(Translated from Arabic by the author with Scott Minar)
 

Our relationship with the brass city was not good enough. Probably because they have secrets we don’t know. When I approached their closed gates with a friend, they spotted us with a beam of white fire and shouted at us to leave.

That happened at night. I asked my friend about the nature of this fire. He said: it’s a search light at nighttime. Indeed, I saw it fixed on top of the guard towers. It was able to illuminate every secret you held—somehow aware of it or hidden behind the heavy curtains of this vicious darkness.

We both retreated to a nearby forest to find dry grass to start a fire to cook a hearty soup, I mean the broth that helps renew my youth. My friend wasn’t too serious because he just completed his renewal. He succeeded in tricking the angel of death when he was about to pass last year—ask me how…

He dyed his white hair black. 

The signal that draws the angel of death closer, as we know, is the color of your hair. And here he is. My friend is in his vernal apex. Whenever he advances on dusty ground, buds roughly in the flowering stage fall out from under his clothes. Soon the buds grow and make a wonderful line on the ground. I envied him this grace. I was on the other side unfortunately. On the edge, in the autumnal period of my life. Sometimes the herbs didn’t work for me.

The captain of the team I was on advised me, saying: herbs without intent are not enough. You have to steel your mind. You have to plan for your future. Or else…

And he wagged his finger, the one with the golden marriage band, before my bare face.

That was the last sign of attention. He doesn’t use his golden finger unless the situation is critical.

Our captain used to live on a boat in the middle of the water. Because of the climate, subtle white clouds surround him most of the time. They were like wings and transformed his boat into a scene like a sinking temple trying to stay in one piece. His wife was there with him. We all knew that the goal was very clear in his head. That’s why the herbs and the white soup that looks like stew didn’t let him down.

He was another person whose circumstances did not help me in following his wisdom. I came near the edge of dying, my steps grew very slow on the road. And with no living trace, unless some dry grasses occasionally fell from under my clothes. And every time I walk out with my friend, we see behind two opposing lines. The open and bright buds that on black nights draw a white springtime line, and the dry and dead thorns that hold no expectations at all.

***

That night we went far and deep into the forest. We arrived near a rock similar to a Nigerian’s head. It was too dark. I see it like a birth mark on the ground everywhere the true herbs grow. But mostly you see aging reptiles feeding on those herbs. They chew it with soil, roots and little piles of rubble.

I asked my friend: do you have any advice for me?

I meant to ask what was best for me among all of the strange herbs.

He shrugged and went to think. I was able personally to hear the roars of his silenced thoughts and to read his mind. Thus I heard him saying: stupid. He can’t even learn from the lizards.

Then he realized he was not protected from me, and hurried immediately to cover his brow with his hand. He put it there like a protective mask or a concealing hat to fool me. But it seems he had forgotten to swallow his last dose of telepathy antibody. I noticed his thoughts had a loud and restrained echo no wise man like me can miss. To save him from this occasional embarrassment, I asked: have you seen the metal talking instruments over the city towers?

I had no knowledge about the new instruments. We live in a lost city that grows on the latitudes of illusion: between being awake and lying dormant.

The houses in it were in many cases made of wood with watery windows.   I mean simple water falls through which you can see what is happening behind in the world of reality, which is far from us by so many steps.

He looked at that metal and eternal city and said: they are microphones. They can’t speak. But transfer voices and make them louder.

I stood next to him and looked as he did at the city: everything in there is unexpected and enormous. The strong high towers, the yellow brass domes that floated above, and the wardrobes of masked guards with terrifying weapons, etc…

Then before we started to come back to our concerns, we heard the beats of horses’ hooves approaching. We knew immediately from the dangling symbols on the reins and those on the breasts of the knights, which were the yellow spades, these were the city guards.

So we had no alternative but to withdraw from the heart of the forest.

In any event, we didn’t fail. The borders of the forest too were rich with the handy herbs.

2006

Published in my book: Freud’s House. Alef private print house. Damascus and Cyprus.