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7 janvier 2011 5 07 /01 /janvier /2011 00:45

Blue Temptation

                                                                                                                                                   

A Short Story Written By

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

He crept in his wheelchair on the building rooftop towards the little child watching the flocks of birds sliding smoothly in the blue sky. He tapped, with his cold palm, on the little warm fore-arm and whispered:

-You remind me a great deal of your late brother, Abbass..

The child sighed and asked:

-Was he fond of birds, too?

-Not  only  fond of birds, he was simply mad about them… 

The disabled old man remained quiet for a little while and added:

-He used to spend most of his time in the same place where you are standing right now, all alone, watching the blue sky and the dancing birds as they fly higher and higher.. 

As he noticed the little child’s interest, he carried on:

“He was maniacally fond of birds. I remember that He asked me, once, about birds’ means of communication and I said that they communicate by singing out their needs and desires. Oh, how- he- lo- ved- the- i-dea ! he shouted :

-How wonderful, daddy, it is to sing out your words instead of saying them plainly!

Then, with more excitement, he asked:

-What about food, daddy?! 

I answered him that birds do not have food problems : they have their nourishment at anytime and from any field in the world because the world turns smaller when you fly, and quite at hand. That is the reason why birds seem to enjoy a high degree of self-esteem, refusing ready-made nests, building their haunts with their own beaks. Some of them will rise their pride roof the highest possible refusing to live outside the beautiful seasons of the year, migrating from north of the globe to south of it,  in search of and good food a warm sun. 

Once, Abbass surprised me:

-Can I fly , daddy ? 

I denied because our ancestors had spoilt on us the chance of flying from the very beginning of our existence on Mother Earth. But he would protest energetically:

-What have to do with my ancestors, daddy? I am asking about myself ... 

And I had to rationalize the situation:

Our ancestors had to try flying earlier in time so that they might have acquired wings and transmitted us their ability to fly. But they did not. That is why we are now here on the ground, wingless.

Yet, Abbass would always find solutions to match his rising enthusiasm:

- I’ll put feathers on my arms and I’ll fly away . 

I answered that wings cannot be worn .Wings , like facial features, are inherited. 

-I won’t stay nailed here. I want to fly.

-You won’t .

-I will.

 I had tried, before him, what he was brooding over. At his age, I myself had tried flying from the edge of this very rooftop, indifferent to the crowd of neighbours down  the street, below me, spreading sheets from their corners and imploring me not to commit suicide:

-Don’t kill yourself!  you’ll incur God’s wrath on you...

-I’m not going to kill myself , I’ m going to fly away... 

But I threw myself from where you are standing now , and instead of flying , I fell so heavily that the sheets stretched for me were torn and I collided with the solidity of the ground and had my legs broken. The result is this: I do not fly, I creep ... "wysiwyg", my son:"what you see in me is what you will surely get"…

 Yet, Abbass, you late brother, grew fonder of birds’ lives and offspring and songs until I found myself once crawling in my wheelchair to look deep down the street , below the building, where my neighbours crowded to bandage split skull of your late brother who attempted to fly, imprudently ”… 

The disabled father withdrew his cold hand off the child’s fore-arm in order to outline the conclusion from this fable. Yet , the little child preceded him, with his face always focused on the far-away horizon:

-Don’t be afraid, daddy. I’ll follow neither your way nor Abbass’s... 

Then, firmly :

-I will fly, daddy, and I will succeed in my try.

 

******************

* Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).


In Love

                                                                                                                                                           

A Short Story Written By

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

A mysterious power is steering me this evening towards this shady tree. A magnetic power is dragging me along to privacy under the branches of this wise tree… and I feel safe from the pursuit of the curious breaths chasing me all day long:

- You look absent-minded!

- Your hands are so cold!

- Are you in love?

- In love! I bet you're in love!

My philosophy teacher, himself, stopped in the middle of today's lecture to notify me:

- Look here, dear. Try to focus your mind exclusively on the lecture to enjoy it. You will never understand anything without enjoying it. Pleasure and understanding are two faces for one coin. So, invest your energy in focusing solely on this lecture in this space at this moment: This, Here, Now

The pulsation of the tree trunk shaking my ribs is reminding me of my teacher's wisdom and I find myself "now" observing "this" sunset agonizing "here".

