Migration is not unlike quitting smoking. Just like that, after a while, you forget why you quit smoking in the first place, and why you decided to migrate at all. What have you spent these two years on? What have you gained? If you had stayed, what would have happened? What would you have gained? Are you even supposed to gain anything?

For some time, more precisely after returning from my last trip to Iran, I’ve been caught in a stagnant, invulnerable state. My days have boiled down to waking up by force, going to work by force, working by force, returning by force, and sleeping by force. Except for the aid of a recorded voice saying, “Like a night bird, you sang and went.” That last part has completely worn me out.

These days, morning, noon, and night, I ask myself: should I return? Should I stay? What should I do? And I get no useful answers. If it were worth staying, I wouldn’t have come. If life here were fulfilling, I wouldn’t feel this emptiness. If staying here is just because of this mechanical life, to hell with it. If returning means going back to the miserable situation I left behind, to hell with that too.

The sounds of busy streets, exhaust from street wanderers, advertisements from the store across my house, the screeching and movement of the metro on the way to work, the drilling and construction next door, the motor on the roof at the company, the same metro sounds on the way back, and again the street noise, exhaust, and advertisements, these have completely stolen my auditory peace over the 24 hours of daily life and night, and apparently, inwardly and outwardly, there’s no escape from any of them.

There’s no doubt I need to metaphorically “throw some dirt on myself,” but my brain cells haven’t reached a consensus on the quality or quantity of that dirt.