Short stories

Praise the Lord

The waters are crystal clear. Everything is covered by reeds and seagrass, and water lilies float on the surface. Here, in the south of Iraq, more specifically, in the Hawizeh Marshes, marine vegetation spreads all over a vast territory. It builds the golden houses where the descendants of the Sumerians live, those folks who are said to have crossed the magic emerald doors through which the uproar and babel of the world flees to join a distant past. Twenty square kilometers of permanently submerged ground and over 11,500 kilometers of land lying under water every now and then form the whole extension of this Garden of Eden, which is more commonly referred to as the Water Cities.

It is here in the Water Cities that our hero lives. She belongs to the conservative al-Sawaed tribe and is called the Bedouin because of her contoured eyes and henna-dyed hair, which she always styles into a beautifully shaped bun. She wears the bright colors of the marshland people, which ...Read more →

Winter invites the world to retreat under its blanket and pours its cold over the hilly countryside. The soil of the earth gives off the sweet perfume of its people’s hard work. In the valley, the humble adobe houses struggle to keep their secrets inside. Chaos breaks out when the only thing people can rely on day after day to appease a growling stomach is a loaf of plain bread. Nearby, the river twists and turns with swagger, aware of its vital role of connecting both shores, fantasy and reality, with its slippery substance. In its delta sprouts the naiveté of those who bother dreaming. An old veranda casts its red shadow over the meandering desires of the flesh. Finally, the dreamer wakes up only to find himself at the doorstep of a scandal.

He had returned from his stay abroad with another woman reshaping his shadow; he had clearly been blinded by the deceitful glow of civilization. Thus, he destroyed the warm nest where his kids had awaited his ...Read more →

On the crest of the old Mokattam Hills, behind which rise the Dawiqa Hills, hid our houses, many of which were sheltered behind a massive rock.

We lived in a district called Al-Mu’adaseh, where everyone’s garbage and litter is thrown. To be more specific, we lived on the farms of Manshiet Nasser.

Like the church bells that summoned us to attend the holy prayer, daybreak propelled us into action. For hours the twines of morning light flogged the burning skin on our bodies with their exhortation. We lugged the day’s weariness along into the night, where the sleep we had hoped to find kept us meandering around, because it turned out to be as barren as the wasteland in which we had lain down to rest. We crouched down, almost deflating, like the hiss of a murky patch of light amid the darkness, and from the peak of our mountains, we leaned out to a sleeping world. We swooped on it like thieves of the night hunting for flotsam and jetsam. We descended the tortuous slope whose ground ...Read more →

Waseem was not going to have it easy finding the cradle of his story by getting to where his grandparents had been born. Overall, he possessed rather little knowledge about the place. However, the moment he met Sameer, he felt a lot more optimistic about his expedition. Waseem was about twenty years old while Sameer was already in his thirties.

In the old days, the city of Blida had been notorious for its abundance of roses. Therefore, all Sameer had to do was advise Waseem to ask perfumers about the origin of their best roses. His journey started in the streets of Paris. He devoted himself to inquiring about the origin of those roses and flowers from which the best perfumes were extracted until he knocked on the door of a perfumer who offered him a deal: if Waseem would work for the perfumer nonstop over the course of a whole month, then at the end of the month, the perfumer would, in return, take Waseem to the city he was so bent on reaching. ...Read more →

I was sitting in a small coffee shop with my laptop, listening to Fairuz sing, “I asked you, my love, where are we going? Let us be, let us be, and the years threw us off their scent.” I checked my email from time to time. On TV, the 2006 war of Israel against Lebanon was being broadcasted. I therefore remembered Jakhour, the young lad living in the south of Lebanon. He was also the brother of my Lebanese friend, Reema, whom I talked to every now and then. Our friendship had brought me closer to him. In the end, I was talking to him every single day, every hour, sometimes even every minute. We fostered and cemented our relationship over time. The idea was for us to start seeing each other over there, to be able to enjoy the most precious of times, but the siege of Lebanon was prolonged, the tensions between the countries escalated, and then the war erupted. I described to him the magnitude of ...Read more →

Today, the cold is kicking in on Tangier’s streets, numbing my extremities. I sleep on a mattress on the street. I may even freeze to death in the next couple of hours. I suffer from insomnia, but it’s not the sort rich people experience after losing a lucrative contract or some cash, when they get dumped by their chicks and decide to hang themselves. Be that as it may, I don’t really give a damn for the wealthy right now. They can either follow the right path or end up in hell—it is up to them.