The blackness of the night is licking the intermingling colours in the horizon where stars have already inaugurated their race for a place in the sky. Stars are now winking at one another from an immemorial remoteness. Tonight, stars do not look the way they have always done. They are not mere embers set aflame in the blackness of the universe. Stars, tonight, are showing their very private life vibrating with love and pulsing with passion.

The brightest stars like the one over there are two stars in one if we trust modern astronomy: An orange (male) star and a blue (female) one closely connected to each other by an invisible attraction and spinning around in a silent shining courtship.

Stars may be shining only for being involved in love. Without love, they may have lost their sparkle and broken up in the void like any other destitute meteors.

Now, I am taking delight in the shining love of the stars in the sky. A thousands-year-old love between stars thousands light years away. The glitter of stars garnishes the sky and adds a loving dimension to the mechanical movement of the celestial bodies.

The pulse of the tree is streaming coolly through my trunk, pouring forth new energies in my veins, enlarging me, magnifying me…And, in very few moments, I will be able to grasp the moon that has started his first rolls on the horizon, here, between the palms of my hands.

 

******************

* Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).


Shehrayar’s Dream

 

-Short Story-

  Written by Abdennour Driss

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

"Another dream targeting the dark

Hail!

Dream is that whiteness blackening the night,

That thirsty desire

Trying to wake up in me,

That heavenly testimony

Which the river praises

Hail!

I am the dream of a fish

Predicting inundation"…

 

Abdennour Driss

 

The inner gap is as deep as labyrinth whereas the outer clothing tells about the imprisoned body: He used to sow his masculine name in his wives’ wombs but was good at nothing but giving birth to females. All the new bellies would bear him new expectation in ending that crop. The flag of victory, however, cannot be raised by catastrophe-loving feet obsessed with the nine scenes which had danced both in the emptiness of the belly and in the belly of the emptiness. These are the ends that he feels running deeply in his dry veins coming from no-one knows, bearing shameful masks!

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

 “Damnation” is his word to justify his impotence while cosmetics are women’s way to sneak into his pocket and organ, giving birth to a non-stop set of females. His poor status has not killed him. Rather, it might drive him mad or perhaps paralyze him or even redirect his thinking towards suicide.

Tackling this topic in his daily life will revive the old painful moments that has never stopped proliferating in his endless questions…

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

That was his echo whenever his salt-filled worries and injuries flow out in his long journey to salvation through sorcery and magic weeds…

His childhood was a wretched past stamped exclusively for him. He was the only boy to love dolls. He used to find in this hobby real happiness and true pleasure. Dolls would stick to his hand and never fall. Memories lay new bridges towards the past proving that life has not changed. Memories are still standing against any possible change. Gloom and mud are the distinctive poetic features still present in children’s hymns playing carelessly with the angles and sides of the district…

He drowns himself in his night pleasures and never gets sober before experiencing the butterfly joy… He has such a crazy story with females starting from his early admiration for dolls and ending with absolute adoration to them all.

He was sober but the moaning of the glasses made him drunk again. His looks seemed unsteady, wandering, fluffy, drifting away with the winds of his song   towards the sterility of the whisper, towards the heart of the scream, towards the menopause that has eaten his wife’s womb. There is nothing left to do. That is the law of feminity

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

This is the female’s labyrinth: a singular caravan made especially for loss and parting. There is no male to inaugurate her salvation from this never-ending painful memory.

He was lost in the arches of feminine lips juicing his dreams. Now, his ambitions are redirecting him to his private doctor’s cabinet. He is in such a hurry to have male dolls and perpetuate the torn-out moments that he is doomed to have with women tired of vain memories.

***********

* The writer, Abdennour Driss, is a Moroccan scholar & short-story writer ,  born in Meknes. Author of:" Women’s Writings " (Study) in 2004 , " Woman’s Novel & Reality " (Study) in 2005 and "Taboo Mythology & Religious Discourse Mechanisms " (Study) in 2005. He is getting ready for printing a collection of short stories entitled :" Feminizing Virility "

 * The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd  1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. he is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies)  and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

* "Shehrayar’s Dream" is the third narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.


