Colonel Ariafar did not want to go United States from the beginning. He thought that now that he has passed the difficult period after the revolution and has gained good social respect and can somehow deal with economic problems, then what better to stay in Iran. But he always whispered the famous poem of Dr. Hamidi Shirazi, which Abbas Mehrpouya had sung many years ago:

When the beautiful swan wants to die

In the night of death, alone,houses on a wave

 Goes and dies in a very far corner , alone

....................

Folke  believe , this  beautiful bird

Where he fell in love, he will die there

You were  my love sea, open your arms

who wants this  beautiful swan to die

He wanted to stay in Iran and die here. His children considered his father's argument to be only a sign of his old age and mental disorder, and mocked him for comparing his colonel to a swan. For years, when people found out that he was a senior officer in the imperial army, they respected him a lot. Respect like seeing and admiring an old and beautiful car model that will no longer be made. It was as if he had taken off a piece of a museum and was walking in the streets. They admired him and were eager to hear his memories. The colonel was not in the mood to talk at all.

Recently, his face had become like the face of Anthony Quine in his old age. No emotion could be read from it. May be like the last days of Humphrey Bogart, the popular Hollywood actor of the distant years. With full eyebrows and broad forehead. There was an empty space between his short nose and his thick lips. His friends, in the old days, used to say that an Airbus can land on his forehead and a helicopter can land under his nose.

The colonel's last hobby in Tehran was drinking beer with the only friend he had left from his service. Major Rahimi was the deputy colonel and the only person who still treated the colonel with real respect after 30 years. They did not exchange a word at all during the weekly meetings. At precisely 6 pm every Wednesday, the colonel knocked on the door of Major Rahimi's house. The small table in the major's living room was arranged as it has been for the past thirty years. They drank Aragh Saggi in old narrow-waisted goblets in complete silence, and later ate cucumber yogurt with jam spoons as carefully as if they were performing a solemn mass in a church. The table was full of seasonal fruits and nuts, but they did not touch them according to the usual tradition. Meanwhile, an old AKAI audio player with a McIntosh tube amplifier made in America was playing the powerful sound of Marzieh softly in the space:

 am sad, like autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me

in love, pain, burning , total

 fell in fire , all the  day

 am sad, like a grim autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me

........................

 Of course, the 4th of Aban, the birth  day of the late Shah, and the 21st of Azar, the National Army Day, were exceptional days in this two-person banquet during the pre-revolution era. They usually ate better liquor and custom-ordered traditional food and listened to old epic songs.

With the sudden death of his loyal friend and companion, the colonel no longer had any entertainment in Tehran. His children also sold all his belongs and converted them into dollars. The last stage of this long project was to take the colonel to Los Angeles.

The colonel no longer had a will of his own. In fact, he was packed and taken to America like an old carpet that reminded some family memories. In Los Angeles, his children were lucky that the colonel became addicted to television images as soon as he entered them and did not budge from them. He had developed a strange interest in American football, but he did not understand its complicated rules.

He could not understand the logical reasons for scoring teams; He watched them without blinking. Besides these, he showed a special interest in the works of Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford (1961), which surprised all his children. The colonel wanted to stop in front of Mark Braford's murals as they drove through the streets. He stared for a long time and said: All these things smell of homelessness; They remind me of Tehran. Its children were just smiling.

After staying in America for a few years; His boring life began. He eats, sleeps and drinks, and of course he goes to the barber shop every week to "trim" his hair and of course his eyebrows.

His family sometimes took him to the restaurant like a tame animal. He would eat almost any food they ordered for him. It was as if he didn't understand the taste of food anymore, or it didn't matter to him whether the food was Chinese, Mexican or Persian. The colonel's family was used to this situation. The colonel was everywhere with a pale face and eyes that grew bigger every day as he got older, like Haji Washington, who came out of the grave and lost sight of the unfamiliar surroundings of the world. The story of the colonel's life continued with a boring monotony until one day the family decided to go to a different restaurant for dinner. As always, the colonel accompanied them with the gentleness and calmness of a native horse. The restaurant had a different decoration, but the main difference from the other places they had visited so far was the signs that were hung on the wall. As usual, the colonel was shouting without any special reaction; He was looking at the paintings very indifferently.

For a moment, as if recognizing a familiarity among so many strangers, his eyes were fixed on a copy of a painting by Ford Madox Brown (1825-1865). The painting showed the washing of Saint Peter's feet by Jesus Christ.

The official name of the painting, as his children later found out, is Christ washing St. Peter's Feet. After many years, the colonel envied watching Christ's sincere effort in washing Saint Peter's feet and the pleasure he took in the image and state of Saint Peter. What a bag it would be for someone like Christ to wash the feet of a tired person and what better than the colonel to sit in place of St. Peters!

From the moment he saw the painting, the colonel wished it was St. Peter's instead. This painting seemed so natural to the colonel that he saw himself among the apostles of Christ and watching the washing of Christ's feet. St. Peters was watching the work of Christ, and Christ was busy drying St. Peters' feet with the interest that he showed from all sides and only focusing on what he was doing. Ever since they returned home, he had been thinking about that painting and finding someone to wash his feet. None of the colonel's children wanted to do this. Neither his daughters nor his sons. It was difficult for them to fill a metal and probably copper basin with water and wash the father's feet in it. Finally, the colonel's little son volunteered for this sacrifice. The colonel insisted that everything should be as it happened in the tableau and that the matter should be taken very seriously. After the first wash, the colonel felt good. He found a peace he had never experienced before. Slowly, with each wash, he opened his tongue and his look at the people around him became warmer. As if the Japanese proverb "Your feet are your second heart" was applied to the colonel. After washing his feet, which was done regularly every night, he found a new and pleasant feeling and discovered secrets around him.

