THE SHORT STORIES OF ZAKARIA TAMER
factory and the cries and the hard faces that steal even the passing pleasure hidden in my eye.
I will die. My footsteps quicken on the pavement, quicken and quicken, and the emptiness of my room confines me. I will die. I begin to swallow the small smooth pills and I smile a bitter smile. Only pills can save me from my misery: and kill me.
I stretched out on my bed without taking off my clothes. The world withdrew from me with all of its despicable shouting, and the hidden black spot in my heart tore off its masks. It continued to grow until it transformed into an invincible spider – it was so easy for me to fall between its sticky legs as they wrapped around me and prevented me from moving.
I rejoiced a little when the door opened, and I smiled happily. My white horse had returned! He drew near, and stood so close that I could smell the scent of the soil he had cantered over on his long journey.
I tremble as I hear his neighing, calling me, and I cannot respond. In that instant, I was feeling strangely disoriented, as if I were a corpse floating on a slow moving river. Oh, how I had wished my errant white horse would return that I could mount him and leave his reins slack so he could carry me across prairies that have no horizon.
The neighing rose up a second time. Unfortunately, he will leave alone if I do not accompany him. He will leave alone. I heard the door slamming and hooves tramping the earth in an angry rhythm and a sad neighing growing distant and gradually fading away.
I said to myself: “I will wait one more time. He will return. He will get tired of wandering alone.”
A woman’s voice reached my ear: “Don’t worry. My hot flesh will make you forget the entire world.”
I said in terror, hiding my surprise: “Who are you?” She laughed and said: “I am your childhood friend – don’t you remember? You liked to press yourself against me and kiss me shyly.”
I said: “Don’t trick me. You are an old whore.” She stared at me for a moment, stunned, then burst into tears. Embarrassed, I was struck by an overwhelming wave of sympathy and said to her in confusion: “Forgive me . . . I love you.”
She said: “Say it again!” I said: “I love you. I love you.”
64 BANIPAL 53 – SUMMER 2015