Short Stories 2 страница

The Earth
You can afford to give up and do without anything except the planet Earth... Earth is the only thing you cannot afford to give up. If you destroyed any other thing you might not lose much. But be careful not to destroy the earth,
because you would then lose everything. Biological life, including Man's life, or rather, in which Man's life dominates, depends on food... food in all its forms, solid, liquid, gaseous, Earth is the container of this food. So do not crush the only container there is of its kind. If you, for instance, ruined arable land, it would be the same as you wanting to cook after having smashed all your pots and pans. If you ruined arable land, it would be the same as you wanting to drink from your only drinking vessel, which you had broken. The Earth is like your lungs. If you ruined it, you would have no lungs to breathe with. It would not be much good to you if it rained heavily, where you had no arable land.
The sky is not very important to us without the earth. If it so happened that there was oxygen somewhere in outer space, it would be useless unless there was earth. Land was the cause of all historic conflicts, which Man waged against Man or against Nature. Land has always been a bone of contention. Even outer space is being explored for the sake of the land.
The Earth is your real Mother, out of whose matter you have been fashioned. It embraces you... nourishes you... and provides water for you, so do not abuse your Mother... do not pull your Mother's hair... do not rip up her fingers, or cut her body, or tear up her flesh. Only gently clip her finger-nails... cleanse her, and remove the dirt and filth from her body, cure her of all the diseases you have caused her. Do not press her bosom by heavy constructions, or heap clay and stone over her ribs, show mercy to your Mother, whom if you misused, you would not find another one like her. Sweep her back clear of the heaps of steel, bricks and stone. Relieve her ageing shoulders of what the recusants have heaved on them. Do not not look down on the cradle in which you grew up, and the bosom which cuddled you, when you were young. Do not smash your only abode and ultimate resort, otherwise, you shall certainly be regretful losers.
The Earth is worthy of its name only if you take particular precaution that it goes on giving, because productive earth is useful earth. Therefore, look after this Earth, the surface of which would be as good as dead once it became built-up areas, stone, asphalt, or concrete. Such earth could not be productive or useful, as it would then be areas of asphalt, tar, tiles, marble and concrete. These materials give nothing, as no grass or plant would grow there, nor would water spring from it. In this way it becomes useless to both men and animals; it becomes waste land. When you kill the Earth, you commit suicide indeed, because life is food and water; and the Earth, the surface of which has been turned into built-up areas, gives neither food nor water. Therefore, there can be no life on waste land. What sort of people are those who cause slow death to the earth by gradually burying it alive until it is finally dead?! What other earth could they rely on for living? Where would they live? And how would they manage for food and water? The Earth is unique. There is no substitute for it, nor is there anything to compensate you for losing it. So, where would you go?!
Paradise was a garden of trees and plants and not a network of roads, pavements, plazas and buildings. Abuse of the Earth is the unforgivable misuse of it by changing its nature into something unfit for producing food and water. Therefore, the people who change good earth into waste land are recklessly unaware of what may happen!

Suicide of The Astronaut
Having travelled far and wide in giddy outer space, and since budgets can no more support the great expense of
outer space programmes, and now that man has landed on the moon but found nothing much except that the two astronauts have exposed the wild guesses and vain hypotheses of scientists that there were seas and oceans on the moon, which led to the competition to own them and designate names for them by the insolent great powers, who nearly went to war on the earth for the sake of dividing the Moon's natural resources, especially the marine ones; and having roamed around the planetary system, taking pictures of all the planets; and after giving up hope of finding intelligent life, or any suitable place for living there, Man returned to the Earth frustrated and suffering from giddiness, vomiting and fear of perdition. He has now realized the fact that the Earth is unique and incomparable as a source of life, which, in simple words, means food and water; and that the one and only planet to provide them is the Earth. For Man, bread, dates, milk, meat and water are vital. Air, which is indispensable to life, is secured by the atmosphere of the Earth... etc. Thus Man had to return to the Earth from his outer space escapade.
Back on the Earth, the astronaut took off his spacesuit and put on his familiar one, which is suitable for walking and living on the Earth. Now that his mission with the space corporation had come to an end, he began to look for an earthly job. He applied for one at a carpentry workshop, but he failed the test, because he lacked the essential know-how of what he thought was a simple trade. Also he had a go at a lathe workshop, a blacksmith's forge, building and plumbing. He even tried painting and white washing.. He had not studied fine art or music or weaving, as they had nothing to do with his scientific specialisation. So he had to leave the city, a frustrated failure, and set off for the countryside, where he looked for work as a farmhand in order to support himself and his family. One of the farmers asked if he was attracted to the earth by which he simply wanted to know if the astronaut liked farming. But the astronaut answered, " The attraction of the Earth decreases as we go up, and our weight also decreases gradually until we get to the point of weightlessness. Then and there we get free of the Earth's attraction or gravity as we call it. But soon afterwards we get attracted by another planet, and our weight begins to increase gradually... and so on. I hope I have answered your question ".
