Casablanca- Every night after the clock hits midnight, malevolent shadows invade the popular streets of Casablanca after the laconic period of silence that usually precedes their arrival.
Those bloodthirsty creatures seem to be the worshippers of Nox, the Roman goddess of night. In daytime, under the radiant sun, they remain veiled underneath their well-designed, human-like camouflages, circulating on their feet and feeding on mundane aliments just like everyone else. However, when the night’s wings hug the streets of Casablanca, casting away the sun’s warmth and luminance, and permitting solely the stars and the moon to shyly illuminate their emerging kingdom, these nocturnal creatures leave their caverns, sanctuaries and sarcophaguses, deranged and furious, in search of vulnerable and doomed preys that foolishly dare venturing into their realm.
The prefatory paragraph above is not an excerpt from a gothic novel, nor is it a description of a scene from the vampires’ saga Twilight. Contrarily, right in the undersurface of its metaphoric outpour, the paragraph above is loaded of a sober and realistic description of a bitter reality that is typically ubiquitous in the streets of Casablanca. The “nocturnal community” does exist – it is not fictional!
Some would favor calling them “sskairya” (alcoholics in English). What on earth would incite an uncontrollable individual to crop up in a particular street, in the middle of the night, while all residents are asleep, shops are closed and circulating vehicles are scarce, and to start randomly blurting out dysphemistic and offensive phrases, clamorously, careless about the heterogeneity of the population living in that street? It is due to being overtly drunk, indeed!
This instance of unsavory behaviors typical of this “nocturnal population” does not solely emanate from drunken individuals; this community is as miscellaneous as a multicultural nation, ranging from homeless people, card gamblers, night daters, alcoholics, criminals and outlaws, insane and lost individuals, etc. All of these apparently disconnected individuals of the nocturnal community share a common reality: they are rejects of society; they favor the night over the day because they feel a sense of belonging as they identify with the other representatives of the nocturnal tribe.
What I loathe about this community the most is that a portion of its members hates knowing that there are individuals, there in their warm and comfy beds, sleeping while they are there in the streets on their own. While you are almost embarking on the third chapter of your dream or nightmare, you are haphazardly woken up by one of these devilish vampires:
– A member of the nocturnal community smashing a bottle against a wall for no reason
– A male “vampire” fiercely quarreling with a female “vampire”
– A bunch of drunken vampires playing cards and shouting out as if they accidentally had run into a goldmine.
– A drunken male “vampire” battling with another one – yes, you guessed right: over a female “vampire!”
– A couple police cars stopping by in a hurly burly to stop the two male vampires and take them to a dark place where all night species meet.
If you think that hiding inside, in your castle, surrounded by four impenetrable walls does spare you any sort of harm emanating from the vampires outside, then reconsider your definition of security.
I can still recall this occurrence as if it was only yesterday: while profoundly asleep, on a fine Saturday night, and after a long hectic day of both work and study, I was almost certain that nothing on earth could possibly wake me up. But at the abrupt and terrifying sound of a thick stone smashing my window and passing by my face at a distance of approximately 10 cm, I did not only wake up – I literally leaped out of my bed, my arms on my head, and unconsciously rolled around to find myself under the round table centering my room! It was similar to James Bonds-like acrobatic maneuvers!
I didn’t dare verify where the stone came from, or what sort of damage it caused inside my room, nor did I dare look out of the window to inspect who threw it. All I was worried about, there, underneath my round table, was whether I should expect a second missile to hit soon!
I knew that the anonymous individual who threw the stone at my window had nothing against me. I knew he didn’t mistake my window for his girlfriend’s, either, because that would have been an attempt to kill her, rather than stir her attention. I knew it was a member of the nocturnal community, a vampire who was so enraged and furious that he or she opted for stone shooting as a way to relieve the vehemence of their dissatisfaction. That is how they speak; that is how they express themselves.
Ironically, I have gotten so used to their presence, their noise, their shouts, their dysphemistic language and their daunting laughs that I can’t sleep in their absence. They have become part of my night checklist:
– Water is there!
– My alarm clock is set up!
– My window is closed!
– My computer is shut down!
– “The vampires are there! – “Okay then, I can now sleep in peace!”
I know each city has its own nocturnal community, its own vampires, its own gangs, its own sskairya (alcoholics) and its own motacharidin (homeless), but Casablanca is their melting pot, their pilgrimage their so-proclaimed golden city! The Moroccan movie “Angels Don’t Fly Over Casablanca” was not randomly produced. Everyone knows that Casablanca is the city of “nocturnal vampires!” They are there, everywhere. They are part of us, and so are we!
