AN ANTHOLOGY OF MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 1
Rebellious Dreams
-Short
Story-
Written by Abdellah Al-Mouttaqi
Translated
by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
"Dreams are
Colourful balls,
Magnificent damnation,
Butterflies,
Obstinate and
rhetorical images,
Dreams are
Dreams within dreams,
Distancing from
charcoaled spaces
Towards the crystal
world of astonishment. "
Abdellah Al-Mouttaqi
Moroccan
Poet & short-story writer
Author
Of:
"Blue Chair"
(Short Stories)
"Fatal Poems"
(Collection of Poems)
The
cock, on the roof, is looking with its beak for a laughing sun. The hen, in the
hen-house, is clucking, waiting for a shivering morning. The chicks open their
eyes to bump against dawn-light and …the
husband, who has spent the night all alone watching the TV serial, is gazing at
dawn threads penetrating into the sleeping-room and gathering the shattered
dream in which he was the protagonist two hours ago.
***********
Ibn Sireen saw, in his dream, the same couple
going down dusty stairs while there was a voice of another man within his own
shadow, stretching for his ears. As he turned around, his silhouette-man
punched him so violently on the face that he was about to fall flat on his
teeth, had he not taken hold of the banister at the last moment.
***********
At breakfast table, the husband told his
wife:
-
« Good morning! »
Then, the cascade of his dream broke
out. His wife poked him with a long look and replied with a faint smile:
-
« These
are the remaining images from yesterday’s film, I think? ».
Then, chewing bread and cheese, she left
him, going upstairs probably to check out the hen-house or to look for an egg.
***********
The cock, near the hen-house, is looking
with its beak for sun-rise. The hen, inside the hen-house, is cleaning
parasites off its feathers. The chicks are fully absorbed in playing, careless
of what is happening or about to happen. The husband is in the same room
peeling out the dream that provoked him a few moments ago.
***********
Freud saw the couple’s child crying in the
hands of his grandmother who had not died enough. To cool down his howling, she
leaned his twisted neck against the straw-filled pillow. Lying in bed, the
child’s organ was as erect as a gun.
When the husband joined the
sleeping-room, his wife was there, in front of the mirror, biting her nails.
There was also his silhouette-man lying in bed, I dare say, naked.
***********
At breakfast table, the husband told his
wife the same greeting that he had done the day before:
- «Good morning! »
Hardly had he
started telling her the details of the dream that he had peeled out when
the wife put her bag on her right
shoulder and slammed the door behind her.
***********
What exactly happened is that the
husband is weary of dreaming. He was dozing off in the drawing-room.
His mobile phone rang and there was that
voice which had been targeting him on the dusty stairs:
- « Is your wife at home? »
The man got up violently, went to the
sleeping-room and did not find his wife there. There was only his child sitting
in bed, tearing out the photos in the family album.
***********
At the beginning of the night, his wife leaned her head down to the
pillow and…slept. He had to imagine her padlock and himself a key. The key
approached the lock with his fingers climbing up her backbone and lingering on
her hips. Then, she opened her eyes and asked him to postpone that to the
following night. It was utterly dark around him and the sleeping-room door was
locked.
***********
At
the end of the night, his wife was lying naked on her back. The husband
understood that she was asleep and that he had to sleep, too, despite himself.
At the beginning of the morning, the husband hurried out to buy
shroud-like clothes to his wife who may put them on or just fold them away in
her museum: her wardrobe.
The
cock’s beak did not find the laughing sun. The hen’s found nothing but white
lice. The chicks are still busy playing. The wife is hanging the washing on to
dry whereas the husband is … scribbling this short story.
***********
* The writer, Abdoullah
Al-Mouttaqi, is
a Moroccan poet & short-story writer, born in
*The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story
writer, born on December 23rd
* "Rebellious Dreams!" is the third 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
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