Araz Gholami

In the late elementary school years, I used to get money weekly from my father. However, this money was barely enough to cover a week’s round-trip taxi fare, and since Friday was a holiday, I could use that day’s share to buy something or save it. A midweek day off or a snowfall meant more freedom, and even now, thinking about it excites me. Back then, I had developed a strong addiction to Coca-Cola in metal cans. The bad part was that the price was twice the amount I could spend each week. In other words, buying a Coca-Cola meant not buying anything for two weeks.

The result was that sometimes I would take the plunge and buy it, but from the very moment of purchase, I’d feel guilty and upset about two weeks of stagnation affecting my entire being. This feeling became so ingrained in me that even now, when I buy Coca-Cola in a metal can, I feel a strange discomfort, and sometimes it takes hours for me to remember that it’s no longer the guidance school days.