Yesterday, the cold murdered my friend and brother on Al-Arabi Street. We had been sharing the same cot made of newspapers and cardboard boxes, and were covering ourselves with a blanket gone to rack and ruin. By no means was it fit to protect anyone from the terrible cold that sweeps Tanger’s streets. At night both society and state leave us to pave the streets with our bodies. What a grand display of generosity!

However, as soon as the ...Read more →

She stood still and stared at his rifle, which hang on the wall of memories. It woke up her past, which opened its doors for her. As soon as she crossed the threshold, she sailed forth behind a flock of pigeons. The clouds drifted hastily across the sky. Then she heard a shot being fired nearby and tripped. It had whistled past with the rumble of her inner gulfs and she shook. She knew for certain that the hunter’s bullet never missed its target; she was positive it had actually hit her instead of the pigeon that was now drowning in its own blood. Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned around but found no one. She took a deep breath and sighed through the chimney of her heart. It had been his ghost, willing to spare her the pain of remembering. She stood up and uprooted the fence surrounding the cave’s entrance. It kept on playing the hymn of the ...Read more →

Drizzle and one half of an orange solar disc hallow January, which crops up behind the few hours it has left to perform and spreads its attire to wrap up Cairo before pronouncing its blessings.

The steps of the passersby, the whistles of the policemen, the shouts of the street vendors, and the bells announcing the departure of a train at times build mirthful music to welcome the ones who have been gone. On occasion the sounds compose music to bid farewell to the ones leaving, resonating like pansy petals falling from above.

With a nifty red dress that turns her into birthday’s iconic image, as if she were a princess who had just popped out of a fairy tale, she strides back and forth from the entrance of the station to the old coffee shop with its new poster, plastic chairs, and bright yellow tablecloths.

With her uncombed locks of hair out in the open, she keeps an eye on the trains pulling into the station and the ones scheduled to arrive soon.

My eyes are glued to the ...Read more →

The first day and the last are certainly the most difficult to cope with: the anxieties before the get-together and the feeling of loss at the farewells, the always deceitful expectations, and the pain one has to keep in check over the past left behind.

Last night was fraught. My blood pressure descended as quickly as the pressure from my thoughts and feelings bouncing around in my skull escalated. I rose way later than what I’d become accustomed to in the last ten days. I exert myself more than usual to enhance my appearance in front of the mirror. I apply the same concealer I use for my face to my feelings.

I spend the day unable to concentrate, bearing an absent mind. I recap everything in my head: the return trip with my heavy bags, whose added load of presents and souvenirs purchased at Aswan’s bazaar had more than doubled their weight and bulkiness; and my new dear friends from the workshop who all, ...Read more →

What does this mean on a deaf night? A short walk across an executed land under a vindictive sky made him want to propel the chest of drawers to its rightful place and lean back very badly. Afterwards, he was entrusted with the task of addressing anticipation, which is a path that is illuminated day and night in both the summer- and wintertime where one may meditate, feel, and polish up impressions any time.

Tell me, when people claw their way up, who gives a damn about anybody else? By the time he returned to his safe haven, twilight had set over all corners of the horizon. He pushed the rusty door aside while snarling the way animals do when cohabitating. He stepped inside the room, scuffing his feet as if someone were prodding him to move against his will. As he groped his way along the room toward his favorite spot, while trying to wipe the spider webs off his face, a stranger called to him hurriedly, “Switch off the light!”

He met ...Read more →