February 14, 2016: Valentine's Day was joyful for many, and for me, too, unlike any year before. Because I realized the limbo between university and military service, normally stretching over seven months, might end in just a few days. I didn't understand why, but something had shifted. A rare opportunity had opened up: deployment could happen even before my turn on the waiting list. The most thrilling part? I might be sent out as early as February 20, just five days after applying.

But then came the final blow from the university. Thanks to a ridiculous law, they'd listed my graduation date as February 19, unchangeable. Deployment in February became impossible. So I waited, reapplying on February 20 for an April 20 slot. But thanks to the kindness of a semi-friend, I held off a few extra days to talk to people, see if there was any way to fast-track it. In those back-and-forth days, I ran through offices, agencies, departments… again and again.

On the decisive day, my semi-friend vanished. Defeated, I returned to register my readiness booklet for April 20, only to learn the slots had already filled up the day before. From that moment on, registration was only open for June 21. [If this were a movie, the camera would spin wildly around itself to capture the moment.] I signed the booklet. Walked out. And wandered for hours.

April 20, 2016: My request for early deployment was approved. I got my "green slip", the initial deployment paperwork. But because I'm outside the normal system, I got an open code: no unit, no location. Everything will be decided on the day I show up.

April 18, 2016: I always imagined, like in the movies, cutting my own hair in front of a mirror. But following Saeed's advice, I decided to do it with friends around, make it less bitter. The last time I shaved my head, I was barely eight years old.

I'm grateful to Mohammad, Afshin, Masoud, Arash, Vahid, Saeed, and Mohaddeseh for giving me their time. And I apologize for the curses I threw out without meaning them.

April 19, 2016:

Must pass through the Day of Resurrection
This mudflat I've seen is punishment enough for stone
The radiant soul belongs to another world… – Shahriar | March 11, 2016

April 20, 2016: My dear friend Reza came to find me and drove me all the way to my deployment site. I still have no idea where I'm going, and that uncertainty has doubled the pressure.

May 4, 2016:

- What are you doing, soldier?
+ I've been staring at the western horizon, sir. [What do you know?] Day 15 of service | First leave

As the last person assigned a random code, I was placed into the Army Ground Forces and sent to Center 03 in Ejab Shir for training.

Fifteen days later, I went home. You can't imagine how good it felt to sleep on a real bed.

May 6, 2016: Leave passed like lightning. I'm heading back to base.

May 18, 2016: Slowly, I'm adapting to the environment. Though that doesn't lessen the psychological weight at all.

May 27, 2016: Day 37 of service | Fourth leave
At least by the two-month mark, this phase ends, and I'll stop seeing beauty in any of it.

June 10, 2016: I hear what goes on in the shadows of the cross
Why do I fear this place?
I find lost people everywhere I hide
Look at myself.
Day 52 of service | Fifth leave

June 16, 2016: Sick and tired, I stand alone
Could you be there? 'Cause I'm the one who waits for you
Or are you unforgiven, too?
Day 58 of service | Sixth and final leave

June 21, 2016:

Cigarette after cigarette, you swallow the bitterest sweets with mint tea, inhale the heaviest lead in slow, broken breaths, drag out the longest nights until dawn, but you don't know why death takes so long to come. When did this start? When did each day grow worse? Was it autumn? What broke you apart? Why did so much pain come? This quiet village has no literacy. Quiet. Dark. – Abbas Ma'rufi | Day 63 of service | End of training

Turns out, I'll spend the rest of my service here, at Center 03.

June 23, 2016: In memory of the 19 soldiers from Kerman's Unit 05, who, instead of receiving their final leave on June 23, 2016, were buried in a valley.

July 1, 2016: Friends said military service is like a phone, its highs and lows come at the beginning and end. Well, the first high is over. Now I'm stuck in forced leave due to overcrowding, thinking about the next 19 months. I've realized: manhood isn't forged by physical hardship, it's shaped by psychological pressure, by finding a way to survive when you're completely helpless. That's why anyone who enters service without support and walks out alive? They face life's challenges afterward with far greater ease.

Day 74 of service | Eighth leave
Listening to the crickets.

