The old man and a Range Rover

It was the first day after I learned about my lay off news that I noticed I haven't taken shower for ages. The stress and long working hours along with the long lonely times in a Cafe in Kensington market thinking about what to do next had distracted me enough.

As I was turning the tap to soak in the bathtub, mom knocked on the door. I heard some scattered words among the noise of water pouring in the tub but few words were enough to know Dai Mahmoud is not among us anymore.  Later I heard, after talking for a good two hours with his daughter, while getting ready to go out he has a stroke and immediately passes away; just the way he always wanted...quick and painless.

Dai Mahmoud was -I think- the third youngest member of Malek family before my grandma but he was probably the funniest of all. When he was around, one thing was guaranteed. There was no way he couldn't entertain you with his magical stories. As if he had a big big binder of memories classified based on the age of the person he speaks to. As if Tim Burton and Daniel Wallace had talked to him before making the "Big Fish". We never cared how much our parents were arguing with us that we shouldn't believe his stories because we knew, by heart, that when he's not around, he is in the jungle dancing with giraffes and fighting with lions. It was weird because as we grew up there was something within us that urged us to hear more whenever he was around.

From the whole planet, he owned this old green Range Rover. It could be decently 30 years old but he loved it so much. I remember one day in the first year of university, he gave me a ride and I asked him if he has any plan to change the car to something more convenient and he started with a story that how one day as he pulled over to buy a newspaper, once he got back there was a hot chick sitting in the car asking him to go to his place. I remember the story was so descriptive that I swear I could smell Buffy Tyler perfume from my seat. Although that story ended with him turning down the offer and asking her to get out of the car but I'm sure if I was asking him the same story now, the ending was a bit different.

The last time I saw him was in 2007 in my short trip to Iran. He wasn't changed much. Still wearing the same old glasses, reddish tanned face and blue eyes and most probably a very distinguishable Iranian cigarette in hand.

Now thousands of miles away from where he lives I'm lying in the bathtub and my mom, through the noise of water pouring in the tub is elaborating about how he passed away. Does it really matter? Because I don't believe her! I know he didn't just fall and never wake up! It has to be some other way. Like he has left a note and is gone. Maybe to the jungle he always talked about with all sorts of animals greeting him like the prelude of the Lion King.  Who knows maybe someday we tell our kids "We had an uncle who used to live with lions and was friends with snakes."

In the memory of a man who made a snake inside out with one had!