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Literature (prose and poetry)

Mother Azerbaijan and Cat Ermenistan¹
By Malahat Aghajanqizi

We have a spoilt cat in our home. Children call it by different names. Meanwhile, the spoilt cat grew up and became a disaster to me. Even animals can be impudent. When it rains and the ground turns into a medley of dirt, the cat wishes to go out for a walk. It goes to the courtyard, dirties its paws and hair and comes back home. Moreover, as if on purpose, it walks on the cleanest places, leaving behind itself the dirty "imprint of its paws." When I get angry and want to punish the cat, children leap to its defense from all sides. Young "attorneys" speaking ENGLISH, RUSSIAN and PERSIAN stand in defense of the AGGRESSOR – cat.

What I have to do is raise a "WHITE FLAG." For a long time I found it difficult to give an appropriate name to the cat but it suddenly dawned upon me the other day and I invented names for the cat and all family members.

Father – TURKEY. Mother – AZERBAIJAN. Children – AMERICA, RUSSIA, IRAN. Cat – ARMENIA. In the future, I will perhaps write a play based on this.

Now I call the cat YEREVAN. Like Dede Korkut², I named all family members my way and no one else knows it.

When the children are not at home, I try to secretly take revenge on YEREVAN. But the keen-witted cat always hides. It seems that it is aware of the plan of hatred I have in my mind. It does not care a straw since it has such friends as America, Russia and Iran. These friends fondle the cat, spoil and kiss it so that it makes me sick to see it. Cat Yerevan luxuriates in the arms of America, Russia and Iran, brought up by me, looks at me with a grin and wags its tail. Oh ungrateful children! Mother AZERBAIJAN brought you up with sufferings, while you put on my head a cat that is even unable to catch mice. You sucked white milk, like black oil, out of me, grew up, became strong and now do not support me. You press to your breast the cat that hurts me and ruins my native land, and call him "JAN." Oh, foolish and unfair world! The enemy sits at the head of my home, while I still sleep in elephant's ear³. Cat Yerevan behaves like a host in my house. It walks and sleeps wherever it wants and eats whatever it wants. It deliberately finds my snow-white clothes and somersaults on them, leaves its white hair on my black clothes, and defiles my colored clothes with its saliva. It turns the cleanest places in the house into CAT LITTER. But when I want to punish it, the children pull it clean out of the litter and take it to the bedroom.

Cat Yerevan made me a "present" on New Year's day in the form of new dirty tricks. I went outside together with my family to watch festive fireworks and when I came back home, I stood paralyzed with terror: it looked like that Cat Yerevan had dropped BOMBS on the holiday tablecloth, fully justifying its name. The Armenians also become particularly furious on holidays. Cat Yerevan ate the "HISTORY," inscription 2009, on the holiday cake, then somersaulted on it, dirtying itself up in the cream, and left the tracks of its ENEMY paws on the snow-white tablecloth.

Sometimes Cat Yerevan, joined by neighboring cats, made such a cacophony right at my doors as if the end of the world had come. Every morning I delivered to my neighbors the shoes and slippers taken away by Cat Yerevan and its buddies. In a word, Cat Yerevan brought me to a condition when I was ready to run away from the home I had built with my own hands.

In addition to the fact that I suffered from Cat Yerevan's tyranny, my guests also got their share.

Handbags of my guests were constantly "examined." Meat, sausage and fish disappeared from their bags in no time. My guests looked at me with surprise and I was looking for the cat with hatred.

Finally, I was advised to get rid of the cat, IMPUDENT AGGRESSOR and HYPOCRITE. But the children made such a noise and such a scandal that all our neighbors became witnesses of our quarrel.

I was ashamed, so I signed disgraceful "CEASEFIRE REGIME." I understood that I was not a wise MOTHER and a strong WOMAN. The MOTHER who is unable to cope with even a cat cannot bring up her children as FREE citizens of their country.

The only hope was the Father, TURKEY. But unfortunately, his head was full of other problems like "ERGENEKON."

I was abandoned by everyone and in order to put an end to Cat Yerevan's tyranny, I started to read, ten times a day, the poems of GREAT TURKISH POET Tofik Fikret, Song of the Nation.

The tyrant has bullets, bombs and weapons⁴.
But the truth also has an unbending hand and unbeaten will,
Tremble Tyrant, my path is sacred,
Live and prosper, my nation!
Our patience is not boundless…
It's enough to tolerate this sorrow and suffering.
…………………………………

Ten times a day. I noticed recently that children together with Mother Azerbaijan read that verse with interest.

In such moments, Cat Ermenistan calms down and keeps silent in fright, and even does not mew.

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