Dream

 

-Short Story-

 Written by : Moustapha Laghtiri

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

“The word « Dream » borrows its blazing connotation out of the very close kinship it weaves with vision and imagination. This mercurial word, « Dream », consists of, at least, two luxurious connotations too tempting for any interpretation to resist. The first one is linked to prophets and visionaries and is, consequently, related to inspiration and clairvoyance. The second connotation is connected with a conscious vision towards the Self and the World, a vision that qualifies the dreamer to preview the future on deeply human perspective armed with a clear view of Existence in its ambiguous relationship with Man’s hazy destiny. This second connotation of the word « Dream » sounds closer to the literary field.

Contrary to Freud, who regards dream as the guardian of sleep, I deeply believe that dream is the guardian of creativity. ”

 

 

Moustapha Laghtiri

 

 

Only the word «dream» sneaked out of his memory progressing slowly but persistently dribbling all the barriers. He felt it coming along from the unknown depths, taking off the cloudy curtains, floating clearly, struggling for the sole sake of being. His mind, so anxiously, seized it. Only then, he found himself face to face with yesterday’s dream.

Having seized the thread of the dream, he stretched his limbs out to get rid of the remaining traces of sleep. The dream had such a strong impact on him but he can remember nothing of it right now.

He rubbed his eyes so strongly and surrendered to a wonderful sensation that he would surely remember his dream in full… In his mind’s eye, there emerged the river… Yes, he remembers now that water was dominant in the dream… He travelled with his eyes around the dark room, stretched his feet towards his flip-flops… The river was running swiftly… And then?

He went into the bath-room… His limbs are getting more and more active… He leaned down on the sink … He turned the tap on …He meditated the water flow and sprayed his face with handfuls of water … He felt the coldness awakening him … What a dream ! It escapes his mind the way water runs through his fingers… However, he should remember the dream … He does not know the reason why he believes that this dream is bringing along some message… There was the river… There was water running… There was also the dominance of one colour … He does not remember that colour… Then, there were trees … Yes, there were trees stretching their branches high in the sky… There was him running… He cannot forget that…

He looked at the mirror… His face was pale… He meditated the growing little hairs on his chin that doubled the sad look on his face… He remembered that, while running, he never left his place… Otherwise, why the same scene was turning on and on all along the dream: water, trees…

He got out of the bath-room… He cannot remember the most important thing in the dream…  That was a message… Was it a word?…A symbol?…A meaning ?… A flavour? He remembered that he was striving to interpret it while he was dreaming about it and that he turned so reassured of his results that went to sleep again after a light awakening…

He went into the kitchen…was that a voice, an image or a sensation?... How can he have a real answer?... He got his breakfast ready…The dream shadowed everything…

« The running was tiring and the river was flowing strongly. I can decide that its colour was crimson ».

He took a chair… He sipped some tea… All of a sudden, he remembered that he had looked at the sky and that there was a bird that fully captured his attention… Now, he is submerged by joy … He is in the right path since he remembered the bird… He chews a piece of bread… things are getting clearer and clearer… He wished he could grasp the bird with his own hands… So, he carried on running and the bird went on flying… The bird was surprisingly at hand … That may be the reason why he insisted on getting it… He noticed suddenly that the bird was across the river…

There come the incidents smoothly… He was happy at that …He sipped consecutive doses of his tea … And then? Yes, now he can remember… While trying to interpret the dream, he deeply felt that his grasping the bird would be a sign of good luck while his missing the bird would be, however, a sign of bad luck… He decided not to miss the opportunity… He doubled his running… He was running in his own place…  Suddenly, he found himself running on the water surface… He felt an incomparable pleasure… His feet never sink in the water nor do they get wet… While running on the water surface and at the peak of his joy, the bird came along towards him… It was getting nearer and nearer as if offering itself to him… Suddenly, he felt an ambiguous change taking place deep inside him… It was a great surprise for him to see himself flying beside the bird… flying was an irresistible pleasure, the river beneath him was a wonder…

He stretched out on his chair, happy to have come up to this extent of memory… The message of the dream is now quite clear…It is only then that the world seemed to be in his own hands, that a happy event is in the way to be achieved and that all he had to do is just sit and wait.