July 6, 2016:

Now you must test whether your mission on earth is complete. If you're still alive, then it isn't. – Uham | Richard Bach

July 20, 2016:

My stranger's night, I am the stranger, not Lur, nor Orkideh, nor Dariyeh, I am the one who walks
They say the tyrant's gaze is sharp, but mine is sharper still
No hour is long enough, no breath deep enough, I am bound, I am chained
A cloud rises like a hand, dreams stretch across the sky… we are bound…
Let my pen never run dry, let ink flow from my heart's blood, O Bahman
And sacred soil of Gəncə, keep my name warm in your dust… we are bound… – Bahman Vatan-oğlu | Day 93 of service | Ninth leave

July 28, 2016: I met Sasan during Project Shahr-say. From our first awkward suspicion, to becoming close friends, it took barely hours, all thanks to the cigarettes we shared. On day two of service, I saw someone walking back from the tobacco kiosk wearing a uniform three sizes too big. Took me a second to realize, it was him.

Biggar once said, "In barracks, having even one known enemy is better than knowing no one." How much more so if you have a friend like Sasan? Thankfully, for him, and unfortunately for me, he was reassigned to Unit 121 after training. I stayed behind alone.

My hair's grown back a little. I've escaped, just a bit, from that awful state.

Day 100 of service | Tenth leave

July 30, 2016:

The woman I love is full of night, song, and chaos
Her trembling body shatters mine in panic and flight
One who picks up solitude and torture in her short skirt – Ibrahim Ali Pour
(who committed suicide near Ahvaz University a few days ago)

August 18, 2016:

When the roar of lions passes and fades,
So too shall this barking of dogs. – Saif Farghani | Day 121 of service | Eleventh leave

September 1, 2016: Death to time. Not to the moments I wished would stop, and slipped away like wind. Not to the days that pass like years.

Day 125 of service | Twelfth leave

September 2, 2016:

In my imagination, beneath rain that isn't falling, I reach home with you, from a street that doesn't exist.
You sit opposite me, exhausted, and pour tea into a cup that isn't there.
You laugh and ask, "Are you feeling better?"
I laugh back, "Yes, very", though you know it isn't true.
I recite poetry for you; words bloom into flowers, placing jasmine and lilies into a vase that isn't there.
I stitch my eyes into yours, can you hold my hands, among hands that aren't there?
Time comes. I beg you not to go, tears falling down the steps of a porch that isn't there.
You leave, and the house fills with your absence.
I'm alone again, with the memory of a guest who never was.
You're gone, and yet every day, I live this ritual.
To believe you're gone? That's not easy. – Bita Amiripour
(A poem one of my fellow soldiers pasted on the wall of the clerk's room)

September 21, 2016: Thank you to the friend who took a photo of us during parade and sent it to me.

September 22, 2016: Fighting to preserve my beliefs.

Day 157 of service | Thirteenth leave | Autumn begins.

October 12, 2016:

No one asked me why my silence hurts
For unspoken poetry holds no meaning
It's time to break free from time's chains
There's no compromise with the work of the age. – Abbas Khairabadi, 1973, Nishapur | Day 176 of service | Fourteenth leave

October 21, 2016:

Why did I dream of you all night? You'd just returned from your trip, tired, but happy. You sat on the edge of the bed, folded your coat, laid it beside you. We walked slowly through the living room, talking. You sat on the windowsill. Then you lay down beside me on the couch, legs stretched across my knees. My hand drifted to your calf. I bent down and kissed the sole of your right foot. You laughed. I was electrified. I wanted to tell you everything, to praise you. But you still wanted to leave. "You haven't even arrived?" I asked. – Abbas Ma'rufi | Day 185 of service | Fifteenth leave

October 27, 2016:

What good is night's union, when you're so delicate?
Even before you untie your coat, morning has already blown. – Saib Tabrizi | Day 191 of service | Sixteenth leave

Today I saw someone I shouldn't have.

October 29, 2016:

Life means you returning to kneel beside me, speaking sweetly of anything I want, so I can simply stare, awestruck by all that beauty. Do you understand? By God, if you only understood!

November 5, 2016:

When a person loves someone, they become lonelier than ever, because they can only confide in that one person. And if that person encourages silence, then loneliness becomes complete. – Symphony of the Dead, Abbas Ma'rufi | Day 200 of service | Seventeenth leave

November 14, 2016:

November 15, 2016:

In this darkness, I imagine a bright lamb coming to graze on my fatigue.
In this darkness, I see my arms stretched wider under a rain that washed away humanity's first prayers. – Sohrab Sepheri

November 16, 2016:

Your laughter is a delicate design meant to be seen.
The beloved's teasing demands payment in heartache…

November 19, 2016:

I wrote: "Do you know? If God were a woman and you appeared as a man, we'd duel till the end. I'd look at you, and shoot God dead with a bullet. Lady! I know you're a woman! I know your scent!" – Abbas Ma'rufi

November 20, 2016: Finally, I'll hang myself by your hair.

