I ran back down the boulevard toward my car, ducking into side alleys, bending over every few feet to slide a loose sandal back on, cursing myself for having worn the flimsiest shoes I owned. When I finally reached the car, I slid behind the wheel, slammed the door, and wrapped tissue around my swollen, torn up feet. I scanned ahead to see where the vigilantes were coming from. They were descending out of the park in waves, a sea of bearded men mostly dressed in black, standing shoulder to shoulder, chanting the name of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. They kicked in car doors, screaming all the while, calling the women whores and threatening to teargas the crowd — full of children — if it didn't disperse. At one point, I couldn't see out my windows, there were so many of them pressed up against my car, their faces contorted. I clicked the power-locks, and prayed.

I dragged my shocked, sweaty body back to the party I had left two hours before, to find my friends sprawled about watching Friends, the scent of hash heavy in the air. Someone get this girl a drink, one of them said. History rumbled around them, literally right outside the door, and they were more concerned with what Rachael said to Chandler. Iranian television had recently debuted a new sitcom, a sort of Friends in Veils, and they were arguing over how directly the plots had been lifted. I took my drink into the bathroom, filled the tub with water, and let my feet soak as I worked to understand why some of my friends were so indifferent to the changes in the regime's political structure. Years of failure and layers of stale rhetoric had emptied the Revolution of meaning. The war with Iraq and a decade of bombs and privation had turned them cynical, altogether detached from the doings of the system. To them, upgrading from one brand of mullah to another was not a compelling enough reason to forsake this inner domain, free of pretense and false slogans. Why stand up for the Revolution, as it lurched to find itself?

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