 

***********

* The writer, Moustapha Laghtiri, is a Moroccan short-story writer,  born in 1965 in Casablanca. Author of:"A Woman’s Hallucinations” (Short stories) in 2001, "A Little Bit Of Shame" in 2004 (Short stories) and "A Parasol On A Tomb" in 2006 (Short stories).

* The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd  1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. he is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies)  and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

 * " Dream" is the eighth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

 


Books & Apples

 

-Short Story-

  Written by :Khadija El Younoussi

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

“Dreams? They are mirrors which nothing but poetry and the remaining creative arts can be compared to. They reflect the colour and rhetoric of the image more sensitively than sheets of aluminium or mercury-painted glass or any supersonic-ray detection apparatus can do. Transparent dreams may even detect uneasiness, ideas, hallucinations, desires… and dreams themselves.”

 

Khadija El Younoussi

 

 

These accumulated books tantalize me, empty me and charge me up with alphabetical astonishment. They take my senses away from me, fill them with new forces before restoring them to me, making of me an amalgam of senses ready to explode. Their long-tentacled titles stretch out towards me, taking away my appetite to sharpen it, setting aflame my desire to devour them.

I take a novel from the shelf. I turn its pages over and over. I glance at its price on the back cover. I count my small monthly thing that I spend on sport-club expenses, light clothes for the coming summer, a pair of sun-glasses, a rich-in-protection  vitamin and strawberry-flavoured lipstick, a skin-refreshing cream, taxi and bus expenses, mobile-phone recharging cards and fat-free chocolate. Then, what remains hardly enables me to get two cultural periodicals that I am very much keen on reading, a newly-published collection of short stories and a copy of Top Santé magazine.

I put the novel back in its place, on the shelf.

I make two steps forward to take another novel. Before opening it, I notice a brown young man getting closer to ask me whether I work in this bookshop for he is in need of help. I smile and inform him that I am a customer just like him. He apologizes to me and tells me that he always sees me here, putting down a novel and taking another.

I am just a butterfly who cannot afford for the price of the dew. Dear foreigner, you sound to be another novel, for me.

When I enter this place, everybody goes out so that Earnest Hemingway shoot himself straight in the front, that Mohamed Choukri sit on a Jewish woman’s grave to write his autobiography and that Mahmoud Darwish press his knee down on the knife edge to see if it really cuts and if the wound really hurts.

This brown young man has such a warm voice that I feel tempted to go out of this place loaded with fatal coldness.

I see the lady bookseller wrapping up for him a set of books in a white, transparent wrapping-paper. She was also wrapping up her lips for him in a smile. I see him holding the books with his right hand and getting ready to join the passers-by in the street outside. The street is crowded. The evening is flowing down viscously. People’s movements and paces are slow but the virile arm holding books are strong.

He stops at the fruiterer’s where various species of coloured fruits are carefully arranged.

The shopkeeper hands him a bag of reddish apples and he takes it with his left hand. He carries on his way, slowly pacing away in the street, drowning in the crowd.

My evening’s pillow is so smooth that I usually sleep gently under the effect of the faint lights, the cool colours of my room, the flavour of the night cosmetics coming out of my face, my lips, my fingers...

At dawn, my dream door opens. There is that brown young man whom I have seen in the bookshop. He smiles and gives me the books.

Then, he goes to the kitchen refrigerator. I ask him to bring an apple.

I tears out the white transparent wrapping-paper, the wild titles fly along to penetrate my pores, to burn my night until morning rises from my alarm-clock, drawing my bed from under my body, throwing me in spaces where hardly can I familiarize myself with the first when I was shifted to the second.

The young man, who is no longer a foreigner, gives me the apple that I am waiting for. Then, there appears the lady bookseller giggling. I turn her back but her giggle remains ringing in my ears. I stretch out my hand and stop the alarm-clock from ringing.

