AN ANTHOLOGY OF MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 1
Bomb
-Short
Story-
Written by Abdelouahid Kafih
Translated
by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
"Dream
is a magic carpet forever ready to be ridden to far-away worlds. My dream chases down the moments that
escapes me willingly or unwillingly in our hurry after the daily futile
interests.
Dream is the
magic stick that I ride to invade the virgin worlds haunting me without any
need of visas or passports (…)
So, let us
experience our beautiful dream and enjoy the journey to the Infinite"
Abdelouahid Kafih
Moroccan
short-story writer
Author Of:
"Short breaths"
(Short
Stories)
2006
It is all over,
now. The faces that have dreamt for such a long time to change the world have
disappeared. The period of detention that he has counted minute after minute
and second after second is over now. The nights and days that he has
spent in jail have eaten away his flesh and bones.
For two years in detention, he has
been telling his cell about his dreams and his greatest projects that could not
bear the painful strokes of time.
Soon after his release, he stopped
before the giant jail gate to hear the sound of voices outside. He heard no
hullabaloo or acclamations or even slogans. There was a dead silence.
Partisans will bear you on their
shoulders, tear out the white flags and will never again need to write on city
walls stealthily. They will demolish those walls and crush them to powder under
their feet.
Unfortunately, everything has gone
with the wind and everybody has got to rest.
In his life, there remains only his
wife who was the first to receive him: His faithful wife, the cradle of all his
dreams, the keeper of all his private secrets, the fertile soil for all his
children, the defender of their joint honour… His wife who, no sooner had she
announced him the happy news of her pregnancy than Earth shook under his feet
and his eyes, vexed with the entire world’s wretchedness, were drowned in her
swollen bomb-like belly.
Pregnant? How?
He was gradually going mad. He
repeated: « How? »
His eyes strayed away. His wife looked
him up and down, confessing that the two-years’ sleeping fœtus has responded to
the return call. Yes, the sleeping fœtus, a phenomenon that no other woman has
ever experienced!
The how’s pounded
him and perturbed his brain working. He bit his lower lip and faked a smile,
echoing:
_ «Yes, Love, foetuses can sleep in
some of the womb’s angles or folds within their mothers’ bellies as long as
they will. Yes, woman. Your belly, like extinct volcanoes, can recover activity
at any time you will.».
His eyes swallowed a hesitating
teardrop in an attempt to keep as patient and brave as he had been in old
days :
_ «It’s all the same, Rabbit.
Whether present or absent, husbands are not necessary for their wives’
pregnancy».
**********
* The writer, Abdelouahid
Kafih, is a Moroccan short-story
writer, born in
* The writer, Mohamed
Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar
& short-story writer, born on December 23rd
* "Bomb" is the sixth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new
short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.
***********
This Short Story Is Re-published On the
Following Links:
BACK TO THE ANTHOLOGY MAIN
PAGE
HOMEPAGE
CULTURAL
LINKS ONOMASTICS SHORTSTORY ANTHOLOGY
WEBMASTER CRITICISM FRANCAIS ARABIC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
e-mail: said_raihani@yahoo.com
<title>http://raihani.free.fr/englishversion-anthology-index.htm</title>
<meta name="description"
content="Anthology of Moroccan new short story">
<meta
name="keywords" content=" shortstory, selection of Moroccan
short stories, writer abdelouahid kafih ">