Amidst the surprise of the people around him, the colonel's tongue opened... His favorite song with the poem of Toraj Gohdan in full detail was flowing on his tongue during the entire wash

am sad, like autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me

in love, pain, burning , total

 fell in fire , all the  day

 am sad, like a grim autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me

........................

The ceremony of washing the colonel's feet gradually became a quasi-religious ceremony that was performed every night after dinner with the participation of all family members in the role of curious apostles and the colonel in the role of St. Peters and his little son in the role of Christ. When the warm water poured on the colonel's feet, he felt a strange feeling. The colonel's son patiently swirls the water around his legs and especially on the ankles of both feet. Unlike St. Peters, who was staring at the hands of Christ in the painting, the colonel moved his head back and felt a strange ecstasy. It is as if a pleasant warmth enters his body from his feet and after traveling the length of his trunk, it leaves his head. Since the feet washing ceremony started, the colonel stopped shaving his beard and slowly his face became like Saint Peter's, thick and jagged.

Every happy story will come to an end one day, and the colonel's passing will not be long. Neither his son nor anyone else bothered to wash the colonel's feet. Everyone in the house advised him that if he really wanted someone to wash his feet, why not do it himself. They claimed that they wash their feet every day while taking a shower. Why doesn't the colonel do it himself? Just like everyone else. No matter how hard the colonel tried, he could not make his children understand that the issue here is not just cleaning. It is a matter of treatment.

The colonel's mental condition went from bad to worse in a short period of time. At a certain time when his feet were washed, his body's bio-clock was activated and his feet demanded massage and lukewarm water. His head was hurting and he had the state of an addict who had passed the appropriate time for taking drugs. Now he was staring at the copy of his favorite painting for hours and every time he discovered something new in it. The washing of St. Peter's feet was so important that the painter saw and depicted the matter from the point of view of the washerman.

After some time, he noticed a light circle around Christ's head and wondered why he did not see it from the beginning. He stared at the faces of all those who were watching the washing of Christ's feet in the painting and tried to even hear their breathing. He tried several times to enter churches and see paintings like his favorite painting, but he was discouraged every time. The colonel had a language problem and did not know how to answer possible questions. The colonel thought that in all the churches, young people like Jesus Christ were sitting to wash the feet of the pilgrims. forgave. The colonel was no longer calm and  spent most of your time outside the house. He was just experiencing walking barefoot. What was the quality of contact between the soles of the feet and the grass, and more importantly, walking on the hot asphalt was uncomfortable but stimulating at the same time. Little by little, he found the pains of the homeless and the  their black dream . The first experience of sleeping outside the house was difficult for him, but he soon got used to it. He learned that homeless people have more non-verbal communication than long conversations. The appearance of each homeless person had as much information as an encyclopedia and there was no need to exchange a word.

The colonel's family had forgotten him. They were embarrassed that he appeared in public without shoes and socks and with his pants sleeves rolled up. Whenever the colonel was tired , looked at the image of St. Peters with a relaxed imagination like the images of men on life insurance billboards. He was staring. As he got older and more perverted, he tried to discover the secret of that picture, but he could not find anything. He enjoyed looking at the painting. A pleasure like sitting under a tree at midday in summer. He fell down the slope little by little. His health has deteriorated and he has severe coughs. Sometimes he would have a fever, but by putting it on.

Sometimes he would have a fever, but he would calm down by putting his feet in any water he got and looking at his favorite painting. He no longer noticed the red lights while crossing the streets. He almost had an accident with passing cars several times, but it was okay. Sometimes, when he fell asleep, the colonel remembered the officer's school and the morning routines. He wanted to walk with his old friends before he died. He was thinking that a car might hit him and run him over and he would not be able to walk. The colonel would fall into such a nightmare that he woke up quickly and found himself drenched in sweat and wet. At such times, he was more worried about the painting of Saint Peter's feet than his health.

Finally, the incident he was afraid of came to him. In the twilight of a Sunday, he was about to cross the street when the tip of a car's bumper caught his clothes and threw him over the fences on the side of the road. The colonel immediately realized that he could not get up. The car driver continued on his way and left. The colonel was most concerned about his legs and his favorite painting. He thought to himself that what is the value of life if he cannot move and put his feet on the ground. Chestnut stuck his head to the concrete tables on the side of the road and stretched his legs towards the road as hard as he could. The first car that passed by his feet felt the pain in his body, but he did not understand the passing of the next cars at all. The sky that was lit up, like a circle that was big at first, got smaller and disappeared from his sight. The wind took the painting of washing Saint Peter's feet to the side of the road. This time, instead of staring at the face of Christ, St. Peters finds the colonel's body. The colonel gathered his remaining strength in his vocal chords and whispered for the last time:

am sad, like autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me

in love, pain, burning , total

 fell in fire , all the  day

 am sad, like a grim autumn, forgive me

It's a sad poem, forgive me