The farmer showed signs of someone who did not comprehend and looked as if he wanted more explanation; and the astronaut, hoping to impress the simple farmer in order that he would take him on as a farmhand, went on parading his space knowledge: The volume of the Earth is about 1320 times less than that of Jupiter's, and that 12 years on the Earth equal one year on Jupiter, and that the Jupiter spot is big enough to hold the Earth in its centre. You may also be interested to know that Saturn is 744 times bigger than the Earth, yet it is only about 95 times heavier than the Earth. The diameter of the Earth is about 50 times bigger than that of the Moon's and its volume is about 80 times bigger than that of the Moon's. The pull of the Earth's gravity is six times greater than that of the Moon's. The Earth is about 150 million kilometres away from the Sun, whose light takes eight minutes to reach the Earth at the speed of 300 thousand kilometres per second. The volume of the Earth is about 1303800 times smaller than that of the Sun's; and the mass of the Earth is also 332958 times smaller than the mass of the Sun whose density is 30 times bigger than that of the Earth's. The Earth comes third in distance from the Sun. Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun, Venus comes next, then the Earth... etc. Venus is about 42 million kilometres away from the Earth which is about 400 thousand kilometres away from the Moon.
If you had a car that ran at 100 kilometres per hour, it would take you 146 days to get to the Moon. But if you had no car and decided to walk to the Moon, it would take you eight years and a hundred days to get there. I think I have answered the question fully now. As you see, I am well informed in matters concerning the Earth. As soon as he heard the last repetition of the word " Earth ", the farmer became aware of himself and closed his mouth, which had been wide open during the whole story of the astronaut's journey from one planet to another, from the time he left the Earth until he returned home. The farmer did not comprehend much, but he too felt dizzy because he fell under the spell and felt that he also was coming home from a space journey with no tangible gains concerning his farm. What mattered to him was the distance between one tree and the other and not the distance between the Earth and Jupiter. He was also interested in the volume of the yield of his farm and not in the volume of Mercury. He felt very sorry for the begging pathetic astronaut and had the desire to give him some alms, but he was unable to take him on as a farm-hand.
And so, having lost all hope of finding any bread winning job on the Earth, the astronaut decided to commit suicide.

The Escape to Hell
How cruel people can be when they flare up together! What a crushing flood that has no mercy for anyone in its way! It does not heed one's cry or lend one a hand when one is in dire need of help. On the contrary, it flings one about heedlessly.
The individual's tyranny is the easiest kind of tyranny. He is only one among many, who can get rid of him when they wish. He could even be liquidated somehow by somebody unimportant. But the tyranny of the masses is the cruellest kind of tyranny.
Who can stand against the crushing current and the blind engulfing power?!. How I love the liberated masses on the march! They are unfettered, with no master, singing and merry after their terrible ordeals! On the other hand how I fear and apprehend them! I love the masses as much as I love my father. Similarly, I fear them no less than I fear him. In a Bedouin society, where no government system exists, who can deter a father from persecuting any of his children? Yes. How much they love him, and how much they fear him at the same time! That is how I love and fear the masses. Exactly as I love and fear my father. How loving the masses can be when they are happily excited! They carry their favourite sons high on their shoulders.
They carried Hannibal, Barclay, Savonarola, Danton, Ropespierre, Mussolini and Nixon! But how cruel they can be when they are angrily excited! They plotted against Hannibal by poisoning him. They burnt Savonarola at the stake; they brought their hero, Danton, to the guillotine; they smashed the jaws of Robespierre, the beloved fiance, they dragged Mussolini's carcass along the streets of Milan, and they spat at Nixon's face as he was forced to leave the White House, where they had ushered him in ceremoniously before.
What terror! Who can talk the unfeeling entity into consciousness?! Who can argue with a mass mind not embodied in one individual? Who can hold the hand of the millions?! Who can comprehend a million words pouring out of million mouths at the same time?! Who can talk sensibly to whom in this terrifying excitement?! Who blames whom?!. With this social flame burning your back, and a society that loves you but has no mercy for you, and people who know what they want from this individual but pay no attention to what the individual wants, they assert their rights but overlook their duties towards you; with the same masses who poisoned Hannibal, burnt Savonarola, smashed Robespierre; who adored you but failed to reserve a seat for you at a cinema house, a table in a coffee-shop... they love you, but they do not show their love to you in any tangible way, such as a seat or a table at a coffee-house. This is what the masses have done to such individuals. So, what can I hope for, a poor Bedouin, lost in a mad modern city, whose people bombard me with their demands whenever they get hold of me? have a house built for us better than this one... Get us better telephone service!... Have a road built for us in the sea!... Make public parks for us!... Catch enough fish for us!... Write out amulets for us... Make wedding contracts for us!... Get that stray dog out of our way! Buy a cat for us!!! They ask that much of a confused poor Bedouin, who hasn't got even a birth certificate... who carries his walking stick on his shoulder, who does not stop at the red light, nor does he flinch when he gets into an argument with a policeman. He does not clean his hands when he eats. He would kick off anything that hampered his movements even if it landed on a shop window, hit a hag on the face, or broke the window panes of a smart white house. He has never tasted alcohol or even Pepsi Cola or Soda water...You see him looking for a camel in the Martyrs Square, a horse in the Green Square, or driving his sheep through the Tree Square. These masses, who have no mercy even for their saviours, seem to follow me everywhere, burning me... even when they applaud, they seem to prick me... I, being an illiterate Bedouin, do not know about house painting or the meaning of sewage disposal.
