Middle-aged Mr.Badii is planning to commit suicide and desperately seeks anyone to assist him - he has already dug out the grave in the mountains, but the assistant will have to bury him when he will do the deed. He asks Kurd soldier, Afghan seminarian, but everyone refuses by some reason. Finally he finds an old Turkish taxidermist, who has a sick son and previously attempted suicide himself, and he agrees to assist Badii. Written by Anonymous Middle aged Iranian Mr. Badii is searching for someone to carry out an unusual but well paying (200,000 tomans, the equivalent for most laborers of six month's wages) ten minute long job for tomorrow morning: go to a hole in a specified location, call his name twice, if he answers back, help him out of the hole, and if he doesn't answer, shovel twenty spadefuls of dirt on top of him. In other words, Mr. Badii is attempting to commit suicide and wants someone to bury him if he does. Mr. Badii is not looking for just anyone, but someone who seems trustworthy, that needs the money, and may be compassionate toward his goal. As Mr. Badii drives around the outskirts of Tehran looking for that someone, he has to take those he approaches to the precise location of the hole, and ultimately to broach the sensitive issue. Just as he has his own personal moral reasons for wanting to die, Mr. Badii learns that his potential candidates also have their own moral reasons for helping or not helping him. Written by Huggo The Taste of The Cherry is the story of the last day in the life of Mister Badii. He is going to Teheran, where he wants to find somebody to bury him, after he has killed himself. It is an easy job, just shovel some earth on him, and besides, it is well paid. First he wants to persuade a young soldier who does not say much, feels more and more uncomfortable and then runs away. The second man he talks to is a seminarist, who gives a lecture about suicide and guilt but does not help either. The third guy is an old teacher, who will do the job, but who tries to persuade Badii that it is not a good thing to do. He tells him a joke about some ill-feeling Kurd to make Badii change his attitude, and says the taste of the cherry kept him from suicide once.