 

***********

* The writer, Khadija El Younoussi, is a Moroccan short-story writer, born in 1976. Getting ready for printing:" Sperm-Flies”  (a collection of short stories)

* The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies)  and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

 * "Books and Apples" is the tenth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Said Raihani.

 


A Dumb Lover

                                                                                                                                                           

-Short Story-

  Written by Habib Daïm Rabbi

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

 

I will not profess , as a lover, that life without love is pure wreckage. Nor will I deny its bitter sweetness, the way those who have never experienced love will do. Nor even will I confirm it as fervently as those who have lived it to the last breath of life.

Love may be a delicious fantasy experienced with the same pleasure that wine, honey and poison are tasted. Yet, unilateral love may throw the whole story down to the abyss of the Self where the Other is waiting to slaughter the one who will love from all his heart….”

 

Habib Daïm Rabbi

 

 

Bad luck made him stumble over an unexpected question. An unbearable man asked him, on no occasion, about the meaning of the word "Dumb" which an unknown lover has started his poem with. In vain, he followed the movement of the flowing lips: dumb, dumb, dumb…

He picked up no signal out of all the mimes. After a while, when he was running out of patience, there comes relief. He answered, in trouble:

-         "Dumb" is related to whoever does not react or, rather, whoever means not to react.

That was the end of the grudging encounter between a heavy-going inquirer and a heavy-hearing answerer.

The curious man will go further in his folly while the deaf one will pout recklessly. He will surely remember this moment with indignation and spit in the face of impudence. However, there will be some doubts, in his mind, regarding the word "Dumb".

"Dumb" might sound to him inappropriate as a synonym of "being speechless". Why do dictionaries not accord the very word to the people who cannot hear like him? But that may lead too far beyond the logic of the story.

He was silently burning with her love. He would watch her from afar just to have a glimpse of the jar touching her wild hair whenever she would head for the spring. Love is humiliating but , when it comes to a dumb man, love turns repulsive.

He has gone further in his loss. With that beauty walking by, his eyes turn into two gateways for a rhymeless dumb poem. What a beauty! It is just as if his love was pacing on a cloud: swift, light and dumb.

She crosses the hill to and fro. He can no longer keep his distance. He contemplates his "dumb girl" through the stems of sugar canes. The secret is no more exclusively his, it has already become hers, too. There also can be a third party, the censurer, who may invade the scene to inquire about what a so-called poet said in his love poem.

Now, despite her earlier refusal, there she comes, closer and closer. She herself can no longer resist his love.

Being dumb like him, she handed him a cane quiver to pour his breath within. He did. His tears flowed down on the cane piecing it into seven holes. From that time on, in the same fields, flutes with the slightest puff of air, would sing very sad notes which censurers attribute to a dumb lover who used to hide away in the sugar-cane fields!

 

 ***********

* The writer, Habib Daïm Rabbi , is a Moroccan Critic, Novelist & short-story writer, born in Al-Jadida in 1955, author of "The Turning-Point" (Novel), "Small Wars" (Short stories), "Illusion Mill"(Short stories), "Daisy" (Short stories), "Writing & Inter-textuality" (Study) and "Correlative Texts"(Study)

* The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan  scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will" (A Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies)  and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

 * "A Dumb Lover" is the first narrative text in the "The Anthology Of Love", An Anthology of Moroccan New Short Story, Volume 2,  directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.


Me, Revealed To Myself

-Short Story-

 Written by: Najib Kaaouachi

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

“Once, I dreamt that I was dead. Somebody had shot me down in the street. Why kill me?! He killed so many other souls before. He was probably used to killing me in his dreams and now he is invading my own dream to kill me. Perhaps, if I had carried on my dream, after my death, up till the end, I would have entered some world where there would be no death.

That stranger’s bullet crossed my body. I do not know him, he does not know me either. There are no mutual feelings of animosity between us… However, even in the dream, I never could go further than the doorstep of Death. There always comes the morning to steal me away from that wish. Why can I not live my own death in my own  dream? Is eternity an attribute related exclusively to dreams? Is eternity a mere dream?”

