AN ANTHOLOGY OF MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 1
For Everybody His Own Hell
-Short
Story-
Written by :Mouna Ben Haddou
Translated
by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
"Dream,
from my viewpoint, is an extension of Reality. Thanks to dreams, many things are
achieved. The major inventions were dreams in some people’s imaginary before
becoming a beautiful reality. We should be proud of our dreams. We should be
proud of our addiction to dream...".
Mouna Ben Haddou
Poetess & short-story
writer
She took a deep breath out of her burning
cigarette: “How can she put an end to her life? Stifling? Hanging
herself? Or swallowing a packet of drugs
like in films?”…There are thousands of ways to stop her pain. Despair and low
spirits engender only pain.
She rained her tears, washing away her wrath and
sadness. She will leave this wild prostituted word. She has no place in all this fake life.
Despite her goodness and popularity that make of her a wonderfully sociable
girl, she sees in that only weak points added to her broken repertoire. An
invisible smile escaped her. With the cigarette angrily seized between her
lips, she cannot see anything. Her laugh is nothing but a subterfuge that she
usually use against the strength of the tides rising high inside her, throwing
her to the utter darkness.
All day long, her parents are quarrelling. Quarrels
from sun-rise to sunset. Only bed reconciles them at night... This cursed life!
She cannot understand that: Insults and offences in the morning then hugs and
kisses at night. What kind of man is her father and what kind of honour is left
for her mother?
She closed the
door to evade talking about her parents, she moved to the neighbouring room to
recollect her past life (…). She does not know how many cigarettes she has
smoked. This may be the third cigarette-box. She does not care for her health.
She may be smoking to take revenge against herself or just to blow away her
worries or again to seek a slow death by burning herself internally.
By committing suicide, she will do nothing new. Her bright eyes will be eager to meet the
imminent death and today is the appropriate occasion to fulfill her dream.
She gathered her strengths to pass through the terrible tunnel and sign her
final departure in such a daring, enviable style. She believes in another life
across Death. Another life where she will have more wonderful things and lead a
more peaceful life with no pains or sins: A world of spiritual purity.
As for me, I will miss her despite her foolishness. I
have never ceased to love her from all my heart. She is my comrade. Despite
everything, she has been like a spring-time puff of air in a hot summer, for
me.
I still remember that unlucky day when she quarreled
with her mother. She broke out nervously at hearing her mother insulting her
for being old maid. She was both injured and sarcastic:
- ‘Mum! Where
have you been when I was in need of you?(…) Why are you looking at me like
that ? I have been smoking for such a long time. This is my only relief’.
She wiped away the tears cascading down her cheeks.
Her mother would stop her, both shocked and surprised:
- ‘Shut up,
girl! For everybody his own hell! ’
- ‘Where have
you been when I was a lost, wandering soul. You’re not my mother. I will root
out my origins. I will tear my veins in two. I will choose my ultimate refuge.
I will move away from you and your trivialities. Sorry, mum! You have come too
late, I don’t want to hear anything anymore. Sorry is the usual word to be said
in such circumstances but sorrow is useless when there are plenty of deep
injuries. Farewell, mum!’
She sneaked upstairs to the place where she feels
safer and nearer to the sky, the only eye-witness to her life. To the rhythm of
hard rock-and-roll music, with the ultimate cigarette between her lips and a
sarcastic smile distorting her face, she blows out her last breath in the
middle of a spot of coagulated blood, drawing down the curtains of a play where
she was the central character with her tortures, worries and shattered dreams.
Some tender
hands have shaken me out of my nightmare. I looked up to find my girlfriend’s
mother asking me about her daughter who had been sitting next to me watching
‘For Everybody His Own Hell!’, the film.
I was so
absorbed by the events of the film that I did not notice her withdrawal. My
eyes were automatically directed to the door opening on the stair-cases
swirling up to Hell. The mother’s eyes followed my eyes’ movements and in no
time she was hysterically climbing up the stairs.
***********
* The writer, Mouna
Ben Haddou, is
a Moroccan poetess & short-story writer ,
born in Ksar El Kebir. She has published many poems and short
stories on different Arab periodicals.
*The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story
writer, born on December 23rd
* "For Everybody His Own Hell" is the fifth narrative
text in the "The
Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new
short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.
***********
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