Five short stories by Amirah Al Wassif

Running away

My mouth is full of mice. I can’t talk or protest. I was born in the darkest spot of the world. My people hate the sun. They put the weight of the world on my tiny shoulders. When I was young, I was a great talker, but when I became 12 years old, they ordered me to shut my mouth up. My country is made of dust and sins. They don’t believe in girls’ voices. They say that when girls talk, the evil spirits spread.

I have to admit that I am not sure that my mouth is full of mice, but when my tribe circled around me like bees, they pointed to my mouth, shouting loudly: “Hide your ugly mice! Don’t speak! Don’t protest.”

Their anger showed me that I have to flush and run away for hiding. Instead of doing that. I made a hole in the wall and disappeared forever.

 

Hunger and satiety

At the same time when I was wondering, did my friend like my latest photo on the Instagram, a child died from hunger somewhere in the world.

We all bite our nails through watching the breaking news. We all recognize the fake ones. We all cry in front of war children posters. We all laugh at our mirrors.

My mother stands on a mountain of pillows for feeding my little brother. I am big enough to feed myself.

We have many delicious dishes. We are proud of our full plates. After finishing my own, I run in a hurry to bring another one, not because I feel hungry, but because we have a plenty of food. So it is a shame not to bring another one.

We never experienced hunger before. The first time we heard of it was when our neighbor’s daughter died. At her funeral, people said that she died because of hunger. Even when we all knew that, nobody cared.

 

Just a dream

Last night, I closed my eyes and I saw my mother and me sitting together in front of a brown oven, baking delicious bread in a clearing where some birds pecked our necks and backs.

My mother’s cheeks were colorful like a clown. I looked at her in a proud way. She was still beautiful, just like a young girl.

She had a dimple. A special one. One of those dimples that kiss the heart of the sun. You feel its warmth naturally, without trying so hard.

The dust that covered my mother’s eyelashes smelled of the ancient streets.

In the dream, there were grown mint leaves between my fingers. My mother grabbed one of them, trying her best to cut it off. I screamed. There was a lot of pain around my fingers.

We are farmers. We used to fill our pockets with laughs and stones, stumbling to the river to throw them. Our dearest friend, the river welcomes our greetings, competing with us to make the funniest jokes in the world. We are country people, so we and the river understand each other very well.

I have a music box within my chest. All my lifetime, I felt that I am the richest girl in the globe. We don’t have money, but we feel so wealthy. Our fortune is a mix of singing and giving. We sing for our folk. We used to give them. We used to plant for them, for us, for the whole world.

My mother kissed my right cheek in the dream. You are a winner, babe, she told me. You plant your land; don’t wait for the men to plant it for you.

I don’t have a father. My mother’s forever tale says that there is a toxic man, tricked her, married her and made her a pregnant child who suffered a lot because of this.

I don’t blame you for this, babe, my mother said to me. You are my blessed girl, I need you in my world, and we all here need your bravery.

The distant birds play hide and seek with my wishes. I pray for our land, I pray for getting stronger, I pray for the girls, for the poor mothers. I don’t pray for the abusive husbands.

Within my dream, the grace underneath my little feet, I am sinking in the arms of the universe, sipping the happiness water.

My mother’s milk isn’t enough now, I am trailing the buds with my fingers.

The sky breathes in and out through my hair.

I met you too, in my dream. You were smiling at me from your far land. I called you: “Lewis, don’t forget me, my love, don’t.”

You looked at me in your gentle way. Your eyes smelled of honey. I see a paradise lies inside them. “Don’t try to close them so much, my love.” I said to you, and you ran away behind the red sun’s reflection.

I understand how the sun was so jealous. I know that nature belongs to you.

I plant beans, tomatoes and flowers. You plant me like a poem inside your heart. How close we were in my dream! How far we are in the reality!

I still remember how many tears jammed in your eye, when I sighed and cried, telling you that I and my mother should leave this land. You still remember, don’t you? How I sobbed, how the sadness made a lake of salt in my heart.

That moment was the harshest moment in my lifetime, the words jumped in craziness from my mouth’s edge. You ate yourself in worry and pain.

In my dream, my mother advised me to stop crying. She told me that nobody deserves my tears. I pretended that I agreed with her, but in truth, I didn’t, because you deserve, my love, you aren’t them, you aren’t a toxic man like my father and like all those men who forced us to leave the land, who poisoned our plants, who stole our right to be women farmers.