 

Najib Kaaouachi

 

 

He passes by so swiftly that I cannot distinguish his features. He leaves no trace behind. I thought of setting a trap for him. I started to identify the time when he passes by but he continued to escape from me sneering at my traps, laughing so loudly that the entire place echoes his sarcasm.

I notice strange writings on the back of his jacket that remains clearly drawn in my mind’s eye and freely hung in the air. Actually, the writings on his back were so queer both in colour and shape, written in a language that I have never heard of. A language not in use, I dare say.

Yesterday night, I dreamt of an angel teaching me that very language. In fact, I am accustomed to postponing to my night dreams all my day-time problems. In this way, puzzling questions die away leaving space for spiritual solutions.

 In my dream, I was haunted by such an intense desire to learn that queer language that I found myself speaking it as fluently as a native speaker does.

I was happy, I told my targeted shadow:  « Just wait until tomorrow and I will show you…» but, that morning, he did not pass by nor did he do the following day.

Has he read my dream?

He must have an unbelievable intuition, then.

 What if he was the angel who visited me in my dreams, clad differently pretending to teach me that weird language?

That would be an additional irony.

Is he making fun of me?

Has he taught me a different language to mislead me?

Why does he not want me to get to know him?

Why does he appear exclusively to me?

 

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5 juillet 2009 7 05 /07 /juillet /2009 11:03

Shehrayar’s Dream

 

-Short Story-

  Written by Abdennour Driss

Translated by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani

 

"Another dream targeting the dark

Hail!

Dream is that whiteness blackening the night,

That thirsty desire

Trying to wake up in me,

That heavenly testimony

Which the river praises

Hail!

I am the dream of a fish

Predicting inundation"…

 

Abdennour Driss

 

The inner gap is as deep as labyrinth whereas the outer clothing tells about the imprisoned body: He used to sow his masculine name in his wives’ wombs but was good at nothing but giving birth to females. All the new bellies would bear him new expectation in ending that crop. The flag of victory, however, cannot be raised by catastrophe-loving feet obsessed with the nine scenes which had danced both in the emptiness of the belly and in the belly of the emptiness. These are the ends that he feels running deeply in his dry veins coming from no-one knows, bearing shameful masks!

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

 “Damnation” is his word to justify his impotence while cosmetics are women’s way to sneak into his pocket and organ, giving birth to a non-stop set of females. His poor status has not killed him. Rather, it might drive him mad or perhaps paralyze him or even redirect his thinking towards suicide.

Tackling this topic in his daily life will revive the old painful moments that has never stopped proliferating in his endless questions…

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

That was his echo whenever his salt-filled worries and injuries flow out in his long journey to salvation through sorcery and magic weeds…

His childhood was a wretched past stamped exclusively for him. He was the only boy to love dolls. He used to find in this hobby real happiness and true pleasure. Dolls would stick to his hand and never fall. Memories lay new bridges towards the past proving that life has not changed. Memories are still standing against any possible change. Gloom and mud are the distinctive poetic features still present in children’s hymns playing carelessly with the angles and sides of the district…

He drowns himself in his night pleasures and never gets sober before experiencing the butterfly joy… He has such a crazy story with females starting from his early admiration for dolls and ending with absolute adoration to them all.

He was sober but the moaning of the glasses made him drunk again. His looks seemed unsteady, wandering, fluffy, drifting away with the winds of his song   towards the sterility of the whisper, towards the heart of the scream, towards the menopause that has eaten his wife’s womb. There is nothing left to do. That is the law of feminity

“Cursed is he who gives birth to females!”

This is the female’s labyrinth: a singular caravan made especially for loss and parting. There is no male to inaugurate her salvation from this never-ending painful memory.

He was lost in the arches of feminine lips juicing his dreams. Now, his ambitions are redirecting him to his private doctor’s cabinet. He is in such a hurry to have male dolls and perpetuate the torn-out moments that he is doomed to have with women tired of vain memories.

