-Normal- Short Story Written By Fatima Bouziane, Translated By Mohamed Said Raihani

“Words which travel freely between languages, careless of borders and customs
Words which weave out of the wonder of dream and the beauty of the flying wings
They fly like butterflies towards the light
But never do they catch fire…
They remain stars that shine on in the darkest darkness.
These words may be mine, yours, everybody’s… just say your words and let them dream: let them fly.”

Fatima Bouziane


An Exceptional Day :

I stare at him while he is talking. It seems to me that today I am hearing with my eyes. If eyes do communicate, what can prevent them from hearing such an exceptional man’s talk?

His small almond-like mobile phone captures fully my attention, so does his portable personal computer as small as my handbag, his sun-glasses changing colour following the degree of light around. Wonderful accessories which heighten the degree of his exceptionality!

I feel him a real copy of the ideal man’s image that I have been developing deep inside me from all that I have admired in men since the very moment when that hot hormonal torrent ran in my blood. Here he is now sitting opposite me with the very lovely sweater that I was dressing him in my imagination under the influence of the many sweaters that I have seen on fashion magazines. The lips, themselves, I have copied out of a celebrated singer. The eyes, I have stolen them from a TV announcer whose name I have forgotten but never have I lost admiration of his eyes.

Our chat is multi-lingual like a beautiful delicious salad. I lean on the table with my elbow, holding my face with my hand. I have never expected that he would be so perfectly sitting before me. He is as black-haired as I am but he is quite different, completely different… His liberal thoughts make me fly up high in the sky… An exceptional man, I whisper to myself. Of course, he is. Has he not been living in Europe?

I press my looks down on his eyes and I feel myself drowning down to his heart as if it was a hypertext link driving you from page to page via one click on an active link. His heart turns out to be another hypertext link leading straight to my heart that has expected him for such a very long time.

My dear Spider, let me dance on your web. What a web! The fashionable man is modern in everything from his head to his toes: his shoes, language, portable computer, mobile phone, thoughts, glances…I was wrong to have loved literature. I will leave that poetry imbued with elegies and nothing but elegies, those short stories sick with gloom and sadness and I will learn his new glossary: Software, Google, Messenger…I feel them weird on my tongue but I swear to cut it off if it does not learn them. I whisper them out, whenever I hear him utter them, in an attempt to learn them by heart: Software, Google, Web, Microsoft…

I told him:

- I, myself, have an e-mail.

He smiled and told me about so many means of fast communication. I did not understand much of what he was talking about but I was nodding all the time in agreement. It is true that I never agree on whatever I do not understand but I will change for this exceptional man’s sake. For his sake, I will leave all those convictions which have inherited me nothing but sadness and vain expectations.

I am today’s girl. I am born not before today. For me, henceforward, there will be no place for any word called « Before ».

He talks: he has the right to .I listen to him: I have only old lexicon on my tongue. For him, masculinity is a pure hormone, feminity is a hormone, sexuality is an interaction of hormonal systems, love is a myth, marriage is an enterprise needing capital and insurance…he talks and talks while I smile and smile…



The Day of Explosion :

Hardly had I sipped my coffee when he pronounced his astrological sign. I burst out in laughter spraying the whiteness of the table with black coffee.

How can a man, any man, be a Virgo?! However, he is not any man. He has just a few moments ago been talking about extraordinary adventures…he was talking about conquests bodies, breasts, satisfaction…them, he is worthy to be a Taurus, a Leo, an Elephant…

I wiped my fog away shyly. I noticed that I was, nevertheless, not bothered at hearing the many female names on his tongue although I am, by nature, jealous and I hate men taking pride in their relationships with women.

I took notice that I was nodding as if in approval, happiness, relaxation…even when he apologizes for stopping long at certain details, I would gently say:

- That’s normal, very normal.

That encouraged him more and more, why am I so forgiving, so tolerant? Is it what they call it ‘‘inter-civilizational dialogue’’? Is it globalization? Oh, he has a great deal of stories. He talks about them with respect, in refined language even when they are naked, drunken: they are gentle pretty women:

- We share body. Body is the best means to dialogue with.

How pretty is his neutrality and understanding! I feel my life thirsty and dry with no hot sensational details in them. When he surprised me with his question, I blushed. I told him I experienced love only once when I was a student at the university. I loved a fellow student. No, not that? We only exchanged confessions, dreams and Nizar Kabbani’s poems. When each of us withdrew his sterile university certificate, both of us withdrew from the life of the other.

I know that you do not like such dry, short, cold stories. I understand that but I cannot create hot stories for you. You see being here is different from being there. What I have told you I consider it a top secret. Please, do not laugh. Do not. Believe me. When my girlfriends used to talk about their love-affairs, I would remain quiet swearing in silence not to tell them a word about mine. Not every body understands such feelings and desires and you know that being here is different from being there.

He nods lightly encouraging me to continue. When I stumble, out of shyness, over my words, he smiles to me. I feel his beautiful smile gently telling me:

- That’s normal, very normal.

……………………

……………………


The Day of Emptiness:

I drink my bitter coffee. There is no sugar lumps left on the table and the chair opposite me is empty. I feel empty deep inside me… Nature fears emptiness: that is right. I am thinking about Virgo. he cannot be that one.

He put the cup down on the table .he took the ring out of his finger and put it down next to the cup. He paid his own bill, picket up his small almond-like mobile phone and his portable computer:

-‘‘So, go and marry your fellow student’’, he said before leaving. “Never bare your emotional secrets to any man, no matter what he was”.

« Silence is gold, chatter is zinc »

« Transparency is crime »

«Ambiguous is life »

Where have I read or heard that? In a book? In a story? In an advice from a mother to her daughter? in a feminine chat in a public bath?
There is wisdom everywhere, why was I so careless to it all?

Damnation! That black-haired man can also have black thoughts in his head too why was I careless to it all?


A Normal Day:

I vomit my vast deception. I get out of my heart the man I have been building in my imagination since the moment when that burning hormonal torrent blends with my blood. The very normal man in his talk, look and utters very impolite words:

- I was a magnetic playboy. I have known many girls. Easy girls are the only girls in this country.

I hate normal and ordinary things starting with ordinary flour and ending with ordinary love, I whispered to myself:



Your love is too still,
Your love is too ordinary,
And I get bored with ordinary love.

Now, I understand Latifa’s song very well. Perhaps, we share the same context. Again, he tells stories in the same boring expected details but I never nod neither in agreement nor in disagreement and when his talk is over, I will so stupidly say:

- That’s normal, very normal to any man…

My love adventures? No, never. Please, do not offend me .I was busy studying and working. My responsibilities were enormous. What do you mean? No, never. I am giving you this opportunity only because you look respectable. Please, it is time for me to go .it is not my habit to come home too late and I do not love to go to cafés. Now that we got acquainted, what can be the next stage?

I will put it severely, without hesitation and I will wait for one day, one mouth, one year


Open doors
Open windows
…
Closed doors
Closed windows
…
And I,
Behind the sun,
Behind the moon,
Am waiting *

---------------------

* (‘‘Waiting’’, a poem written by the Arab poet Saleh Harbi, in his ‘‘I See Women Watering Corpses’’, a collection of poems)

***********

* The writer, Fatima Bouziane, is a Moroccan short-story writer born in 1973 in Nadour. Author of:"Whispering Out Intentions” (Short stories) in 2001, "Tonight, My Chance Of A Lifetime?" in 2006 (Short stories).

* 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 " (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).

* " Normal" is the sixteenth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

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