Author: Rita Tapia Oregui

Panic broke out. It was as if a star had fallen from the sky and hit the most beautiful place in the city of Marrakesh. Uproar and pandemonium followed. The passersby wanted to know what had happened and started theorizing.

“It sounded as if a gas cylinder warehouse had just blown up. Real scary. May God protect us.”

I was among the puzzled crowd. I had just left the Koutoubia Mosque when I heard the blast. I had been visiting to browse through the annals of the remarkable achievements of the great Almoravid and Almohad dynasties. I crossed Jamaa el Fna square and headed to the Argana café—a café with a terrace overlooking the square—where I had left Murad, my childhood friend, in the company of Jacqueline. They had wanted to discuss affairs of the heart. My friend had attempted suicide several times because of his lack of luck in getting a job in Morocco. However, hope had flared up inside him after meeting Jacqueline, and he had devised a new plan. He ...Read more →

She didn’t love him. Strictly speaking, she worshipped him and the mere thought of losing him tore her up inside. One day he had to go on a trip for work. The prospect of him leaving her side harrowed her. She would not be able to breathe the same air he breathed or smell the distinct charm he oozed in order to raise her spirits.

He would be absent for a whole week—each of the seven days would feel like seven years, for they had not spent a single day apart since they had gotten married three months ago. God had wanted them to find their way to each other’s hearts while in their fourth year of college. They had fallen madly in love the moment they had set eyes on each other. They had only seen the other’s good qualities and had instantly become inseparable.

During the day, she stayed at home missing him, waiting with bated breath for his return and getting things set to meet his every need as soon as he walked in the front door. Thus he could just relax after having spent the whole day ...Read more →

I had spent the whole night walking on my own and was starting to feel pretty desperate to, for lack of a better alternative, spy a murky light shimmering on the horizon. I had been trying hard to ignore the foul stench of my bleak surroundings. After all, I had to reach my destination no matter how long or unpalatable the journey turned out to be. As I continued plodding forward, my mind set sail for where my fondest memories had taken place.

Suddenly, a gruff voice asked me about my love. Fear gripped me, but I tried to conceal it as I offered my answer.

“She belongs to my past, a past I wish I could leave behind. The notion that many of the stars we see gleaming in the sky are actually just mirages has always transfixed me. It is scary to think that we make wishes upon carcasses of light. The wilderness of velvet forests opens up unrivaled opportunities to stage ambushes on the saps of this world. Wait, wait! Jinn, don’t finish me off ...Read more →

It’s almost 4 a.m. and I am lying on my bed unable to doze off. I rarely suffer from insomnia. My bed is my favorite place to be, but now it feels uncomfortable, as if it has shrunken all of a sudden. I walk out of my room and head for the house’s large balcony to gulp down some fresh air. I am hoping it’ll help me conquer my anxiety, my sorrow, and eventually, my insomnia.

A perfect peace has settled over the city, and it is only faintly disturbed by the occasional honk of a car driving along one of the neighborhood streets. The image of the street from the balcony will stay etched in my mind for as long as I live, because I have known it since I was old enough to remember. The street itself has witnessed much of what I have been confronted with in my own life: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I then decide to brew a fresh pot of tea. I bring water to a boil and add three ...Read more →

Saleh, the miller, stood in front of the mill and scanned the horizon. A sullen sky forecasted a bright future for him. This coming year he’d rise to the top. Yes, he was quite optimistic about what lay in store for him.

He had prayed to God for rain and a good harvest for the longest time. Finally, he had seen the dark clouds that he had watched gather and scud across the sky unload just above the village. Since then he had spent his days monitoring the soil of the vast plain to make sure the seeds sprouted. Ultimately, the plants started shooting up. The town’s stream started carrying more water as it flowed through the countryside. This made the miller happy. His lips curled into a smile.

The miller relished the prospect of having his mill up and running with the bumper crop the town would reap that year. With corn, people would ask for the miller’s services and sign agreements with him.

