Where the Tire Shops End

Where the Flat Tire Repairs End is the second collection of stories by Hamed Habibi. Hamed Habibi is one of the young authors whose works have garnered attention from critics, literary awards, and serious literature enthusiasts. He is skilled at creating narrative atmospheres and can capture the audience’s attention. “Where the Flat Tire Repairs End” includes nine short stories, each with its own distinct atmosphere and situation. The defining characteristic these stories share is the simplicity of the author’s language. Habibi has attempted to describe real-life situations with straightforward prose, avoiding complex linguistic and narrative plays. The situations in Habibi’s stories in this collection are all realistic and believable at first, but gradually throughout the storytelling, through more detailed descriptions, they transform into complex scenarios and move beyond the realm of realism, reaching the threshold of surrealism. “Joke,” “Fiddle,” “Hotel,” “Endless Night,” “Occasion,” and so on are some of the titles of the stories in this collection. Alongside the simple prose, traces of humor can also be found in some of the stories. For instance, in the story “Joke,” a group of employees, seeking to overcome the monotony of their everyday lives, start amusingly and jokingly engaging in an interesting game. They begin switching around the days and seasons. The joke escalates to the point where none of them can escape from it, and they all become trapped. In addition to the traces of humor present throughout the collection’s stories, fear and dread are also common elements among them. For example, in the final story of this collection, which lends its name to the book, we meet an office worker who unexpectedly finds his house and all his belongings advertised for sale — without his knowledge or action. He is unable to stop the tide of events unfolding around him and faces a torrent of callers, each wanting to take a piece of his life away. One by one, the buyers come, surrounding him as he grows increasingly anxious, confused, and distressed. In the stories of this collection, Habibi has demonstrated how profound and sometimes unsolvable crises and complexities can emerge from seemingly simple situations. So much so that the realistic atmosphere of these scenarios creates anxiety in the audience’s mind, leaving the reader in a fog of doubt between realism and surrealism. “Where the Flat Tire Repairs End” is a fitting collection for readers yearning to enjoy short Iranian stories: simple and concise yet profound and impactful tales.