Back To: Moroccan Short Stories

Rebellious Dreams

"Dreams are
Colourful balls,
Magnificent damnation,
Butterflies,
Obstinate and rhetorical images,
Dreams are
Dreams within dreams,
Distancing from charcoaled spaces
Towards the crystal world of astonishment "

The cock, on the roof, is looking with its beak for a laughing sun. The hen, in the hen-house, is clucking, waiting for a shivering morning. The chicks open their eyes to bump against dawn-light and …the husband, who has spent the night all alone watching the TV serial, is gazing at dawn threads penetrating into the sleeping-room and gathering the shattered dream in which he was the protagonist two hours ago.

Ibn Sireen saw, in his dream, the same couple going down dusty stairs while there was a voice of another man in his own shadow, reaching for his ears. As he turned around, his silhouette-man gave him such a punch in the face that he was about to fall flat on his teeth, had he not taken hold of the banister at the last moment.

At the breakfast table, the husband told his wife: “Good morning !”
Then, the cascade of his dream broke out. His wife poked him with a long look and replied with a faint smile : “Are these the remaining images from yesterday’s film ?”
Then, chewing bread and cheese, she left him, going upstairs, probably to check.

The cock, near the hen-house, is looking with its beak for sun-rise. The hen, inside the hen-house, is beaking parasites off its feathers. The chicks are fully absorbed in playing, not caring of what is happening or about to happen. The husband is in the same room peeling out the dream that provoked him a few moments ago.

Freud saw the couple’s child crying in the hands of his grandmother who had not died enough. To cool down his howling, she leaned his twisted neck against the straw-filled pillow. Lying in bed, the child’s organ was as erect as a gun.

When the husband joined the sleeping-room, his wife was there, in front of the mirror, biting her nails. There was also his silhouette-man lying in bed, I dare say, naked.

At the breakfast table, the husband told his wife the same greeting that he had done the day before : “Good morning !” Hardly had he started telling her the details of the dream that he had peeled out when the wife put her bag on her right shoulder and slammed the door behind her.

What exactly happened is that the husband was weary of dreaming. He was dozing off in the drawing-room. His mobile phone rang and there was that voice which had been targeting him on the dusty stairs:
“Is your wife at home?” The man got up violently, went to the sleeping-room and did not find his wife there. There was only his child sitting in bed, tearing out the photos in the family album.

At the beginning of the night, his wife leaned her head down to the pillow and… had slept. He had to imagine her as a lock and himself as a key. The key approached the lock with his fingers climbing up her backbone and ligering on her hips. Then, she opened her eyes and asked him to postpone that to the following night . It was utterly dark around him and the sleeping-room door was locked.

At the end of the night, his wife was lying naked on her back. The husband understood that she was asleep and that he had to sleep, too, despite himself. At the beginning of the morning, the husband hurried out to buy shroud-like clothes to his wife who may put them on or just fold them away in her museum: her wardrobe.

The cock’s beak did not find the laughing sun. The hen found nothing but white lice. The chicks are still busy playing. The wife is hanging the washing on to dry, while the husband is … scribbling this short story.

* The writer, Abdoullah Al-Mouttaqi, is a Moroccan poet & shortstory writer, born in 1961 in Fkih Ben Saleh, Morocco. He published in Arabic "Blue Chair" (Short Stories) and "Mortal Poems”.

* The translator, Mohamed Said Raihani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & shortstory 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 publication: "Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliette" (An E-LoveNovel).

* "Rebellious Dreams” is the fourth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Said Raihani.