November 20, 2016:

How many deaths and resurrections have I lived now?
Burned for centuries in the flames of gods, drowned countless times.
Like the phoenix, Mother, I rebuilt myself from ashes. – Ahmad Kaya | Day 205 of service | End of Eighteenth Leave

December 2, 2016: Now I ask: which need does dying for your eyes truly satisfy?

Day 212 of service | Nineteenth leave

December 18, 2016:

"Margareta became harsher and rougher. In the room where the piano stood, she smashed all flower vases and artificial flower containers. She ran to the bedroom with a kitchen knife and, with savage delight, tore every blanket into pieces, shattered every picture frame. She didn't tire. Her weapon moved with such precision that sweat poured from her bare body." – Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov | Day 216 of service | Twentieth leave

December 22, 2016:

A cool breeze comes from the alley of my beloved…

No matter the cost, I got leave, and spent Yalda Night and my birthday with my family.

December 22, 2016:

Your image won't fade from my mind
Until what happens to me in longing for you…

January 3, 2017: Be fearless, you have nothing left to fear.
Be ruthless in love, "Our gate is not the gate of despair."
Center 03

January 4, 2017: You speak of life's emptiness, call relationships tricks of selfish genes, distrust every connection. But when you say my name, your entire philosophical palace collapses, and all I want is for the whole world to vanish, just so I can hear that voice again.

Day 224 of service | Twenty-first leave
(First self-initiated leave) | To honor the memory, I skipped the thousand-and-one clichés and walked out without leave. It was worth it.

January 6, 2017:

The wolves of the desert struck my clenched fist
They knew the rules better than anyone else

January 15, 2017: I am not dark, if my darkness is not sorrow.
A cold night in Center 03

January 16, 2017: They said: "Do your service or stay here?"
The soldier thought for a while… and took leave.

I'm Aras. Someone from Tabriz hears my voice now, after thirteen days of detention in the unit.

January 21, 2017: Day 226 of service | Twenty-second leave

January 21, 2017: Woe to the captive forgotten by memory…
Trapped… while the hunter has moved on.

January 22, 2017: Is spring coming? Or winter?

Yakhchi-ki San Varasan Ay Sadfeli Saz.

January 23, 2017: For freedom.
For sunny days.
For being together.
For a day when hatred won't exist.
Only eight months left to endure.
Eight months until the end of your 25-year slavery.

January 26, 2017: They took my phone. No contact with the outside world. If not for my imagination, I'd have gone mad by now. Pretend I'm not here. The war inside my head exceeds endurance. My roommate? Just another ghost. I won't surrender.

January 28, 2017:

How many of these birds have you gathered in your arms? I've come. I'm ready. You've stained my paper sky with your blood. Fly now… – Reza Baraheni

January 28, 2017: Oh companion who has no companion
Oh… guideless one who has no guide
Oh, there is no beloved but you… Burhan…
(Jowshan Kabir)

January 20, 2017: We are masterpieces of creation, witnesses to oppression, imprisoned, free from seven governments, thirsty for truth, weary of advice.

January 31, 2017:

"Just close your eyes. Don't speak your convictions. Come, walk a little farther with my assumptions. Look from here: what do passersby see? Two people talking. Across the street, two others, no one knows if they're speaking. Through the window of the house across, even our gender is hard to tell. Fall silent. See how physical distance still shrinks you, how your uniqueness gets diluted. Want to think big? Fine. Consider this physical reality: time and space are constraints. Transcend them. Then, water your dream and place it in the sun until it turns green. Don't you see? Your dream has only grown larger, it hasn't turned green. Let it go. Stop hurting me, I'm the dry tree on your palm. Coffee and cafes are temporary shelters between souls, not permanent homes. No! I don't want you to be realistic. I want you to be real, in the place you see. Let me take the dreams from your head and give them to you. I have dreams even more beautiful, grander, unreachable. Come, make them yours. Bite your tongue and carry them. Let Friday be my day. Let this office of dreams shut down for one day." – Hadi Pakzad | Day 228 of service | Twenty-third leave

February 14, 2017: Day 300 of service | Twenty-fourth leave

February 16, 2017: Time stopped at noon.
I have no complaints. I've grown used to your presence. I've grown used to your absence. I'm learning to accept every accidental meeting, every limp knee.