I use my hands to drink rain water and well water, and use my cloak to filter out the tadpoles. I do not know how to swim, neither breaststroke nor backstroke. I do not understand the concept of money, yet people ask me for it. As a matter of fact, I do not possess it; I only snatched it from the hands of thieves, from the mouths of mice and from the fangs of dogs and gave it out to the townsmen under the name of a benefactor from the desert and in my capacity as a liberator from bondage and fetters.
What has been stolen and misused by guilty hands (one of them being a comrade of the cave dwellers and the rates) needs a long time and the effort of many a man to put right, but the inhabitants of the mad modern city ask me for it right away. I felt I was the only one who had nothing, and so, unlike them, I did not ask for the service of a plumber, builder, painter, barber...etc. And since I had not requested anything because I had nothing, I became well known, or rather an odd man out. That is what bothered me and still does almost every hour. But I must admit that I am to blame as well. I did myself a great wrong when I stole Moses staff with which I struck the desert where a spring gushed forth, because, as I have already mentioned, I do not know sewerage, plumbing or narrow water mains, and hoped that this spring would relieve me of all such demands, and the root cause of them. Even my defiance of the policeman caused such sensation in all quarters of the city, where my name became popular: some applauded me, and others called me bad names. The police wanted to get rid of me. The mother of the policeman with whom I had a row, rejuvenated, took a fancy to me. When I refused her advances, she tried to get me into trouble. The police would even set their silly dogs at me... and yet I encouraged them to go in for seafood by learning how to fish, so that they might leave me with my sheep alone in peace.
I am a simple poor man, I have no degree and I do not like physicians simply because they are called doctors. That is why I have not been inoculated against sensitivity. So I grew up to be very sensitive unlike townsmen, who have been regularly immunized for a long time at historic intervals beginning with the Romans, then the Turks and finally the Amelicans. Much to your amusement as you read this, you see I do not pronounce the word " Americans " with an (R) as you do, I use (L) instead because I do not know the meaning of " America". As far as I know, it was discovered by an Arab prince and not Columbus. But then, it has great power, it has agents; it has bases in places under its influence, and it has the right of veto, which it willingly uses for the benefit of Israel. It has recently acquired a house at the head of the Delta, where the River Nile splits into the Rosetta branch and the Damietta branch. There is a buffalo farm surrounding the house. It practises imperialist policies; therefore it is AMELICA. This is what my cousin, Hajji Mejahid said. He is the son of my aunt Azza, daughter of my grandmother Ghanima, who is the sister of Countess Maria.
On the whole, I did myself a disservice when I came to the city out of my free will; there is no need to say why, the thing is: it was a time of challenge, no more. Therefore, please let me tend to my sheep, which I have left in the wadi bed under the care of my mother, who has died recently, and so has my sister. I was told that I had brothers and sisters killed by mosquitoes. So leave me alone with my own anxieties! Why do you follow me and point me out to your children? They, too, harass me now.
They run after me, shouting, " I swear it is him!" Why don't you let me have some rest or, at least, stroll undisturbed in your streets? I am a human being like you, I like apples, so why don't you let me walk about at the market? And by the way, why can't I have a passport? But then, what good is that to me?! I am not allowed to go abroad on holiday or for medical treatment, I can go abroad only when I am on official business. That is why I have decided to hurry away to Hell!. I shall now tell you the story of my escape to Hell, and describe the way leading to it and then describe Hell itself to you and how I came back from there along the same road. Indeed it was an adventure, a very strange factual story, which, I swear, has nothing to do with fiction. As a matter of fact, I have twice escaped to Hell just to get away from you, hoping only to save myself.
Your breath annoys me, invades my privacy, violates my inner life and viciously craves to squeeze me in order to thirstily drink up my essence, lick my sweat and inhale my breath. Then it pauses... it stops molesting me only to attack again as vigorously as before. Your breath chases me like a rabid dog... dripping saliva in the streets of your mad modern city.
They chase me wherever I go through cobwebs and esparto paper. So I have decided to hurry away to Hell to save myself. The way to Hell is not what you may expect, or as described to you by the sick imagination of some equivocators. I, having twice walked through it, shall describe it to you. I had some peaceful sleep and rest in the heart of Hell. I have experienced Hell, I tell you; and the two happiest nights of all my life were those two nights I spent in the heart of Hell. That was a thousand times better than living among you. You harass me and deprive me of my right to peace and quiet, and so I had to escape to Hell.
The road along which I merrily walked to Hell is covered with the natural carpet all through the horizon. When the natural carpet gradually came to an end, I found the road carpeted with fine sand. I saw flocks of wild birds of the kinds you know and even found some domestic animals grazing and grooming. But I was astonished to see slopes and areas of lowland before me which made me halt hesitantly and look in the distance. And there was Hell showing up against the horizon. It was not red like fire nor glowing like embers. I stopped not out of fear of approaching it. On the contrary, I adore it and love to be in physical contact with it, because it is my only sanctuary when you harass me in your three-cornered city... when it appeared to me in the horizon, I nearly went wild with joy. I stopped to contemplate the short cuts to it, and chose the nearest one to its heart, and listened to find out if it had any raging sighs.
