In an old room, on a clean wooden floor, I was playing with my doll Susie, waiting for my parents to finalize their divorce papers. I wasn’t cold, just a little girl trying to make friends with her dolls and go to an imaginary world where it was just me, them, lots of chocolate and tea parties.
I wasn’t aware enough to realize that I was spending weeks in different homes. My mother didn’t have much money, but she held on to custody of me. She believed that my father wouldn’t be able to raise me properly. He cared only for his endless work, never had time to satisfy her longing for the kind of love shown in those romantic films she watched every evening, and was never there—not for her, not for me.
Despite the foolishness of both of them and their neglect of what family means to a little girl still learning to braid her doll’s hair, my mother initially did her best to raise me well. Perhaps she struggled greatly—between managing the money for our lives and making sure she would not become, like my father, a figure of neglect, while still carving out time for her only daughter. But I was like her too, a starved child who longed for a love multiplied many times more than what she had wanted from my father. Perhaps we are creatures that feed primarily on attention… I do not know.
Yet as the months and seasons gathered into a crowd that marched on before me, my loneliness began to grow little by little, and I came to realize how hard life is when you live between your parents but not with both of them. Harder still were those visits to my father, which I kept eagerly waiting for, only to find him spending every hour cursing my mother. I know you couldn’t stand each other anymore, but listening to your words was never the answer, Father!
I had never truly cried before. Not because life had been kind, but because I had grown used to carrying things quietly. Yet that night, after I had returned from a visit to my father’s house, after too many small heartbreaks and too many evenings spent alone, something inside me finally gave way.
I cried until I felt as though my breath would break, for crying was a new and difficult experience for me. As my tears fell, they revived the dread I had buried long ago, of the monster beneath my bed that would drag me down and devour me. So terrified I became that I called out for my mother to save me, but she, exhausted from work, slept in a deep slumber. And when I finally asked a question that my ten years had given voice to: what should a girl as small as I do to grow strong enough, at least, to sleep without fear? Suddenly a green glimmer of hope came to me, and I heard words carried by the wind, whispered by a fairy close to my ear:
“Do you know that a four-leaf clover brings good luck?”
“What is a clover?”
“It’s the favourite flower of the elves, my child.”
“And how can I find it?”
“You needn’t struggle so much, my child, for I will give you the clover as a gift. Place it among your strands of hair so it will be close to your thoughts and able to hear you well. Just hold on to your dreams and your hopes.”
“And how does it work? How can I make it work?”
“It works as it is, on its own, with its four leaves: one for love, one for hope, one for trust, and in the fourth lives luck.”
“Luck lives there!”
My fairy faded away then, taking with her my tears and my fear. As for me, I stood before the mirror for a moment, studying the small clover leaf resting in my hair. Then I sat quietly, confiding in it my troubles, hoping it might speak or even weep—but it remained the same, silent and still. At last I drifted off, overcome by drowsiness, and woke the next morning to find my father preparing breakfast for us! I leapt up, happiness trembling inside me.
“Mother! Mother! It’s the clover leaf… it has brought back our joy and brought back Father!”
“What are you saying, my dear? You’ve made me laugh! Now hurry, I’ve already let you sleep longer than I should have. Eat quickly so I can take you to school. We don’t have much time left.”
From that moment I began to believe in my friend, the clover. She was not much of a talker, but she would do so much for my happiness. And perhaps I was still too young to understand just how heavily the days had weighed on me… yet in truth, they had.
Two full years later, I was blessed with a little brother—so sweet and beautiful—my only companion who stayed by my side, sharing my moments and my games. Both of us wanted to spend a lifetime laughing, always standing together. His name was Evan, so close to mine, too, which I had kept hidden until this very moment—for I am Eva. Not only were our names alike, but my brother himself became another world that held me through every moment. And most wonderful of all, my heart beat for him at all times. Even the lucky clover came to love him, granting him his wishes. Of course it did. He was my little brother. It would be hard for anyone not to love him.