In my dream, I shrugged. I felt like I lost my voice forever, but then, I woke up, half asleep, trying to hide my waterfall of tears.

I open my eyes wide: I am heading now to my mother’s graveyard, next to yours, where I am planning to plant a cactus, my love.

 

My dead husband’s secret

My dead husband plays hide and seek with me. I catch him every now and then playing guitar in front of our daughter’s framed photo. He also loves to act like a clown before our baby budgie birds. He believes they notice him.

I don’t say a word about that to my relatives. They won’t believe me. To be honest they will say that I am a crazy old woman who is looking desperately for a new man. I am not. I love my dead husband, and really, I see him wandering in our apartment all the time.

Every time I see him, I try my best to hurry, to follow him. I want to catch him. I am longing to kiss his cheeks. I dream of throwing myself into his arms.

But I can’t. As a disabled old woman who is sitting in her wheelchair, I can’t help it.

There is no one here to watch me. There is no one here to look after me. Only my dead husband shadow, dancing up there on the walls with the shadow of our dead daughter.

 

Injustice

I was born and raised in a box.

My body is a metaphor. I lost my voice when Adam planted a knife in my throat.

“Give up, Eve,” Adam said.

I pointed out to the Apple tree. I hopped from one corner to another inside the box. I was dying to shout. I wanted to announce my revolution. I was in trouble. A big one.

My voice is gone. I have no power, no words.

Adam was touching the apple curiously, tracing it with his fingers. The smile on his face. The sin on his hand.

He kept watching me from his place: I was moving in back and forth. He treated me like a monkey in a cage.

The last time I called Adam was a billion years ago, when he asked me what was the thing I see in my dreams that makes me feel good, although I’m imprisoned?

At that moment, I let him see the picture in my head. A magnificent photo of the apple tree, guiding me to the river of happiness.

When he saw the photo in my head, he sighed and smiled.

After a while, he sang and ran away to find the tree, and yes, Adam found it and owned it, before punishing me and cutting my tongue.

 


Amirah Al Wassif’s poems have appeared in several print and online publications including South Florida PoetryBirmingham Arts JournalHawaii ReviewThe MeniscusChiron ReviewThe HungerWriters ResistRight Now, and others. Amirah also has a poetry collection, For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate (Poetic Justice Books & Arts, 2019), and a children’s book, The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories, published in February 2020.

Photo credit: Andrew Malone via a Creative Commons license.

At the Funeral of 50 Barefoot Men

By Amirah Al Wassif

 

once upon a time
there was an ancient place
called “Amon” village
that very far spot
where everybody talks
about the river legend
that very far spot
where everybody knows
how to distinguish
the smell of fresh bread
there, at the Amon village
where all the folks live
in their dreams
and the blazing sun cries
against the face of heaven
there, where the poor sweeper
drowns in the colors of the rainbow
and the great brown mountains
announce their upper secrets
to the mass grave
in the Amon village
where everybody talks
about the river legend
and the real tale of
50 barefoot men
in the ancient village
all people are storytellers
and all of them say
the same story
which starts with
once upon a time

there were 100 men
lived together in the same village
but 50 of them were barefoot
and the other 50 had fancy shoes!
50 men sweeping the streets
and 50 men making the bread
50 ones looking for more!
50 shoes in luxury leather
and 50 toes inflamed and cracked

the river recognized the difference
between the shoes and the toes
then it made a good decision
according to nature rules
and the river understood
the difference between
the torn clothing and the perfect ones
then it made a good decision
according to nature rules

on the ragged edge, all the people walk
under the boiling sun
all people talk
and there were two kinds of talking
talking from shoe to shoe
and talking from toe to toe
and the river didn’t love that kind of speech
so, it made a good decision
according to nature rules

50 barefoot men carrying
their empty pots
their facial bones
tell you about long age of bitterly
shabby dresses, fearful eyes
ancient faces full of pimples
much sweat
and shaky hands

50 barefoot men bearing their pain
looking for a way
to protect their feet
from another pain
but the shattered glass
everywhere

the dispossessed people died
and the rest were alive around the river
laughing, jumping, drinking
but the river has a sense of justice
so, it made a good decision
according to the nature rules
and        dried up!

 


Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer and author. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines. Amirah is passionate about producing literary works for children, teens and adults that represent cultures from around the world. Her first book, Who Do Not Eat Chocolate was published by Poetic Justice Books, and her latest illustrated book, The Cocoa Book and Other Stories was recently released by Breaking Rules Publishing.