To my delight I found out that Hell was very quiet, quite peaceful and steadfast like the hills surrounding it. A strange kind of silence fills it with a solemn awe-inspiring atmosphere covering it. I saw no flames in it, only clouds of smoke rising above it. I slid along the slopes towards it joyfully in a hurry to reach it before sunset, hoping to secure a warm bed in its heart before I got hemmed in by the guards of your hell, who were pursuing me crazily, using up-to-date means of detection and pursuit. At last I came within range of Hell and was able to see it quite clearly. And now I can describe it to you exactly as I have seen it, and answer any queries concerning Hell, which I came so close to.
Firstly - Hell has craggy, tortuous, dark, mist-capped hills whose stone has been burnt black since time immemorial. I was struck with astonishment to see wild animals on their way to Hell before me. Apparently, they too were deserting you: their life is in Hell; their death among you. Everything around me had melted away except my own self-existence, which I felt stronger than at any other time or place before: The hills broke up and dwarfed away; the trees dried up; and the animals shied off and plunged into the jungles of Hell, seeking sanctuary away from Man. Even the sun seemed to peter out when it was shut off from me by Hell. There was nothing else prominent except Hell, whose heart was the most interesting part of it. So I went headlong towards it without much difficulty. I melted into myself, which in turn melted into me to protect and cuddle each other until we became one new entity for the first time. Not because myself had ever been absent from me, but because your hell gave me no chance to be with it, to contemplate it and to talk lovingly to it. I had always felt that we - I mean myself and I - were like two dangerous criminals in your city, whom you subjected to constant surveillance and interrogation. Even when we were proved innocent and our identity was known, you kept us in prison under special surveillance. Your purpose being to keep me away from myself at any cost so that you might live in peace and quiet. Oh, how sweet hell is... much sweeter than your city! Why did you drag me back once more?! I want to return to it... and wish to live there.
I do not need a passport to go to Hell... all I need is myself... myself, which I discovered, you have mercilessly maimed in an attempt to spoil its innocent nature!. You tried to separate me from myself, but by escaping to Hell I have retrieved it from you. I wish for nothing from you,... I leave you with rubbish and dustbins... I have also left you my gold helmet in Cairo... that authoritative helmet which I grabbed from its guardian after I had heard and read so much about it... and learnt that magic rings (desire-satisfying rings) are made of its gold parts... and that whoever put it on would become sultan immediately... and would conspicuously sit on the throne... and that kings, presidents and princes would have to disappear before him. He would be able to bring the little girl Meitigah to life. He would be able to bring back to life all the martyrs, even Omar Al-Moktar, Saadon, Abdul Salam Abu-Meniar, Al-Jalat and others who died honourably as unknown soldiers... And that whoever put it on would have about four thousand million Dinars in cash, which he could spend as he wished. On the whole, he would possess the (Shobeik Lobeik) ring which would satisfy all desires: Ask for any kind of weaponry from an ordinary gun to a sophisticated missile, and you have it... call forth even a mirage and it is there at your service, let alone a Mig fighter or whatever you wish... and you could lock up any Englishman and have Mrs Thatcher suffer a snub. At the same time if you put on this magic helmet you could go to sleep lazily even if you saw with wide open eyes a wolf about to attack your sheep.
So there you are, you could slumber away among the heaps of litter and rubbish of which creative hobby you seem to be deprived as I hear from the Voice of the Arabs. I have also read and heard that this steel... sorry, I mean magic authoritative helmet was once claimed by Iblis who, bore number 0+1. He laid a claim to it on the pretence that he was an angel, and that Churchill and Truman bore witness to his claim. You were taken in by that lie and fooled by the trick with perdition as the resultant end of your naive conduct until I felt with you in your sorry state of affairs and heard the Friday preacher in your mosques say this prayer, " O, Allah, our sorry state cannot be hidden from you, nor can our helplessness be unclear to you. There is no shelter for us but with you. To you we return. Labbayek! Labbayek!".

The Blessed Herb and the Cursed Tree
Good news for the emotionally disturbed of both sexes. A herb has been discovered in the Benghazi plain, and it is now sold at Hajji Hassan's shop. In a television interview watched by no less than three million people, Hajji Hassan stated that the herb was an effective cure for the emotionally disturb.
He said nothing about those who are not emotionally disturbed yet. But, naturally, should they develop such symptoms, the blessed herb is there, an effective balsam and medicine for them... so much then about the blessed herb for the emotionally disturbed! For other diseases and ailments, there is also enough other medicine at Hajji Hassan's shop besides the blessed herb. There are other herbs: There is one for all kinds of sterility, (as he himself affirmed) infertility, lack of productivity and perhaps even intellectual barrenness. There is also medicine for headaches. If you got a headache or felt dizzy for any reason, even if that was when you were looking for a shirt for your son that cost one dinar at the state-owned markets, but had found it now for twenty dinars at a private shop, which made you hurry back to the state-owned market only to find that it had gone.