And from that time on, the seasons poured down upon the years of my life like rain, until I became a young woman of nineteen springs—a young woman who, at the very least, could be called truly fortunate. But to be fortunate, especially to such an extent, does not bring true happiness. Deep in my chest I was certain I was nothing but naive and hollow, for the truth of things reveals itself in the effort one spends to attain them. Yet I had never struggled, never even understood the meaning of struggle. Whatever I saw and desired, I obtained, just like that, in all its simplicity.
And I could see this reflected in people’s eyes: everyone around me looked at me as though I held the keys to life itself, as though I were the winning ticket in a lottery that would never be drawn again. None of them knew that inside I was empty—like a lavish gift box, but utterly void within. Sometimes I wondered whether the life I had was ever truly mine, or whether I had stumbled into a happiness I had done nothing to deserve.
I began to hate the clover. Yes… I began to hate it. I felt it hiding among the strands of my hair, watching my thoughts, smiling when I succeeded—as if it were the one who deserved the applause, not I. As if I were nothing more than the façade of some power beyond me.
I screamed silently inside: “I am the one who studied, I am the one who wrote, I am the one who dared to love! Why does everything come true only because a green leaf chose to rest near my head?”
And thus began the struggle, a relentless battle within me. Between myself and my own being, between my true ambition and that shadow trailing me, that so-called luck which robbed me of the sweetness of achievement. Until, in a moment of defiance filled with anger and sorrow, I decided to tear it away. To rip the clover from my head. To free myself from its grip, even if it cost me everything.
When my fingers touched it, my fairy appeared. She was furious—never before had I seen her like that. No longer a gentle light, but a green storm, her eyes blazing with reproach.
“Eva! Stop! Don’t let your pride ruin what you have!”
“I have nothing! Everything I thought was mine was of your making!”
“But you are happy!”
“No! I was deceived!”
“You will regret this…”
And with those words, she vanished. Disappeared just as she had come. And I remained alone, my hand still clutching the lucky leaf. Then I pulled it free—ripped it out—and threw it to the ground. And in that moment… everything changed. Everything that had once felt tangible began to dissolve. My room, my toys, the pictures from my birthdays… all of it melted away like a dream at the first ray of sunlight. And Evan—
I ran, searching for him, calling his name, screaming it until my vocal cords nearly tore apart. But no one answered. He was gone as if life itself had decided to rewind time and correct an unintended mistake—one named Evan.
My brother had never existed. He had been part of the luck… part of the leaf. Suddenly I found myself with only my mother, no warm home, no memories, no family’s embrace.
I grew up, alone, in a cold house. And my mother was no longer the woman I had once seen. With time, she grew pale, exhausted, hating me in silence. “If it weren’t for you, I would have been a happy woman.” She said it one evening without even looking at me. And I knew she meant it.
As for me… I no longer knew who I was. I tried to piece together a life from the remnants of imagination, sometimes envisioning Evan—laughing, playing, whispering secrets that no longer had a place. But the truth was too heavy to bear. I withered little by little, until I withered completely.
And in my final moments, I no longer resisted. I no longer dreamed. I closed my eyes… and surrendered.
But the earth did not forget…
At my grave, countless clovers sprouted—all with four leaves, all whispering of hope. And in the heart of spring, among the sleeping grass, she appeared… my fairy.
But she was not as she had been.
She was me.
I was the luck. I was the fairy.
I was the one who had searched everywhere, never realizing that the thing standing between me and happiness had always been myself.
Shirin Abedinirad, Revision, 2018. Installation art, Lorne, Australia. Presented at the Landfall Lorne Sculpture Biennale, the work takes the form of a ziggurat built from mirrored retro television sets, reflecting sky, sea, birdlife, and passersby in a living meditation on image, truth, and perception. Echoing George Bernard Shaw’s line, “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul,” the installation invites viewers to turn away from mediated illusion and toward the shifting reality of nature itself—artwork courtesy of featured artist Shirin Abedinirad.