Photo by Sofia Truppel on Unsplash.

Costa

By Amirah Al Wassif

 

Everyone has heard of Costa’s miracles in our grey village: the boy who had a wooden toy and a cheerful wren bird.

His giant miracles were in his spoken wooden toy, which could create a lot of jokes in a loud tone.

His second miracle was in his talented wren: a wonder-bird that had the ability to sing several numbers of songs starting with the first letter of anybody’s name.

“Oh! What a lucky boy,” everybody whispered in each others’ ears.

Actually, all the people in our village felt jealous of Costa, because of his miraculous talents that made his luck very rich.

The sun in our village was usually not very clear. It was not orange or yellow. It was covered only by a colour so grey. Due to this, our village was named “the Grey Village.” So, all our times were grey, and we did not ever see this bright light universally known as the sun.

Day by day, when all the people in our village felt sad and disappointed because of the spreading of grey colour, strangely, Costa was falling in love with each detail in our sky.

The boy of miracles never got bored of the grey colour. When the village people sat unhappy and miserable and did not look at the sky, Costa watched its grey. He tried to count the stars in the night patiently and sent his unseen wishes to the hidden sun all the days.

When our people were puffing, feeling hopeless and waking up with no excitement, Costa woke every day, smiling and jumping, from his deep sleep.

Costa burnt with curiosity to look and look at the sky, which led him to know the strangest things in the world, such as his wooden toy and his splendid wren bird.

All our people were unhappy except for Costa: He was very glad. But as he was a boy who loved all his neighbours, he wanted to make them feel happy like him, despite their jealousy over his magical power and his marvelous gifts.

Every day, Costa demanded secret wishes from the sky, and he whispered in nature’s ears.

The boy of miracles wished good things for his people in the grey village, he wanted them happy like him or even more.

Costa gave his soul more joy and magnificent meanings for life, that nobody knew how this boy had learned such things.

While Costa discovered many secrets about the sky from his daily meditation, he made himself a promise. Accordingly, he decided to make a daily show in front of his people, to draw a smile on their lips with his magical gifts, the speaking wooden toy, and the singing wren bird.

In the Costa daily show, most of the people laughed, some of them smiled, but there was one odious boy who neither smiled nor laughed.

One time, the odious boy, named Jimmy, intended to steal Costa’s magical stuff. He waited until Costa slept, moved closer to him, and took his wonderful stuff away.

Now Jimmy had the wooden toy and the singing wren, and all the people in our grey village gathered around Jimmy. They watched and watched the boy, who started to move the wooden toy up and down, left and right, as Costa used to do in his shows. The surprise occurred, when the wooden toy did not move and did not through its creative jokes make a loud tone as it did before.

Jimmy felt so angry. He tried to move the wooden toy many times vainly. Then he put it down and started to carry the wren bird, to sing its wonderful song, which was supposed to start with the letter “A,” the first letter of the folk chosen to be the beginner, but to his unfortunateness the wren bird did not sing any song either. It remained very calm and quiet.

Jimmy was shocked, he did not understand why the magical stuff did not work. People who gathered around him watched him like miserable souls.

Suddenly, the people in the grey village realized the importance of Costa’s daily shows which gave them happiness and joy that they really needed.

At such a tumultuous time, though he knew that Jimmy had stolen his magnificent tools, Costa watched his grey sky. He was not sad, because he understood the most important secret of the universe—that beautiful stuff came by itself to the good people without stealing or seeking.

While Costa meditated, Jimmy went to his place. Without any words, Jimmy gave him his magical tools, which began their extraordinary actions as they came into Costa’s hand: The wooden toy threw its creative jokes, and the wren sang its prettiest song, which started with the letter “A.”

“Oh! How can you explain that?” Jimmy asked Costa in an astonished tone.

“It is very simple Jimmy,” Costa said.

“If you want a charm, be calm.

“If you want a light, be kind.

“And if you help the others, the magic will still be with you forever.”

 


Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer and author. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English works have been published in various cultural magazines. Amirah is passionate about producing literary works for children, teens and adults that represent cultures from around the world. Her first book, Who Do Not Eat Chocolate was published in 2014 and her latest illustrated book, The Cocoa Book and Other Stories is forthcoming.

Photo credit: Pete Beard via a Creative Commons license.

“Costa” was previous published by Literary Yard.