field in that small southern town. The physicians’ housing was located inside the compound of the town’s only hospital, and they had given me the last house in the row of buildings.

It was midnight when I suddenly felt someone groping along the wall of my room, searching for the light switch.

I jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

A large, intimidating man stood there—

perhaps appearing even more menacing because his head and face were wrapped in a scarf.

He pointed a knife at me and said,

“Give me your money.”

Only then did I notice more details.

My small radio was by the door. In front of the door the air was cool, and I usually sat there at night, struggling to catch the faint signals of Radio Farda or the BBC.

He had tucked the radio under his arm along with the cans of tuna and beans I had bought just the night before, which I’d left beside the wall.

I said,

“Money?”

Standing opposite him, I pointed under the bed.

“It’s there. My wallet.”

He shifted the knife and bent down to pick up the wallet. Kneeling, he set the knife on the floor and began rummaging through it. He seemed so excited that I was ready to give him everything inside just for the joy he showed.

Suddenly he threw the wallet back at me.

I was startled.

My mother’s picture was inside, and apparently the poor man had been struck by guilt after seeing it—as if jolted by electricity. He looked at me pleadingly:

“You open it and take out the money yourself.”

So I did.

I began to wonder if I was having one of those absurd dreams that usually followed my daytime daydreams—those that turned my sleep into a one‑man cinema.

He asked,

“You from Tehran, kid?”

“Yes—with your permission,” I said politely.

He said,

“You’re lying. You look like you’re from around here.”

I said, “Thanks.”

Then I thought to myself—was that thanks for catching me in a lie, or for saying I looked like one of them?

He asked,

“That’s all the money you’ve got? Aren’t you a doctor?”

I said,

“Well, I don’t have a private clinic. I work at the government clinic. They haven’t paid us yet.”

He muttered,

“Damn… what rotten luck.”

Then he turned to leave. The knife stayed on the floor.

I followed him to the door. When he saw I wasn’t doing anything, just quietly seeing him off, he shook my hand and stepped outside.

I was still dazed.

I told myself,

“It was a dream, right?”

Just then, shouts and commotion rose from the square by the hospital wall at the edge of town.

The next morning it turned out that the city’s one and only police car—rarely seen even once a year—had been parked by the hospital wall at midnight. The thief had jumped down the wall only to find himself face‑to‑face with the police, who were in the act of handcuffing him.

Poor guy.

He really wasn’t a lucky man.

Hamid Yousefi