The End

And it seemed as if I were pulling off a slice of

language inserted between two layers
, the bottom one sticky and the upper one stiff.
And I asked myself: Should it stay there, stuck and
confined?
I looked at the slice hanging between my thumb and index
finger,
and saw the nature behind the letters. The sun was
rising and the cleaner’s broom
was whispering, “Hush… hush… hush.”

What diverted my attention was a voice saying good

morning; three lines fell on the ground and broke. I bent
down rapidly and picked up the letters, afraid that the
cleaner would sweep them up. I found a crack in the
letter ‘ayn (‫)ع‬, a bird had picked up the lam (‫ )ل‬and
flown away, and I also found that a letter had come
undone or been reversed. I couldn’t make up my mind
whether it was a meem (‫)م‬, a  tah marbutah ‫)ة‬, or another
lam that had come detached from the first one.

I didn’t bother to pick up the vowels, and the three

lines remained devoid of words:
Once upon a time, there was a confused painter who saw
life as colors and shapes; he happened to draw a line,
and this caused him an inconvenience. Feeling oppressed
by the question, always the same question, he ran away to
a transparent lake, the bottom of which was covered with
seaweed and corals, where a mermaid lived. The mermaid
grew sad, picked up a piece of seaweed and tied it into
the shape of the infinity symbol (∞). It sailed towards
the artist, who caught it, put it on his eyes, and said,
“I know the answer.”

The Cactus and the Dogs

The laments of a pigeon on a clothesline made me anxious;

I woke  from my sleep and stood by the window, searching
for it, without success.

I tried to find an explanation for last night’s events,

to no avail; there were many messages behind people’s
words, bloodstains on glass, loss of memory, a
hallucination-prone djinn, women I had already seen in
other women, and an Eros with broken wings.

And a cactus field sowed with stray dogs.

To be honest, this is what had actually been preoccupying

me since yesterday. The sky looked like a rusty cage, and
I had no name as I walked towards the cave. One of the
dogs strolled up to me, and its face seemed merry, as it
asked,

“Why are you staring at me?”

I ignored the question and averted my gaze. The dog

followed me, and then walked ahead for a few meters. Then
it sat on its haunches in the middle of the road,
blocking my path, and motioned with its head toward the
cactus field. The peacefulness emanating from its words
and movements seemed to indicate that the field was its
home. The dog said, “

We, the sons of Dogs, take away your suffering.

Under this cactus are buried your forefathers. In this
field, Jesus Christ, son of the father, found refuge, and
we were gracious to him. In this field, he endured
burning pain in order to exist, and every time his tears
trickled, we covered his wounds with dust to relieve him
and prevent the smell of his blood from spreading, so the
insects would not sting him. Sad, captured souls pass
through this field, and we intone for them the moans of
happiness. In this field...”

The dog fell silent and moved away a few steps, and the
sound of its claws stopped; I resumed my walk and passed
next to him.

The dog’s front legs were stretched out. Its words words
took me back to the cave, and the moment of awakening
into daylight, a light that is always so different from
the light in dreams. Sixty years, sixty years, it was an
hour then, and the suffering of that hour equals an
eternity; proportions and measures and times get sliced
up. A needle has been stuck in your neck, and you have
seen the ship, as it stole boats from the shore at Acre.
And he who is cut up bends his eyes, and the mole sees
through his skin. And you, you are deeply in love, at the
outskirts of peace, almost as if I were leaving the Mac
villa at once.

Then the sound of the dog’s claws came back; walking by

my side, it whispered,
“The leaves of the cactus are flat.” And it added a
phrase I was not able to understand: “Tabula rasa”; and
went on, “they are soft, filled with the vigor of life,
and that is the reason why the cactus grows thorns, for
the sake of protection, and the fruit hides under its
skin. Tabula rasa.”

The dog fell silent once again, and a pack of its

companions, who were rummaging through a ravaged garbage
can nearby, followed us. I found myself in the middle of
the pack, and the sound of their claws on asphalt of the
desert road mingled; the biggest one among them bit a
puppy to scare me, and barked, “

Do you know where the cactus grows, son of Adam?”

My brow futtowed, I looked at the dog. It barked again

into the desert: “Tabula rasa.” Then it ran away,
followed by the rest of the pack, all of them barking,
filling the air:  “Aouww, aouww, aouww… The cactus grows
in the desert.” The noise drifted away, and its echo
bounced off the old buildings, while I kept hearing “The
cactus grows in the desert” in my head. I remembered what
my friend had told me, as she devoured her prey: “Cut
away any trace of the soul, wherever it appears. And
prepare yourself for the melody of their flutes, for this
is the land of harmony, and the signs it holds shine like
the sun. Beware, beware of their blood, the foxglove
drank it, it will invade your intestines, its poison will
mushroom into your veins, and its thorns will thrust
into your tongues. Beware, beware of the red liquid, your
blackberries will soak in it until they burn your
palates. Beware, beware, O you counterfeiters of the
signs, you will find nothing to conceal your flaws.” And
like the bridge over troubled waters, I stretched out and
realized that a new story was on the verge of bursting:

I poured acid on the ugly face, and the features of the

truth appeared; the smell of money was spreading like
rotten yogurt, and bugs assaulted the crows’ nests.

The Light of the Voice

As I withdrew and went deep into myself, I saw what the

drizzle of my sadness had sown at the bottom of my heart.
I saw a boy staring at a pool of water full of leeches. A
body had broken away from me, like a spider spinning its
web, and the heartbeat, just a sparkle at first, was
radiating a blinding vision of nothingness, as when fire
turns to sheer light. Animals had taken hold of my true
self, licked my nature, and while the viper resting
between two rocks was celebrating its new skin in the
year of the tiger, undulating and transforming its
spotted hide to match the structure of the universe, my
pupil fell out of my eye, into the pool. My imagination
darkened, and this other body was torn apart. My two
pupils were trapped, and I started muttering, “Say, shall
I seek refuge with the Creator to protect me from His
creatures, He who has written with His hand what is
implicit and unspoken, and how to perceive  someone with
a refracted image?”

My pupil returned to its socket, and I wished the path

would be within range of my sight, a missing link into
the chain of mankind. And I wished the path would turn
into letters engraved in the mind. But the image is
translated into time, and my tears are a stream, and
truth is a chameleon on a pine tree.

I ran  from the extreme pure color, and I traveled as I

pleased. In a flash, I entered cities colored with human
bodies, my eyes fell on their tongues, and I saw blinding
chatter, as well as triangles, circles, and angles of the
mind. I reached the center of rebirth, and a shadow was
there. Once again, it planted another body inside my own;
it extinguished a fire and illuminated a detail. The
panther extricated itself from me with limpid eyes; black
is radiance for blackness. I stroked its back with my
palm, and black is radiance for blackness.

The Voice of the Light

A daydream engraved on a wall—the sun rises and sets, and
the daydream is still imprinted on the wall. People walk
by, carrying boxes in their hands, and the wall is
imprinted on the daydream.  The rooster wakes and crows:
daydream engraved on a wall. The eagle hovers high in the
sky and whistles: a wall imprinted on the daydream. The
clock ticks away, one minute after the other, for a
thousand years: tick, tick, tick, daydream, this wall.
Winter comes, hurls its arrows on the wall, and the
daydream is engraved still. Summer melts sweat on
workers’ temples, and the daydream is the wall itself.
Spring blossoms, the necklace stones turn green, and the
wall is a daydream all along. Autumn scribbles, and the
image of the daydream remains on the wall. In the other
half of the universe: They still lament in front of a
wall for the sake of a daydream.