Raïhanyat,

Moroccan Writer

Mohamed Saïd Raïhani’s Website

WAITING FOR THE MORNING

(A Collection of Short Stories)

(Stories versus Songs)

TEXT 7:

MOUTHS WIDE OPEN

What shall we use to fill the empty spaces,
Where we used to talk?
How shall I fill the final places?
How shall I complete the wall?

"Empty Spaces", a song by The Pink Floyd

The View:

A man, apparently tired, tied up his donkey to a stake and is stepping along to sit down on a rock over there in the corner of this stable, invoking sleep by contemplating his donkey standing upright there, waiting for nothing : Erect.

Looking at his donkey shackled in the further corner of the stable with the number fifty-five on his muzzle and his face flowing lengthwise with vacant eyes, he feels sorrow for all his patience and obedience.

The Waiting :

The donkey, under his burden, stands up waiting for his master who will give him a mild prick on his posterior and a quick tap on his naked neck tugging him out.

The donkey is waiting with no signs of boredom on, playing with his ears, raising one, lowering the other, lowering them both, advancing one, withdrawing the other…

The Unexpected:

Two young men fell down from the stable wall with two plastic bags showing wooden rectangles inside. They disappeared between donkey's legs. After a while, the first head emerged to make sure there are no human eyes around. Then, there emerged the second head. With a light razor stroke, they had the first ear off the donkey’s skull. They took a wooden shoe-brush out of the plastic bag and put it lengthwise between the donkey's jaws to make it easier to get their hands within and cut off the tongue. There started the tongue-and-ear reaping: the first young man was reaping northwards and the other one southwards until they met in the middle of the stable to run away out of the open door, with bleeding ear-stuffed bags…

The donkey’s master wakes up on his rock: his donkey before him stands with a red breast, a vertical wooden tongue and two jaws set wide apart to allow blood-drops run straight outside the stable….

He runs out tracking down the bleeding path to find himself in pursuit of the tongue-and-ear plastic bags before him. He shouts and shouts.

The runaways implore him to retreat:

-Don’t be afraid!

-Please, draw back!

-These are for foreign markets, foreign witches!…

The man slows down, down, down… He stops running, taking in his hands his lower jaw dangling down his chest with saliva dropping sluggishly on his bare fore-arms.

People crowd around him.

Marginal Chats :

-What’s the matter with him?

-He suffers a fit of…

-Oh!

-He got nervous, hyper-nervous. And when he opened his mouth to shout out something, he remained so….

-Let’s put keys in his hands… Feeling metal in his palms may help him recover his conscience.

-But he seem to suffer from his mouth!…

-Oh, Look inside his mouth!…

-His tongue is moving but his voice is hardly audible…..

-His donkey in the stable voiceless, too…

-Oh, glory to God! So, we can do nothing for him….

-Hey, wait! Don’t leave the man like this… Let’s take him to the hospital.

At The Hospital :

The nurse : Sit down there, all of you!

People: His lower jaw will definitely fall on his chest.

The nurse: That’s simple.

People: Where’s the doctor?

The nurse: He is busy doing a surgical operation. He will care after him when he’s back….

People: Shall the man wait with his mouth so wide open?

The nurse: All those patients around there in the waiting-room suffer from the same crisis. And all of them are waiting with their mouths wide open. Human lower jaw can easily deviate and fall down. Yawning with jaws wide stretched or shouting or even laughing can be at the origin of the crisis.

People: That’s right, let him wait.

The nurse: Do you have anything to do, you all?

People: No.

The nurse: So, you might sit down here all together and wait …