***********

* The writer, Abdennour Driss, is a Moroccan scholar & short-story writer ,  born in Meknes. Author of:" Women’s Writings " (Study) in 2004 , " Woman’s Novel & Reality " (Study) in 2005 and "Taboo Mythology & Religious Discourse Mechanisms " (Study) in 2005. He is getting ready for printing a collection of short stories entitled :" Feminizing Virility "

 * The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd  1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. he is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies)  and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

* "Shehrayar’s Dream" is the third narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

 

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5 juillet 2009 7 05 /07 /juillet /2009 10:48

Blue Temptation

 

A Short Story

BY/MOHAMED SAID RAIHANI


 

He crept in his wheelchair on the building rooftop towards the little child watching the flocks of birds sliding smoothly in the blue sky. He tapped, with his cold palm, on the little warm fore-arm and whispered:

-You remind me a great deal of your late brother, Abbass..

The child sighed and asked:

-Was he fond of birds, too?

-Not  only  fond of birds, he was simply mad about them… 

The disabled old man remained quiet for a little while and added:

-He used to spend most of his time in the same place where you are standing right now, all alone, watching the blue sky and the dancing birds as they fly higher and higher.. 

As he noticed the little child’s interest, he carried on:

“He was maniacally fond of birds. I remember that He asked me, once, about birds’ means of communication and I said that they communicate by singing out their needs and desires. Oh, how- he- lo- ved- the- i-dea ! he shouted :

-How wonderful, daddy, it is to sing out your words instead of saying them plainly!

Then, with more excitement, he asked:

-What about food, daddy?! 

I answered him that birds do not have food problems : they have their nourishment at anytime and from any field in the world because the world turns smaller when you fly, and quite at hand. That is the reason why birds seem to enjoy a high degree of self-esteem, refusing ready-made nests, building their haunts with their own beaks. Some of them will rise their pride roof the highest possible refusing to live outside the beautiful seasons of the year, migrating from north of the globe to south of it,  in search of and good food a warm sun. 

Once, Abbass surprised me:

-Can I fly , daddy ? 

I denied because our ancestors had spoilt on us the chance of flying from the very beginning of our existence on Mother Earth. But he would protest energetically:

-What have to do with my ancestors, daddy? I am asking about myself ... 

And I had to rationalize the situation:

Our ancestors had to try flying earlier in time so that they might have acquired wings and transmitted us their ability to fly. But they did not. That is why we are now here on the ground, wingless.

Yet, Abbass would always find solutions to match his rising enthusiasm:

- I’ll put feathers on my arms and I’ll fly away . 

I answered that wings cannot be worn .Wings , like facial features, are inherited. 

-I won’t stay nailed here. I want to fly.

-You won’t .

-I will.

 I had tried, before him, what he was brooding over. At his age, I myself had tried flying from the edge of this very rooftop, indifferent to the crowd of neighbours down  the street, below me, spreading sheets from their corners and imploring me not to commit suicide:

-Don’t kill yourself!  you’ll incur God’s wrath on you...

-I’m not going to kill myself , I’ m going to fly away... 

But I threw myself from where you are standing now , and instead of flying , I fell so heavily that the sheets stretched for me were torn and I collided with the solidity of the ground and had my legs broken. The result is this: I do not fly, I creep ... "wysiwyg", my son:"what you see in me is what you will surely get"…

 Yet, Abbass, you late brother, grew fonder of birds’ lives and offspring and songs until I found myself once crawling in my wheelchair to look deep down the street , below the building, where my neighbours crowded to bandage split skull of your late brother who attempted to fly, imprudently ”… 

The disabled father withdrew his cold hand off the child’s fore-arm in order to outline the conclusion from this fable. Yet , the little child preceded him, with his face always focused on the far-away horizon:

-Don’t be afraid, daddy. I’ll follow neither your way nor Abbass’s... 

Then, firmly :

-I will fly, daddy, and I will succeed in my try.

 

******************

* Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (Semiotic Study on First-names) 2001, "Waiting For the Morning" (Short stories) 2003, "Thus Spoke Santa Lugar-Verde" (Short stories) 2005, "The Season Of Migration to Anywhere" (Short stories) 2006. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).