So you had to go back to the private shop, but only to find that the price had gone up to twenty-five dinars during your absence for five minutes - Hajji Hassan confirms that he has got a medicine herb for such giddiness, which he had extracted from the grass and numerous plants on the village common... Not only this medicine but also another effective medicine of a particular strain of cactus has been discovered by the same Hajji Hassan growing in profusion in graveyards. People, taking this medicine, gain patience similar to that of the dead, and become immune to any local exploitation and international weakness, which is the secret of its growing in graveyards. There is also at this shop a long list of other herbs, which, as Uncle Hassan has explained, help you to resist diseases and dispense with treatment, which entails the problematic frequenting of private and public clinics and hospitals. If only we had godlike common sense to make a beeline for this shop and queue for hours and days or even months to procure these medicines, we would be well-rewarded... much better than anything else. Why can't we be patient enough to stand in the queue and wait for our turn to buy this medicament? We have cut down the trees on our farms to change them into built-up areas... We have slaughtered most of our animals and, no doubt, we shall kill the rest on the feast day of sacrifice. Our children go to free-of-charge public schools, and we receive free radio and television programmes, which we can listen to, watch and criticize as we wish.
In order to oblige us, they purchase cartoon programmes to keep the attention of children away from us, no matter if these cartoons are harmful, or western or who has made them and what their subject matter is... what is most important is that we needn't undergo any hard labour, fatigue, or worry because of our children since everything is being looked after by the state. And he who does not work, does not produce, yet he still consumes. Defence, too, does not seem to be any of our business, which clearly shows that we had lied to ourselves when we proclaimed that defence was the responsibility of every citizen. It is obvious that we are doing our best to shun this sacred duty. We stand for peace and love.
Our motto being, "Peace, mercy and the blessing of God be upon you." So from us may there be peace, mercy and the blessing of God upon the Israelis, the "Amelicans", NATO, and the Pact of David, who we expect, should wish us the same, or better. Every day we wait for the Israelis and their allies to say, "May there be peace upon Rabta, Tajura, Ras Lanoof, Jerusalem and Baghdad ".
Anyway, what use are the medicine factories at Rabta and Ras Lanoof for us so long as Hajji Hassan has gathered for us enough herbs, which cure all diseases even those of the brain, the heart and eyesight... and... dysentery or... dignity... one or the other... because reception was poor at the moment when Hajji Hassan was explaining the magical effect of a particular herb... if I heard him right, he said it was an effective cure against dysentery or dignity, perhaps even old age, as I think I heard him say that it also cured senility or self-respect or something like that which seemed to have some connection with senility.
Therefore, we are really lucky.. we have got ourselves free of everything... Poor are the people who, unlike us, have to sacrifice themselves and shed blood in defence of their homes.
They also sweat blood to enhance production and dig up the earth with their finger-nails... in order to plant it with trees and cucumber and garlic.. poor are the Israelis who spend their lives with their forefingers on the trigger in order to keep Palestine occupied... Poor are Noriega and Orthega... Poor are the " Amelicans " too, who spend billions on space armament to protect America.

Death
Is Death male or female? God knows... But the ancient pre-Islamic poet, Tarafah Ibn Al-Abd considered it male when he said: Death, I notice, hovers over generous people to choose The best of what the strictest of them has hoarded up.
But the contemporary poet Nizar Al-Qabani, who is pre-Islamic in his own way, says that death is female, because it has snatched his son, Tawfiq. But then why ask the question? What purpose does it serve to know if death is male or female? Death, whether male or female, is death. By all means, it is most important, or rather one is morally bound to specify the sex of death and decide whether it is male or female.
Because if it were male, one ought to challenge it to the bitter end. But should it be female, one had to give in to it to the last breath.
Anyway, the word death (Decease) appears in a lot of books, sometimes as male and sometimes as female.
I, judging from my own experience and troubles with death, know this for a fact: Death is a male who is on the offensive all the time. He has never been on the defensive even when he is beaten. He is brave, fierce, cunning and sometimes cowardly. Death attacks but gets beaten off badly at times.
He does not emerge victorious in every attack as some people seem to think. Many a duel was there in which death lost courage and had to retreat blood-stained and defeated. But despite the cuts, stabs, blows, smashes and kicks which he receives, when his opponent is a relentless fighter, he never gives in, or is ever imprisoned; nor has he ever been finished off.
This is his dangerous secret; and this is his incomparably destructive superiority to all life supporting factors against death. Death is really a unique combatant who has a deep, long breath and endless patience. His confidence in himself is limitless no matter how strong, relentless or winning his opponent seems to be. No matter what fights he loses, wounds he receives, or rounds in which he is defeated, he is never adversely affected by the resounding noises of celebration, held by his unimaginative, short-sighted, winning opponents.
