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 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).
* "Rebellious Dreams!" is the third narrative
text in the "The
Moroccan Dream",
An Anthology of
Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.
***********
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