The wheels of his mill would spin once more after having been idle for ages due to the fact ...Read more →

I stepped across the threshold of his humble abode and greeted him. I chanced upon the butler, who was carrying a bowl of dates and a glass of milk on a tray.

“Welcome to the sanctuary of the prophet Khaled.”

“Prophet?”

“Yes, don’t you know? He is the Arabic prophet who was given the cold shoulder by the people he was committed to guide.” He didn’t care to provide me with context so that I could cushion the brick he had just dropped on me. Instead, he left me to my own devices and went to minister to the rest of the guests.

I had been on my way to the Algerian city of Biskra to buy the dates my wife had asked for—or rather, entreated me to fetch her. She had declared that she had been craving them for quite a while already and reminded me of the perils of leaving pregnancy whims unanswered. “Before you know it, the child is born with a skin patch the color and texture of a date on ...Read more →

Oh, Jonah, the One of the Whale, forgive my tardiness! I tried to dispatch my case swiftly and now I lie condemned. Now that my number is up, I am counting the hours I have left. Eventually, I figured it out: your journey, its import. I burst out laughing, I regretted it, I felt like crying. I didn’t hold high hopes for the future. I had managed my expectations and commended my soul to God. My muscles twitched to the beat of the clock. I had shut my eyes to the truth year after year, until the truth decided to settle the score. I don’t care whether it’s Monday or Saturday, day or night. You, my boy, acquainted yourself with miracles throughout your life until the ground under your feet drew level with the sky. Now, you are about to be reunited with your mother. You’ll have to introduce me to Christ’s mother, the Virgin Mary. May God bless you both. Over a hundred thousand men were sent to Nineveh. They had been tasked with mending ...Read more →

I was sitting in the Red Rose Café when I heard the news. Saint Guevara had fallen into one of the many holes on Green March Boulevard. There are two things I have to clarify before I continue telling this story: one pertains to the name of the café and the other to the name of our hero.

The Red Rose is one of the newer cafés in our town, which until the ’80s ranked as one of the smallest towns in the country, boasting less than ten townsfolk. It’s also closely related to Saint Guevara, the hero of our story, although it’s his son Omar al-Mahdi who runs and funds the place now. Al-Mahdi Omar—the old man had found it amusing to give his two sons the same name but in reverse order—is Saint Guevara’s firstborn and lives overseas, in Belgium to be precise. His name carries special meaning for the Saint. It reminds him of days of yore, when people stood up for their rights heroically and didn’t recoil at the thought of getting their hands dirty.

When Omar ...Read more →

Everything happened posthaste. He had been standing less than half a meter away from the catastrophe. The city was still looking for survivors. Hospitals were swamped with the injured and would probably need to start rejecting new patients soon. The building residents had just held the so-called inauguration ceremony that took place every time a new cemetery was opened to the public in any city in the Arab World. Every man to his taste, but he held the series of performances to be rather macabre, as if intended to show how belly dancers can teach the bereaved to shake off their grieve. Meanwhile, the only mosque in the neighborhood, sited across the road and hemmed in by little stores of all shapes and colors, had shown a stoic endurance.

Mourad Didouche Street, which is doomed to be remembered by the name les R4—the one the French usurpers gave it—wakes up to life at dawn with the sound of the adhan. With deliberate indolence, it creeps out of the dark blanket that ...Read more →

“Good morning, viewers from all over the nation! I hope you’re having a wonderful day!

“Before I start today’s show, I would like to take some time to go over the score and probe into how the havoc wreaked last night has taken its toll on us, in order to allow what makes us feel like going to pieces as we collect the dismembered corpses of our loved ones to henceforth rest in the past.

“First, we will dig a mass grave, a grave that we won’t be able to dig big enough to hold them all. We’ll bury them, pray, and chant. But our loved ones won’t stay buried for long. Instead, they’ll want to stick around and will stalk us, baying for blood.

“Coming to work this morning, out of respect for the deceased, I had to toe walk in order to avoid treading on a patch of pavement where the body of a child might have been scooped up a moment before. I lowered my head and tried to avoid meeting the carnage with my ...Read more →