Trapped Between the Tyrant and the Rescuer   -   in Persian   اسیر شدن میانِ ظالم و منجی 

By: John Kazerooni

A mother’s love is often the first warning system in a troubled world.

“Candle, where are you?” she asked, her voice heavy with concern. “I heard on the news there is a curfew after 10 p.m. They said if anyone is in the street, they will shoot.”

There are sentences that should not exist in any language. Yet some mothers are forced to speak them.

Candle answered gently, almost reassuringly. “No, mother. I’m just going to Butterfly’s house to get today’s school assignments.”

Homework. Ordinary, harmless homework. The quiet proof that life is still meant to move forward.

Candle and Butterfly were best friends — inseparable, like butterflies and flowers. At fifteen or sixteen, their world should have been filled with exams, laughter, and dreams stretching far into the future. Politics should have been a chapter in a textbook, not something waiting for them in the street.

“Then make sure you are home before 10 p.m.,” his mother said.

“Okay, mother-I promise!” he called back as he closed the door.

A simple promise. A small promise. A sacred promise.

The alley was narrow and dark, but familiar. Butterfly’s house was only a short walk away. He knocked, called out his friend’s name, and within moments they were hugging and talking about school assignments — unaware that the real lesson of that night had nothing to do with books.

When they finished their homework, Candle remembered the time.

“I need to go home. I promised my mother.”

Butterfly’s voice carried excitement. “Let’s just go to the street two blocks from here. People are protesting. We’ll come right back. They said if the regime shoots anyone, help will come and rescue us.”

Rescue. The word sounded comforting. Protective. Almost noble.

Candle hesitated. Something inside him wanted to return home. But curiosity is powerful, especially in youth. It does not announce danger; it whispers adventure.

They stepped back into the alley and walked toward the noise.

The street was overflowing with people. Anger hung in the air. Slogans rose and fell like waves. The boys did not fully understand what they were stepping into. They simply followed the movement, as people often do when surrounded by a crowd.

Candle felt uneasy. His mother’s voice echoed in his mind. “I promised my mom I would be home by 10 p.m.”

But the crowd had become a current. Once inside it, walking against it was no longer possible.

Then came the gunshot. The sound shattered everything. Panic spread instantly. People ran in all directions, searching for escape. But there was nowhere to go. Armed forces had surrounded the crowd. The exits were blocked. The night had turned into a trap.

People began to fall. Screams replaced slogans. Blood stained the street.

Candle cried out. Hundreds were surrounded by gunmen. He and Butterfly watched people collapse around them. Then Candle noticed something worse — Butterfly was not moving.

He held him. Shook him. Begged him. “Please, Butterfly, talk to me. What will I tell your mom?”

In that moment, there was no politics, no ideology — only a boy terrified of another mother’s grief.

Blood was everywhere, like a battlefield. Candle’s thoughts rushed to his own mother, his father, his siblings. He did not understand what was happening. He only understood fear. He was witnessing horrors no child should ever see — in a world where boys are meant to dream only of tomorrow.

Then a bright light fixed on his face. A man with a gun walked toward him. Candle wanted to explain. He wanted to say he had come for homework. That he had promised his mother. That he did not belong to anger or rebellion. That he was only a son.

He did not get the chance. The gunman shot him in the head.

Not long after, in that same wounded land, outsiders intervened — claiming they came to rescue, to protect, to liberate.

Under that promise, they bombed a school — and later called it a mistake. More than one hundred innocent lives were lost.

One killing in the name of order. Another killing in the name of freedom. One called the crowd an enemy. The other called itself a rescuer. Different banners. Different speeches. The same graves.

This is not fantasy. It is not symbolism. It happened in a place not far from us, while many of us sit comfortably in our homes, reading, reflecting, believing such things belong somewhere else. But distance is often an illusion. Violence does not depend on geography. It depends on fear, power, and the stories we tell ourselves to justify both.

When a government shoots its children, it calls it security. When outsiders drop bombs, they call it liberation. Yet for the mother waiting at the door, there is no difference. A promise remains unkept. A room remains empty. A future remains unfinished. 

And so the question is no longer about politics. It is about humanity.

What happens when power speaks two different languages — tyranny and rescue — yet delivers the same death?

What name do we give to salvation that arrives with bombs?

What name do we give to order that fires at its own children?

If it is not far from us — could it happen here?

And if it does, will we recognize it?

Or will we, too, find ourselves trapped between the tyrant and the rescuer?

Perhaps the most frightening truth is this: Sometimes they are not opposites. Sometimes they are reflections. 

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