Such displays of rejoicing do not make him despair of attacking again. One can't help admiring such an overbearing adversary who never needs to alter his clear-cut decisions! The might of death does not lie in his decisive blows, nor in his fatal stabs or in his successful attacks, because he hits and misses, wins and loses, attacks and suffers defeat. Not all his blows are exceptionally well-aimed, nor are all his fights successful. His real might lies in his hellish ability to receive, bear and neutralize all the arrows and spears directed at him, and in his inhuman appetite to lick the blood and pus of his wounds, and in his capability of transforming all this into fiery ferocious fighting energy which eventually overwhelms his opponent. Death's entitlement to victory lies in the fact that he is impartial and that he seeks help from nobody. To do that would indicate a fault in character when death is faultless; and it might imply that he could be a stooge. Death manoeuvres and changes his colour to suit his own purpose, but he can never be someone else's stooge. Were he to depend on anybody; he would have to give hostages to fortune and become a doll to be thrown away in the dustbin after play. If death were a stooge, a lackey, a hostage or a doll, his ultimate victory would arouse considerable suspicion. On the other hand, death, as I have already said, is not a mythical hero with high moral ideas, social and tribal manners or a noble family background which make the possessor of such ideals morally bound to behave properly in order not to blemish inherited values. On the contrary, death is a dodger, chameleon-like, moody and capable of taking on different personalities with different roles. He may appear on a tall white horse, brandishing his weapon at his opponent face to face, and he may stab in the back as does a woman untrained to use weapons; he may come at you fearlessly on foot; and he may turn up crawling or prone under the cover of earth or any other means of deception and camouflage. Many a victim had he claimed when they were peacefully and quietly unaware of him! And many others had he snatched away when they were having happy dreams in sound sleep. And many more had he grabbed when they were merrily laughing and oblivious of him! So, do not expect any mercy or pity from death. He will not exchange intimacies with you or consider your circumstances or respect your lives.
He may tear off a suckling from its mother's breast to butcher it before her; he may even get it out of her womb dead after a long wait for it to be born. He may steal either one of a newly-wed couple on their wedding night. He may assault the parents and leave the children alone or vice-versa. In other words, he is, as yellow books depict him, the terminator of pleasure and the orphan-maker of boys and girls.
Therefore, do not show mercy to death, nor expect any mercy from him.
There is no love lost between him and us. He is our deadly enemy; there can be no peace with him or hope in him. So, as just tit for tat, show no mercy to him and no lack of unity, because he will show you little mercy no matter how disunited you are or what concession you make. He accepts no compromise at all and peaceful coexistence is foreign to his nature.
He cut off my brothers and sisters in their prime, and starved my family until they had to surrender to his will, and allured my brothers and sisters to play with him in the quagmire, where he poisoned them; four boys and two girls.
Then he had several hot duels with my brave father. He came to Gordabia under the banner of Miani's campaign, disguising himself in the clothes of Italian and Eritrean soldiers in order to kill my father, who fought him openly since he had killed my brothers and sisters. My father had vowed to have his revenge on death for what he did; and that was why he had killed a good number of col. Miani's soldiers in whose clothes death disguised himself so perfectly that everyone of them seemed to be death himself... and how bewildered my father was to see the endless falling of martyrs, death's victims, on his right and left, when, at every shot he triggered, he thought he had done away with death till he ran short of ammunition.
He cried out, "Can I have some more ammunition to relieve you of death?" A young man, lying prone in a nearby trench, answered him that he had enough to spare. My father spirited, hurried towards him, but death was faster. When my father crept into the trench, he found the young man dead!.
Therefore, death can hear and see, but my father, like death, was a fierce fighter. He took the young man's ammunition and continued the duel until he felt weak with thirst.
He asked his uncle Khamis for a drink of water to go on fighting. His uncle who had no water himself, leapt at one of the enemy's water-carrying mules to get some water. But death, as usual, was faster. He directed his fatal shot at Khamis just above the right eye-brow where it pierced its way through to the brain, which oozed out all over his body as he fell a martyr to the ground. This infuriated my father, who sprang out of the trench to fight standing up. He challenged death face to face when he shouted at him. "We're the children of Moussa.
If you are a real male, come out and look me in the face, you, cowardly death!" But death did not answer this challenge or even put up a hand to show where he was or reveal a brave face. It was not death, but a group of brave young men who answered my father, saying, " We are the children of Al-Haj... children of Al-Haj " They sprang up on their feet to face death fearlessly. My father hurried to join them, but death was always faster. He had gunned them dead before my father reached them.
When the struggle between death and my father became so intense, his fellow fighters asked him not to draw nearer to them so that death might not ambush them as he did to Khamis, the Al-Hajji's sons, Al-Atrash, Assohbi, Mohamed Ben Faraj... and many others. My father continued his persistent struggle all day long. At sunset death's strength began to wane and consequently his will to continue the duel abated! So he decided to withdraw in order to gather strength for another round. But this time he succeeded in firing nine bullets at my father, which hit him and tore his clothes but luckily they were not fatal.
As I told you, death is defeated and withdraws but never feels ashamed or loses hope, because his self-confidence is much stronger than despair itself, his belief in ultimate victory is greater than temporary defeat or passing adversities; and the secret lies in his self-sufficiency that needs no help or support from any quarters, not even from America. Hardly had three years passed when death attacked again, hoping to have done with my father this time. He engaged him in a ferocious duel that was much worse than the one at Gorabia.
He, being a deceiver as usual, appeared in this battle disguised, both in entity and attire, as one of the Senussi soldiers, who were pro-Italian in Sirte and Ejdabia.
He was exceptionally defiant this time, self-complacent at being superior in men and weapons, and confident of victory. But my father, who was as defiant, though less self-complacent and less-hopeful, was obstinately rash and more reckless. He laughed at death when he saw the Senussi soldiers crawling like locusts to occupy the high and low lands surrounding the Klaiah wide pit near the salt-mine.