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مجلة وطنية ثقافية شاملة ومحكمة

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بحث

الهيئة العلمية

أعضاء الهيئة العلمية والتحكيم

د.عبد المنعم حرفان، أستاذ التعليم العالي، تخصص اللسانيات، جامعة سيدي محمد بن عبد الله، كلية الآداب والعلوم الانسانية ظهر المهراز فاس المغرب

د.عبد الكامل أوزال، أستاذ التعليم العالي، تخصص علوم التربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.أحمد دكار، أستاذ التعليم العالي مؤهل ، تخصص علم النفس وعلوم التربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس/المغرب

د.محمد أبحير، أستاذ محاضر مؤهل، تخصص اللغة العربية وآدابها، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين بني ملال/المغرب

د.محمد الأزمي، أستاذ التعليم العالي ، تخصص علوم التربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس/المغرب

د.ادريس عبد النور، أستاذ محاضر مؤهل، تخصص اللغة العربية وعلوم التربية والدراسات الجندرية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس-مكناس/المغرب

د. عبد الرحمن علمي إدريسي، أستاذ التعليم العالي، تخصص علوم التربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس/المغرب

محمد زيدان، أستاذ محاضر مؤهل، تخصص اللغة العربية وآدابها، المركز  الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.محمد العلمي، أستاذ التعليم العالي ، تخصص الدراسات الاسلامية والديدكتيك، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.محمد سوسي، أستاذ مبرز ، دكتور في الفلسفة، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

دة.سميحة بن فارس، أستاذة التعليم العالي مساعد، تخصص الديدكتيك علوم الحياة والارض ، المدرسة العليا للأساتذة فاس / المغرب

د.عزالدين النملي، أستاذمحاضر ، تخصص اللغة العربية والديدكتيك ، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين تازة/المغرب

دة.صليحة أرزاز ، أستاذة التعليم العالي مؤهل، تخصص لغة فرنسية، ، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.المصطفى العناوي، أستاذة التعليم العالي مؤهل، تخصص الاجتماعيات ، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.حسان الحسناوي، أستاذ التعليم العالي مساعد، تخصص اللغة العربية وآدابها ، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين تازة/المغرب

د.عمر اكراصي، أستاذ محاضر مؤهل، تخصص علوم التربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

دة.حنان الغوات، أستاذة التعليم العالي مساعد، تخصص علومالتربية، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين مكناس/المغرب

د.حميد مرواني، أستاذ محاضر مؤهل، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية

والتكوين فاس- مكناس المغرب

   د.عبد الرحمان المتيوي، أستاذ مبرز في الفلسفة، مكون بالمركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس -مكناس /المغرب

د.المصطفى تودي، استاذ باحث بالمركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين لجهة

.فاس-مكناس

دة.الخالفي نادية، أستاذة التعليم العالي مساعد، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية

.والتكوين الدار البيضاء-سطات/المغرب

د. محمد أكرم  ناصف ، أستاذ مؤهل، المركز الجهوي لمهن التربية والتكوين فاس-مكناس المغرب.

هيئة التحرير وشروط النشر

رئيس هيئة التحرير

د.ادريس عبد النور

هيئة التحرير​​

​​​​​د.عمر اكراصي - د.طارق زينون

د.سعيد عمري- ذة. مالكة عسال

ذ.خالد بورقادي إدريسي

الشروط العامة لنشر البحوث:

  • أن يكون البحث ذا قيم علمية أو أدبية، ويقدم قيمة مضافة للحقل المعرفي.
  • أن يتمتع البحث بتسلسل الأفكار والسلامة اللغوية والإملائية.
  • أن لا يكون البحث مستلاً من أطروحة دكتوراه أو رسالة ماستر أو كتاب تمَّ نشره مسبقاً.
  • يلتزم الباحث بإجراء التعديلات التي يقرها المحكمون بخصوص بحثه، حيث يعد النشر مشروطاً بإجراه هذه التعديلات.

المراسلات: Email:cahiers.difference@gmail.com0663314107