شیرین SHIRIN SHIREEN
The trees that stood guard on each side of the road that led to the house where شیرین and Farhad now lived had in recent weeks been stripped of their green girth, pared down to their brown skeleton, their branches stretching up to the sky in a plea for the sun to reappear.
شیرین left the house, immediately feeling her face grabbed by the icy palms of late October, her breath emerging visible in smoke-signal bursts. The few remaining leaves that hadn’t already been reduced to a mushy paste were scattered like the victims of a great battle over the winding bicycle lanes, amputees crushed under her boots, boots more utilitarian than anything she had purchased in a decade. Soon it would snow, the air had that singular electricity to it. Chilly pastels that hung lower than she was used to seeing in a sky threatened to erupt in a glorious display of technicolor.