They changed the colour of the golden sand into black and white after the colour of their formal costumes. The whole area was filled with men conscripted in favour of death. And there was my father among a much smaller number of lion-like men... in fact, a very humble number! It was an ill-fated day of distressful agony from sunrise to sunset; death in full preparation; my father in full bravery, death heading the hosts of the pro-Italian Senussi soldiers; my father among a band of brave honourable men. Since the situation was so critical and survival was so hopeless and the battle so un-balanced; my father decided to fight it out with the least of precaution, openly showing his contempt of death, by rushing at his army... He dug no trench, nor did he fire from a reclining position, he preferred to fight sitting or standing. Bravery and despair seemed to intermingle.
What an awesome sight that was! And how hard it had been to survive! But exactly as it had happened at Gordabia. Death's bullets hit my father's companions only: There was Abu-Osbaa, hit at the heart... next to him lay Gheddaf Addam, giving up the ghost... and now the sun was falling headlong towards the earth as if hit by a stray bullet! It was getting dark now and death's lost chance seemed to slip away.
This made turbulent death swell up with anger at my father, who had been challenging him all day long. He aimed his Mosin-Nagant rifle, supplied to him by the Tsar of Russia, at my father's heart but missed and hit him at the shoulder instead. The bullet, passing through the shoulder from the front to the back, had left a dangerous deep cut at his left side. I have already told you that not all death's shots are well-directed, nor are all his stabs fatal.
He hits and misses, succeeds and fails. True, he rendered my father unable to continue the fight this time and partially paralized him for life, but he could not manage to finish him off. I have already told you that death is not always brave or a challenger. On the contrary, he is sometimes a coward, stabbing in the back, stinging in the foot and sinking into the ground. Death, as I have already explained, does not despair and never leaves his opponent alone, no matter how beaten he may be. So despite growing pale with fatigue after engaging many intrepid heroes in hot duels, such as at Al-Malh and Gordabia, where he failed to defeat my father.
Death appeared this time disguised as a striped snake hiding in the dead thorny trunk of a desert bush in a cut off wadi that had neither water nor trees, to bite my father's heel in an abominable, treacherous, and cowardly way under the dark cover of night. This is frightening death! He rides a black horse when he is most furious and rides a white horse when he challenges openly and defiantly. Here is death, who has brandished his sword at great leaders, skulking away to come from behind, not face to face, from beneath, not from above... he comes to bite not to fight, he shrinks into himself rather than show himself, and he cuts heels rather than necks.
This is how mighty death, whose terror, reaches far and wide, had transformed himself this time into a treacherous snake that stung my father's strong rough foot, which had stamped on it. Death thought that that was the fatal trick and the cunning plan. Having failed in face to face duels, death resorts to cunning and deception; and after confrontation in day light, he lurks under a camouflaged screen.
No doubt, a desert snake stinging a lonely man in a distant wadi, where no one could hear his call for help, was definitely quite enough to kill him. The arrangements and expectations of proud death, who was cocksure of ultimate victory, were such that he overlooked the fact that the will to live could upset his arrangements and frustrate his expectations; and that will to live was able to neutralize his fatal poison with the simple means of a strong brew of ordinary black tea without sugar.
Several doses of this strong sugarless black tea made my father throw up a few times. No sooner had the vomiting spasm stopped than he sprang up on his feet again to overcome death, which seemed victorious only a few minutes earlier. Jeering at death and gloating at his misfortune, my father crushed the head of the venomous snake, in the form of which death had disguised himself in that distant desert place. Death, as we know from this story, neither dies nor despairs however badly hurt or beaten he may be. My father killed the snake with his foot, which had always been strong and unshaken in the battle field or on the head of other serpents. Hardly had my father's foot fallen on the head of the snake when death left it for another one, which happened to meet my father on his way home one day. He was gathering some dead branches from a desert bush to make a fire, when the second snake attacked him, injecting a stream of fatal poison into his hand.
As my father had no tea this time, and the place was neither distant nor desolate, death thought these were factors of weakness on the part of my father, who would not be so challenging as he was when the place was distant with no one to help him, where his demise could have been a catastrophe. The situation then made my father put up a strong resistance, mobilizing all his inner strength to frustrate death's wanton intention. But this time with people nearby, and the idea of depending on others for help bound to soften my father's spirit for defiance and resistance, death thought that he had trapped his intrepid opponent at last.
However, death apparently forgot that his treacherous plan was really stupid, because by frequent snake bites he had immunized my father against their poison. Thus this second bite, painful though it was, did not finish him off either. The longer my father lived, the more enterprising death became. My father kept up his stubborn courage, and death never gave up hope of catching him. Having followed the incidents of this dramatic story so far, we can say that death is really a male in the former situations and a female in the latter ones.
Thus the whole thing is so confusing, because even when death changed into a female snake, she had to be fought back as though she were a male. A poisonous female snake is a contentious enemy, hence categorized as male, and had to be fought just like any Eritrean or Italian soldier at the Gordabia battle. But since we are dealing with the subject of deciding death's sex, male or female; and as we said when we started this story, "If it were male, one ought to defy it to the bitter end. But should it be female, one had to give in to it to the last breath." So far in this story, my father had kept up the resistance and never thought of surrender, which makes it reasonable to think that death is a male. But I have recently come to the conclusion that death is a female, because on the eighth of May 1985, my father gave in to death, moving no limb to resist her.
