Chapter 30. Are you ready for 30 Seconds to Mars references? By God, I hope you like Jared Leto.
Ziad ran. Admittedly, he didn't have much choice.
Let's review his options, for the record's sake:
Option A: Not run and be captured by Mr. Patil's goons for heretofore unknown nefarious purposes. Death and/or torture is a definite possibility.
Option B: Run.
Suffice it to say, Ziad chose option B.
Unfortunately for Ziad, he wasn't exactly intimately acquainted with the backstreets, alleys, or even main thoroughfares of Tehran. Naturally, he was lost virtually instantly.
Fortunately for Ziad, his pursuers would not exactly be ideal candidates for the job of "tour guide in Tehran." That is to say, they knew even less about the city than Ziad.
They got lost too.
Then, they lost each other.
Ziad was still running, though. He didn't want to be one of those stupid runners in bad horror movies who stops running and is stabbed/shot/brutally mauled/eaten/etc. while catching his breath. So he continued his sprint through the city, all the while imagining a really well-done percussion soundtrack in his head.
He stopped running when he turned a corner and slammed into something. The world turned over and for some reason he was looking at the sky.
Oh. He fell over.
That would make sense, wouldn't it?
He sat up and glanced around. He looked where what he expected to be a brick wall should be situated and instead found a similarly prostrate form. Upon closer inspection it was a young woman of probably fifteen or sixteen years, groaning and rubbing her forhead.
"Did I just run into you?" asked Ziad, rather redundantly. Of course he did.
"Of course you did," responded the girl.
"My apologies," answered Ziad, "I was running away from murderous people after I stabbed their leader in the neck with a pen."
"What?"
"Nothing. Wait, are you speaking English or is this another one of my post-injury hallucinations?"
"I am quite real, thank you."
"That's what the Room said."
"What the hell are you talking about?" said the girl, sitting up and brushing dust off her dark clothes.
"Well last summer I got blown up in Israel."
"You appear to be leading a rather exciting adolescence," quipped the girl.
"And you speak English far too well for an Iranian teenager."
"Says who?"
"Says me. I should know. I have a remarkably well developed, erudite, and eloquent mode of speech for somebody whose first language is Arabic. I first started learning English a few years ago. Come to think of it, I'm actually very surprised at how well I speak the language. Huh." Ziad contemplated this for a second.
"It's probably because I'm really intelligent." he finally concluded.
"Or maybe there's a higher being who grants a chosen few high-level language abilities in order to further the story that is their lives."
Ziad mused on this, "What, like God?"
"Not like God as in Allah, more like, say, a Clockwork God. One who controls our lives, but is separate from our mortal theories of theology and the space-time continuum," said the girl.
"Well whoever he is, he's got a sick sense of humor. My life is simply far too absurd of a tale to be real! Except-" Ziad pinched himself- "It so very clearly is real."
The girl stood up, brushing yet more dirt off her jeans before straightening her hijab.
"Don't let Allah hear you say that. He might send the Taliban here to fuck you up."
"Seriously? You even use American colloquialisms! What's the deal here?"
"I watch a lot of American TV."
"That's bullshit. I could watch korean TV all day everyday and still not speak Korean half as well as you speak English. And it's not like this 'clockwork god' of yours is simply too lazy to figure out a way to get us to communicate with some other solution for the possible language barrier than this ridiculous solution of giving you virtually perfect command of contemporary English."
"Or I could be American," she responded haughtily.
"That's ridicu- wait. Is that the truth?"
"No."
"Then how, I ask, do you manage such a strong command of the English language?"
"I learned it from an American from a very young age. Obviously?" she responded sarcastically.
"Oh." Ziad was temporarily lost for words.
"Have you ever, you know, heard of Occam's Razor?" she asked.
It was Ziad's turn to be sarcastic, "Please, I'm no Philistine. Although I could conceivably be descended from the Philistines. The point remains. Of course I know Occam's Razor."
"Well, think of that next time you propose the idea of a 'clockwork god.'" She scoffed.
Ziad began to get annoyed.
"Don't try and pull that on me, you're the one who suggested the idea in the first place!"
"I suppose I am, actually."
"Yeah, you are. Pay attention to your own words and maybe you'll be a more likable person."
The girl became miffed.
"Exuuuse me?"
"You're excused."
The girl sighed, spun around, and began stalking off down the street.
"Will you at least tell me your name?" asked Ziad, feeling somewhat let down.
The girl turned around. As she turned, a gust of wind blew a stray hair from beneath her hijab, and the sun sparkled in her huge brown eyes. Her full lips parted slightly. Ziad thought he heard the distant sound of that music that plays in bad romance movies when this exact thing happens.
"My name is Golshifteh. Golshifteh Farahani."
"Bond. James Bond." responded Ziad.
"Nice to meet you." she responded, completely normally.
"Wait."
"What?"
"Are you just going to let me do that? Have you... Have you not seen any James Bond movies?"
"What's that?"
"My God."
Alas, fair Tehran, thy lack of Blockbuster Video Rental Stores doth disturb poor Ziad.
Fortunately, Ziad didn't know what a Blockbuster Video Rental Store was, so in the grand scheme of things he wasn't actually all that disturbed.
One thing Tehran did have, however, was a copy of "GoldenEye" on VHS.
However, that VHS tape did not find itself in the hands of either Ziad or Golshifteh, as it was being jealously guarded by one Benjamin Weisberg, a CIA agent in deep-cover whose only remaining ties to American culture was his (secret) name and that movie, which he watched over and over again in the secret room in his apartment, slowly going insane and emulating Sean Bean.
So poor, poor, poor Golshifteh was forced to spend another day unenlightened. She still preferred her martinis stirred, not shaken.
Or at least she would, if she were either old enough to drink or a member of a religion that did not make drinking alcohol a no-no. Or if she knew what a martini was, for that matter.
Despite this setback, Ziad did follow Golshifteh back to the apartment she shared with her family after convincing her that A: Ziad would probably die quite quickly if he wasn't hidden somewhere safe and B: where else would she be able to get such fascinating theological discussions? Nowhere, obviously.
Author's Note:
Okay, I'll admit it. This is sort of a filler chapter. Basically just an introduction of a character I might make more important. Maybe. If I feel like it.
Also there aren't any 30 Seconds To Mars references, so if you're a big fan, I apologize. Maybe next time?
Also, if your name happens to be Golshifteh Farahani (You know who you are), what are you doing reading my piece of junk? Go back to being awesome. You go girl.
I should probably get more sleep. You guys think so? I do, too.