February 17, 2017:

Disgusted by you, disgusted by myself
I fight my wounded soul
I die with wide-open eyes. – Hossein Safa

March 15, 2017:

Praise God, I've seen your face again
From the sun's radiance, your beauty has lit my path – Hafez | Day 320 of service | Twenty-fifth leave (third self-initiated)

March 21, 2017: With you, coffee's bitterness turns sweet, and you don't even know it.

March 24, 2017: May your fall be blessed.

March 27, 2017: Some things in life aren't pursued for the destination, but for the joy of the journey. Sometimes reaching the goal is disappointing. Like climbing a mountain, the exhaustion after summiting lasts longer than the triumph. Like wine, the peak of intoxication is the most unwanted outcome. Like watching a film. Following a series. Listening to a song. Like love.

Day 326 of service | End of twenty-sixth leave

April 1, 2017:

If our hands cannot reach your hem,
We've pulled ourselves into your embrace of longing. – Hazin Lahiji

April 2, 2017: An elegant bud in the garden of grief, a single star in the dark sky…

April 3, 2017: I never mentioned your smile… I mean… you smile in a way… when you do, you never return to yourself.

April 5, 2017: Staying is as humiliating as waiting to leave. Six months to freedom. Endure.

The hardest days begin.

April 10, 2017: Leaving / Coming / Staying / Do you see? All of it rests beneath these feet.

April 11, 2017:

- "Is your heart empty?"
+ Is that what this feeling's called? Yeah, I guess. End of twenty-seventh leave | 193 days until freedom

April 20, 2017: One year has passed.
Day 366 of service

April 21, 2017: He who destroys me will be praised, whatever he does, no one will blame him.
End of twenty-eighth leave

April 28, 2017:

- Say I won't leave, so I won't hurt.
+ … Day 374 of service | End of twenty-ninth leave

May 4, 2017: "The result of my final battle between heart and mind? Not a good mistake."

May 5, 2017:

Of all the stories I never wrote, the one I love most is this: a boy and girl sit silently on a park bench, holding hands. Nothing else happens. Complete silence. As the writer, I'm forced to focus all six senses on describing this perfect stillness. This silence holds everything, their past, their future, promises, separations, reconciliations, a house nearby where sunlight forever lingers, and the birth of silence itself, the origin of everything. – David Al-Bahari (translated by Ali Abdollahi | Terme Bertina) | Day 381 of service | End of thirtieth leave | 170 days until freedom

May 19, 2017: Day 395 of service | Short-term thirty-first leave | Maybe the shortest leave in history

June 22, 2017:

Dumbledore: After all this time?
Snape: "Always." Day 401 of service | Thirty-second leave

June 4, 2017: Only I could see her.
Tabrīz. 138 days until freedom.

June 14, 2017:

No breeze has ever been born in your favor
None ever will again
The cup of madness and wisdom is one
Leave aside the wise and lover, walk with me – Fazel Nazari

June 15, 2017: If you feel a moment is the biggest event of your life, don't try to recover it. Recovery is the greatest lie.

Tabriz. Day 425 of service | Thirty-third leave | 129 days until freedom.

June 22, 2017: The wandering legends of your spirit / O heart, door to door / Draw near to their end.
120 days until freedom.

June 28, 2017: Degilim, iyi değilim Şükrü
Bu ne acayip bişey ya, benim kafam almıyo anlamıyorum artık, herkes mi kötü? ha!? Herkes mi kötü?
Nefret etmek, kötülük yapma konusunda üstümüze yok
Kötü söz söylemeye, iş çevirmeye, düşmanlık etmeye bayılıyoruz...

June 30, 2017: Listening to "Yokluğunda" by Leyla Bank.
Day 434 of service | Thirty-fourth leave | 114 days until freedom.

July 17, 2017: Breaking rules feels good when you're young. Otherwise, breaking rules two hundred years ago wasn't honorable.

97 days until freedom.

July 19, 2017: يَا رَفِیقَ مَنْ لا رَفِیقَ لَهُ...

August 9, 2017: The soldier was tired.
73 days until freedom.

September 7, 2017: Kafka smiled and told Janos: "We take photos of things so we won't think about them anymore."

September 13, 2017: Today I learned that my dorm mate from training, Morteza, born in Amol, died under the snow on his way home during leave.

Morteza, didn't you promise me? After this nightmare ends, we'll go north together? We'll walk by the sea, scream at the sky, forget these days? Where did you go, flower-boy?

November 1, 2017: Finally, it's over.

November 8, 2017: I was sure the exemption law would come only after I finished. But I'm glad it came anyway. I hope conscription is abolished entirely. I, the veteran, am satisfied.

January 23, 2018: My certificate card arrived. The end of the military service story.