For the first time in my life I saw him give up resistance, and at times, even refused any outside inference between him and death, whose cause he seemed to defend as well. This made it clear that death was a female of the classical type of whom the Koran says " brought up among trinkets, and unable to give a clear account in a dispute," So now, there was my father, defending death against any outside intervention when he was quite able to put up a strong resistance. On the contrary, he gave in to death quietly and whole heartedly as though death had never been a bit frightful or had ever been that fully-armed fighter, whose appearance infused any brave man like my father with defiance.
Death's drums, which got louder, as they drew nearer, sounded just like one of Om Kalthooms's hypnotizing songs. The nearer death's procession, drew with the increasing and annoying noise of its drums, the more my father seemed to relax on his bed, smiling like a newly-born baby in a way that was incomprehensible to us. He became quieter and more placid to the extent that made us think that the noise of death's procession which frightened people in good health, was to the sick like a hypnotizing song by one of the popular Egyptian songs. It made me think that perhaps there was no need for any chemicals to anaesthetize the sick as a long Egyptian song was quite capable of having the same result. But the doctor objected to this method, and expressed his displeasure at my meddling in his sphere of speciality. He assured me that all my conclusions were erroneous and had not a shred of truth in them; and as such, they could not be taken seriously. I was embarrassed talking about anaesthesia of which I knew very little and saved the doctor the embarrassment of telling me that by saying myself what he should have told me, but he preferred to keep silent: So I added, on his behalf of course, that I was completely ignorant of even the simplest facts of anaesthesia and its applications and that I had mixed up anaesthetizing the sick and hypnotizing the ones who were not ill, and that, perhaps I had exaggerated the effect of Egyptian songs when I thought they affected the sick. In fact, they affected only healthy people. They have been well-known to be so effective and so influential since 1948. They gave exciting results when they were experimented upon more than one million Arabs; but unfortunately, contrary to what I was expecting, it was necessary to use chemicals to knock out sick people needing surgery and other medical treatment as the songs were proved to have no effect on them. On the contrary, doctors advise, that sick people should not listen to these songs, for fear that they could cause complications, such as nausea.
But people in good health and their like, such as the emotionally disturbed and mentally sick are advised to listen to these songs if they want to get into an artificial state of lethargy or a non-chemical anaesthesia. Doctors affirm that these songs have no complications for these people. Of course, if they had any non-chemical complications, the effect would be on these people's productivity and welfare; but as far as their bodies are concerned, there is nothing much to worry about. When I hinted that they might affect the spirit or the mind, the doctor replied in a casual manner, " Spirit... mind...mood... etc... abstract things... as a surgeon... they mean little to me ". On the whole, the weaker my father became, the more nervously tense we got... agony stricken and worried about him. Our tears flowed and now and again we wept, while he smiled and relaxed as he went deeper into the coma of death. Who knows?! Was it the death he fought in the battles of Gordabia, Talla and Al-Malh? Was it the snake which ambushed him in a forlorn desert and on other occasions?! Was it death, the proud, bold, defiant and treacherous enemy whose self-confidence and arrogance infused a fresh sense of provocation and recklessness into his opponent? I do not think it was him. If it had been him, there should have been no one to rival him in the art of cunning and camouflage; because my father had hardly put up any resistance as he used to do all his life when he always defeated and beat him off despite the numerous fatal chances and occasions death had. Therefore, death is a female; and as such one ought to give in to her up to one's last breath, and that is what my father now did. The conclusion is that death often fails in battle when he comes under a clamorous cloud of dust with black banners fluttering in the heart of the storm. In this case death thinks he is riding the favourite horse in the race, when, in actual fact, he is riding the horse of his own vanity, because in this way he drives his opponent to the extremes... to defiance and recklessness, which eventually result in his defeat. Death in this manner, appears as a very brave fighter, who ought to be resisted to the bitter end; and resistance often leads to victory. But the fatal cases in which death wins easily are those in which death appears as a female. As we have affirmed in the beginning of this story, one ought to give in to a female up to the last breath. Surrender never leads to victory.
When death changes his tactics by appearing as a female he expects his opponent to surrender in order to beat him with the least of resistance. Thus death is sure to achieve his purpose in the end, however long the struggle lasts, and will show no mercy to his opponent no matter how submissive, cowardly, feeble or weak-kneed he may be; even if he were a Sadat kind of person! Therefore, if you wish to live long, you have to contend against death as did my father, who never gave in to him even for a single day and fearlessly fought him till his centennial birthday, despite the fact that death tried to humiliate him at the age of thirty, but was thwarted in his plans and had to suffer a snub. So, the right decision to take is confrontation, because fleeing one's country does not save one from death. The Koran says " Wherever you are, death will find you out, even if you are in towers built up strong and high, " But if death himself weakened and transformed himself into a non-Jamaheriate or a non-Latin woman and came forward peacefully unarmed, entered quietly and walked calmly in slow and voluptuous movements until she invaded every inch of our bodies, and made us ecstatic with charm and delight and began to tickle us to mirth in the rapture of her love... in such case, it would be unmanly to resist her, much less to defy her... and the proper course of action to take, then, would be to surrender to her pleasure completely till one's last breath of life... and that is what happened.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14