The Crow

Written by: Awaadh Shaher

Translated by: Dr. Abdallah Altaiyeb

The fragile virginity of the place trembled before me. The sky had frail blue ends, and the sun was awesomely naked. A wooden pole, with a lone crow announcing its presence on top, was determined to stay but with an undecided mission in the middle of the desert, after they had removed the electrical wire holders and fixed them on an enormous steel tower, newly erected on a road that traveled far.  It had resolved to stand tall with its dark color and cylindrical body, as it had been doing for ages, diligently carrying the wires.  So, why couldn’t it simply stay a bit more for a lone crow that possessed nothing but its raucous sound    

I shifted my sight deliberately from one pole to another in the heart of the desert, while the crow echoed its caws solemnly.  I took a deep breath, for I was not annoyed of its presence around me.  Quite the contrary, a feeling of joy made me listen to the beat of life in its cries, echoing naturally in the place. Its petit body gave the pole a jet black pointed head.  Every time it raised its head to bestow an everlasting greeting upon the place, ancient shadows of a nomadic nation that dwelled once upon a time in the wedges of the sands, hunting fresh lightning as an offering for the commanding door, moved on things. Ages with unbroken flashes of lightning passed by the sky, and yet other ages marched on while the barefooted nomads waited daily for the clouds.  Generations died and left their spines for the grinding teeth of stones and the remains of the ancestors, who showed up in dreams with their exposed skulls pouring ashes

Black and clammy winds carried the news.  The Door had abandoned the lightning flashes and the desert, and instead started building houses in so many cities that only welcomed whomever it invited.  It shaved its matted beard and fixed its moustache.  It donned its very precious turban and married many women of different breeds and lands.  It learned the languages of nations and sent its children, in a crusade for knowledge, to the lands of Christians

They all came back home, eyes looking down.  Their heads were consumed with thoughts they could not describe, let alone get rid of. They felt defeated, and inside their ragged houses they stayed awhile nurturing their skeletons and weeping all along. They felt deceived by the sand; the very one they devoted their lives for its cause over the ages.  Its overwhelmingly silky touch on hands puzzled them, and its discontent with their old habit of digging water out of its guts discomforted them. The sand had become domesticated, but only like quern stones in times of hunger. And while the Door had forged a deal with a foreign wind to carry him along with the smell of homes and the seeds of their fertile plants, the desert contracted the fever of infectious water, where hallucination was the sole gate to madness and death on long roads

The crow’s caw came out softly like smoke from ruins. Then, with its freshly sharpened voice, it began mercilessly slashing the innocence of whatever stood in its way, causing the faces to revert back to their origin, to the first set of eyes that feasted on them the very first time.  And when the place lost its identity and things looked quite the opposite of what they were, the soft lines on the sand’s facade quivered.  The sand deserted its serenity, giving rise to dust and burnt papers that flew around with a native wind that was murmuring unexpectedly in the place

Terrified, I was looking at the charred relics of ancient creatures surfacing out of the folds of the volatile sand that was flying with the wind. I was wondering why it didn’t rain instead of this branched lightning that burned everything. Only the wooden poles survived the flashes. Yet, there they were, standing in the desert helplessly and vainly, just like me; exactly like me, except for the crow which at that particular moment landed on my head and indulged in cawing

From the book “Not a Trace” by the same author, 2007

الغراب

 قصة الأديب عواض شاهر

المكان، ترتجف بيني وبينه عذرية هشة. سماؤه مفككة الزرقة من الأطراف، وشمسه فاضحة الضوء. ..العمود الخشبي الذي وقف على رأسه الغراب، كان سيقف على أي حال بلا مهمة محددة، في قلب الصحراء، بعد إذ نزعوا من رأسه حوامل الكيبل الكهربائي وثبتوها في برج حديدي ضخم يمر بمسار بعيد. كان سيقف العمود بلونه الداكن وشكله الأسطواني كما وقف لعقود طويلة ممسكاً بالتيار، بلا كلل. إذاً، ما الذي يمنعه أن يقف هذه المرة لغراب وحيد ليس معه سوى النعيق؟في تتابع مقصود، نقلت بصري من عمود إلى آخر في عمق الصحراء، فيما كان الغراب يردد صوته في خشوع الطيور.

كان صوت الغراب يخرج منه بنعومة خروج الدخان من الأنقاض. ثم بشفرته الحادة يسلخ براءة كل ما يصل إليه بلا شفقة. يرد المعالم إلى أصلها الأول. إلى العيون الأولى التي تفرست فيها أول مرة. ولما لم يعد ثمة ما ينتمي إليه المكان، لما تبدت الأشياء على النقيض تماما، ارتعشت ثنيات سطح التراب الناعمة وانتقضت سكينته مع ذاته فانبعث منه غبار، وطارت منه وريقات محترقة في رياح محلية تنحنحت في المكان فجأة

كنت أحدق بذعر شديد في آثار متفحمة لمخلوقات قديمة تتكشف تباعاً تحت طيات التراب المتطايرة مع الرياح. وكنت أتساءل: لماذا لم ينزل المطر بدلاً من البرق الذي أحرق كل شيء؟ الأعمدة وحدها نجت من الصواعق. ورغم ذلك، هاهي في الصحراء تقف فرادى بلا جدوى. مثلي أنا. بالضبط مثلي أنا، باستثناء أن الغراب حط هذه اللحظة على رأسي، واستغرق في النعيق.

من مجموعة " ما من أثر " الصادرة عن دار طوى/مركز الانتشار العربي 2007  النص الأصلي منقول من موقع القصة العربية

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