By Moroccan Novelist & Short-Story Writer Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
By Moroccan Novelist & Short-Story Writer Mohamed Saïd Raïhani
Ksar El Kébir, Morocco, December 26, 2011
A mysterious power is steering me this evening towards this shady tree. A magnetic power is dragging me along to privacy under the branches of this wise tree… and I feel safe from the pursuit of the curious breaths chasing me all day long:
– You look absent-minded!
– Your hands are so cold!
– Are you in love?
– In love! I bet you’re in love!
My philosophy teacher, himself, stopped in the middle of today’s lecture to notify me:
Look here, dear. Try to focus your mind exclusively on the lecture to enjoy it. You will never understand anything without enjoying it. Pleasure and understanding are two faces for one coin. So, invest your energy in focusing solely on this lecture in this space at this moment: This, Here, Now.
The pulsation of the tree trunk shaking my ribs is reminding me of my teacher’s wisdom and I find myself “now” observing “this” sunset agonizing “here“.
The blackness of the night is licking the intermingling colors in the horizon where stars have already inaugurated their race for a place in the sky. Stars are now winking at one another from an immemorial remoteness. Tonight, stars do not look the way they have always done. They are not mere embers set aflame in the blackness of the universe. Stars, tonight, are showing their very private life vibrating with love and pulsing with passion.
The brightest stars like the one over there are two stars in one if we trust modern astronomy: An orange (male) star and a blue (female) one closely connected to each other by an invisible attraction and spinning around in a silent shining courtship.
Stars may be shining only for being involved in love. Without love, they may have lost their sparkle and broken up in the void like any other lonely, destitute meteors.
Now, I am taking delight in the shining love of the stars in the sky. A thousands-year-old love between stars thousands light years away. The glitter of stars garnishes the sky and adds a loving dimension to the mechanical movement of the celestial bodies.
The pulse of the tree is streaming coolly through my trunk, pouring forth new energies in my veins, enlarging me, magnifying me…And, in very few moments, I will be able to grasp the moon that has started his first rolls on the horizon, here, between the palms of my hands.
Mohamed Saïd Raïhani is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, from Ksar El Kébir. He is “African Writing Magazine“ Editorial Consultant, Moroccan Writers’ Union member.He is the author of “The Singularity Will“ (A 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, “The Three Keys: Freedom, Dream & Love“ (An anthology of Moroccan New Short Story in Three Volumes) 2006-2007-2008, A Dialogue Between Two generations“ (Short stories Co-authored with Driss Seghir) 2011.
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