AN ANTHOLOGY OF
MOROCCAN NEW SHORT STORY, VOLUME 1
The
Interpretation of Dreams
-Short
Story-
Written by Noureddine Mhakkak
Translated
by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
"Dreams are
Dreamers' way
To the world of love
Dreams are
The portal of the heart
To the whole world
Dreams are blue birds
Swimming deeply in the
ocean of vision
But never do they
drown.
Dreams are winged
horses
Flying with the wind
And never getting tired
or bored
Dreams are the mirror
of the inner self
And the means for the
lover to meet his beloved
Dreams are free spaces
For a different
writing".
Noureddine Mhakkak
Critic, novelist & short-story writer
Author of:
"White Slates", 2006
-Short
stories-
In Print:
"Time To Leave"
-Novel-
I saw in my dream that I was walking between foreign houses, holding
many books proliferating endlessly.
Coming to a verse of any poem written inside them, I find myself looking at its
poet's name. Then, I see his face. I put the book down beside him and carry on
my way.
Suddenly, I found myself changed
into a giant book among the other books, keeping my human feelings within my
book-like shape. I can see the world around me and read the sheets of paper thrust in me. The sheets were flying away. Every
sheet was taking along part of the story. I read all the stories. I found some
of them acceptable and comprehensible where the others were very humble or so
they seemed to me. I decided to post these stories to some daily newspaper to
be published but I remembered that publishing is not that easy. I thought to
publish them in a cultural electronic website so that it may be read all over
the world. I found it difficult, too. So, I decided to gather those foreigners,
around there, to tell them my stories.
However, those people looked as if they were dead. They do not move nor do they
speak or look or hear. They looked as if they were bewitched into stone beings
by some evil witch.
What is the use of my stories for those people even if I succeed in
penetrating their weird beings?
Absolutely nothing.
So, I had to get rid of all those stories within the giant book. I took
off all those stories and I started to pin them to the branches of the trees.
Every leaf bears a story and every story should take its place at the trunk of
the tree and so it was.
The mission was accomplished.
All of a sudden, I felt that the universe was filled with light and that
birds came from all over the world heading for the trees. Every tree received
thirty birds and every bird has its eyes fixed straight on the stories pinned
to the branches.
The birds were reading and discussing the stories as if they were trying
to find in them the Simorg image that they have, in vain, being searching
for all their lives. When they have finished reading them, they seemed
unsatisfied as the stories were not about birds' world. They were about man's,
depicting human life. Again, the birds flew away high in the sky and
disappeared in the wide horizon. I felt as if the leaves on the trees turned into eyes looking at me and
inviting me to read my stories for them. I accepted shyly. I took the first
story and i started reading (…).
The trees stirred joyfully. Their branches danced merrily. They asked
for more stories. A snake, which I had not noticed before, said:
"Entertain us, storyteller! » I smiled at hearing his flattery although I
do not like to be qualified a "story-teller". I would prefer,
instead, "short-story writer".
I started to read the second narrative text. In length, It was as short
as Zakaria Tamer's short-short stories but, in content, it was quite
different. My second text takes its subject-matter out of Reality. Anyway, I
started to read and I felt myself shivering. It is difficult to read or write a
new text when you are strongly flattered on the previous one. The fear from
being unable to give valuable additions overwhelms you. Accordingly, the first text grows a real
obstacle against any inclination aiming at change and innovation.
My reading flowed beautifully. The narrative text introduced itself
through my voice like the following:"…".
I observed how the snake's eyes changed from laziness to brightness,
from abstraction to concentration. That made me so happy and encouraged me to
carry on reading my story. The tree branches were dancing again, discussing the
story. I was happy hearing their comments. All their comments were focused on
the text. No comment made a hint on me in any aspect. When the comments were
over, the snake came out of his place and begged me to read the third story.
The third story was real indeed. I do not know when it happened but I
used to feel the truth coming out of it. It is a real story, either it happened
or not. I had that intuition.
I looked up at the tree to the branch of which this story was pinned.
The branch was proud to be chosen as a support for the story. I asked
permission to read the story. The branch allowed me to do by a nod. I paced
closer, put on my glasses and started to read loudly and deeply: (…).
My reading was over. On ending my story, I felt as if some genie had
kidnapped me and thrown me to an unknown, deserted place where there were no
flying birds or walking beasts. I looked left and right. I could hardly hear
somebody moaning. I was afraid but I recovered my composure. I kind of saw a
stone moaning. I paced closer. I found that it has the features of such a very
beautiful girl. I gaped at her, unbelieving. She smiled to me despite the
intense pain she was suffering.
I asked her about her fate and she told me: "A monstrous genie has
kidnapped me in my wedding day and wanted to rape me and when I resisted, he
turned me so"…
I remembered an old poem written for children that I had read when I had
been a little child. It was entitled:" A Mighty Genie". We
used to learn it by heart as every child among us would have hoped to be that
"Mighty Genie". I smiled at the presence of this childish
memory.
The stone girl believed that I was encouraging her to tell her story and
she went on: "This genie told me that my deliverance would be on of some
poet's hands. As soon as he will recite me a courtly-love poem in regular lines
on the iambic pentameter, I will recover my original human shape.
I informed her that I am actually a poet although I write only prose
poetry. I have three poetry collections celebrating feminine beauty. The first
is entitled "Love Papers", the second "Passion
Interpreter" and the third " Love Book".
The charming girl turned to weep again. Her pain deeply touched my heart
and verses on my tongue started to flow down automatically. At that moment, I
felt that the stone girl was gradually recovering her natural shape. Sweat was pouring down both her face and
mine. She was sweating out of transformation and I out of attraction to her
beauty.
She was exceptionally pretty. When the transformation was over, she
hurried away to hide from me. She was beautifully shy in my presence. I hurried
after her, trying to get her and hug her so passionately.
Suddenly, I felt wholly shaken by the alarm-clock ringing, reminding me
that it's time to wake up and hurry to work… Oh, the whole story was a pure
dream!
I got up and went to work but I found out that my damned dream was still
going on.
***********
* The writer, Noureddine Mhakkak,
is a Moroccan critic, novelist & short-story
writer, born in
*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" (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, "The Three Keys: Freedom, Dream & Love" (An anthology of Moroccan New Short Story in Three
Volumes) 2006-2007-2008, "The History of Manipulating Professional Contests in
Morocco" (Syndical manifestos in Two Volumes) 2009-2011, "Death of the Author" 2010…
He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies), "Kais & Juliet" ( Novel) and ""When Photo
Talks" (Photo-Autobiography).
* "The Interpretation of Dreams" is the first narrative
text in the "The
Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new
short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.
***********
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