-Grenade-Man-

"Dreaming is creating. Dreaming is refusing exported happiness. Dreaming is loving, rebelling… Dreaming is sunbathing on publicly busy paths with nothing on but one’s dreamy imagery! Dreaming is seeking beauty in the darkness, feeling the joy of death, writing with blood an autobiography on an iron path. "

Mouna Ouafiq

Short Story Written By Mouna Ouafiq, Translated By Mohamed Said Raihani


THEIR MEW :

Believing that History is usually untrue, I often imagined historical facts as fictional stories extracted from «The One Thousand And One Nights ». Nothing can illustrate better the comparison between our time and that of Grenade-Man’s.

Which neck of theirs looked like the other: the giraffe’s or his? No-one in the district could tell nor can anyone stop thinking about the amazing secret of the grenade annexed with a spiny seed in the middle of his neck. While men are born with an apple in their throat dancing in harmony with every whisper they make, he was born with something like a ripe crimson grenade. It used to tantalize me, that seed underneath the grenade in his neck: stiff, rigid, wild and easy to snap, I used to think!

The neighbours used to fear Grenade-man, as I would call him. Was he weird and disgusting to them only because of his singularity?

It is said that he was born with that grenade next to the seed in his neck and that he was with no family or memory, contenting himself with this isolated life in that balcony where he eats, drinks and cares after his cacti, sharing his world with a small group of dirtily spotted stray cats as if he were in need of someone to help him make up his mind on some decisive issue.

The neighbours never cared for the colour of the cats. Instead, they were worried about their non-stop mew after midnight. At first, the neighbours were only annoyed at the cats’ mew but now they are both annoyed and eager to find out the cause of their mew.

I never cared for their mew. I was proud of Grenade-man’s white sadness and his pure, wild, sweet heart. He was too vague a genius for the neighbours who were curious only to know the cause of the cats’ mew while I was terribly afraid of it ! Was it a bad sign for me?



ITS MEW :

I had to wait for the previous day in order to have a better view. Since that day when I decided to chase my damned intuition, History turned His wheels backwards intensifying my loss.

The third day was the first. I used to fear odd numbers, mainly number three. Odd numbers smell treachery. I always had appointment with treacheries but never in my life had I come on time to meet them. However, the case was reversed with these cats faithful to their eternal mew.

Grenade-man’s cheeks turned redder and redder under the cats’ licking tongues while the seed underneath the grenade in his neck was getting riper and riper giving birth to another grenade while I stood there with no memory.

In the second day, I felt warmer. Hardly had the cats started mewing when I woke up. Their mew was more painful than hearing one’s own words have no echoes around.

Grenade-man’s balcony was opposite mine. I could have joined the cats in their mew if that horrible cat was away.

In the total emptiness, Grenade-man, opposite me and some of his cacti, was crying heartily as if wailing the loss of his plants. Was he an old Buddhist? Was he a Jew taking his cacti for a wailing wall when all the walls of the world could not contain his crying?

My eyes were suspiciously focused on the growing seed underneath the grenade. The cats were ready to jump on Grenade-man’s cheeks to lick his tears while I was fighting against the emptiness, with no memory.

In the third/ first day, I woke up to dream an astonishing reality. Grenade-man, in his balcony, was gazing at one of his cacti, predicting the future. The seed underneath the grenade in his neck was growing up, like me, and blooming into a red flower flourishing gradually while Grenade-man, in his admiration, was as careless of the metamorphosis as my dull memory was.

Soon, the red flower gradually will shrink, die and fall down. Grenade-man’s admiration will fade away and he will start to cry again careless of all the ears around. The cats will be mewing sadly when my memory will be empty dancing to the rhythm of their mew…



MY MEW :

On the target day, I was told that the cats, some day, were mewing more intensely than they never had done before, mourning for Grenade-man’s death. My memory was lost at hearing this piece of news while the neighbours were astonished at the seed growing steadily in my neck. They have nicknamed me « Seed-man ». Actually, I am not annoyed by the seed in my neck as much as I am busy looking for cats to share my mew.



***********

* The writer, Mouna Ouafiq, is a Moroccan short-story writer, born on 29/03/1981 in Rabat, Morocco, 2006 Naji Naaman Prize winner. She published in Arabic "Grenade-Man" (Short Stories) 2006 …

* 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 Will of Singularity" (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. He is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading» (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).

* " Grenade-Man " is the seventh narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

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