-Dreams- Short Story Written By Zahra Ramij, Translated By Mohamed Said Raihani

“Only dreams do sharpen wills, strengthen body and soul, enable man to endure hard times and cope with the difficulties of life…However, as soon as dreams disappear from our lives, Universe entirely darkens and humans turn into mere puppets in the wind…

In the very beginning, there was Dream. Then, there came His spaces to fit His growing wings yearning to fly away. ”
Extract from “The Wrinkles Of The Walls”, a novel written by

Zahra Ramij
I) – A delicious revenge:

We sat around the table, as we usually do on Sundays, to have breakfast for the first time in the week together. On Sunday, our breakfast is luxurious compared to the other days of the week. We take our time to enjoy the diverse sorts of drink and food. We exchange serious talks, funny jokes…and fresh dreams. It is just like if we avenge ourselves of the remaining days of the week when we had to drink a cup of coffee and milk and swallow a slice of cake … It is really as if we take revenge on that loneliness which every one of us feels when having his breakfast a few moments before going out to work.

My little son is keen on narrating his dreams. During the remaining days of the week, we do not allow him to do it, at least, in the morning. Even when he tries to take benefit of lunchtime to narrate it, we silence him down as we are either tired or busy watching the afternoon news. He tries his chance in the evening at dinner-table. Unfortunately, at that time, we are once again either tired or busy watching news or films or serials.

Although all his attempts were failures (sometimes, I ask him, by way of sympathy, to narrate his dreams to me before sleeping and I greatly loved this role playing), now no-one can make him change his mind on Sunday. In silent agreement, we find ourselves responding to his desire to narrate his dreams because as soon as he finishes narrating his dream, we are asked alternatively to take the word and narrate what we have seen at night. Thus, we game is on and the pleasure is free.



II ) – My little son’s dream:

We were in the classroom. Hardly had we taken out our school manuals when the French-language teacher said:

- “Get your books back to your cartable!”

We obeyed without asking for the reason. He got out of the class-room book-case a set of books that he delivered on us. He read the title of the book: “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone’’ by J.K. Rowling. He the first to the story and we alternatively read afterwards.

The story was sensational. We lived and felt the worlds of magic and magicians, the struggle between the good and the evil… silence was absolutely reigning over the class-room when the bell rang. We did not want to leave our seats we asked our teacher to stay with us and carry on our reading but he refused. We had to have a break and he had to drink his coffee. Those were his final words.

One of the pupils, at the back of the class-room, burst out crying. We turned around and were astonished to see that the weeping boy had always been the first pupil to feel joy at the ring of the bell and the first one to run out!

The Arabic –language mistress got in, accompanied by a school girl holding a set of books covered in red. Hardly had we started taking out our books when she ordered us to hide them away we obeyed. She delivered on us the small beautiful books on which there was written in golden letters:

“An Anthology of Modern Humanist Poetry”.

She started to read the poems in a sweet, suave voice. a voice as delicious as natural rose honey that you presents to us, mummy. she read and we followed in such a magic atmosphere. The magic of voice, image and word!...

Both she and we were astonished at the silence reigning for the first over the class. She said:

- «Congratulations, boys! The examination system is cancelled. »

We run shouting to hug her. We run out to the courtyard which has turned into Cabo Negro Beach with its gentle golden sands and pure blue waters securing refuge to hordes of fish in various sizes!

As usual, I was digging a deep hole in the sands when a light wave came towards me and withdrew filling up the hole with water. I put my hand inside to find a fish swimming! A beautiful fish with colours as lively as those of a rainbow! I took it out. She showed no resistance. I caressed her smooth back and she raised her head, smiling, to tell me:

- « I have always dreamt of meeting a friend as different as you. »

While getting her closer to my lips, a strong wave come along and took her away from my hands! I cried out of pain until I wake up screaming and twisting! …



III)-The dream of my daughter who is not born yet:

I dreamt that I was in was in my mother’s belly, listening to some talk which was probably between mummy and daddy or between mummy and other women or between daddy and other men … I do not know. I remember neither the speakers nor the subjects of talk. What is important is that after hearing that subject which is now very ambiguous to my memory, I decided not to go out of my mother’s womb!...

Mummy was twisting and pressing her muscles down on me to make me out but I stuck obstinately to the womb walls with the nails of my fingers and toes.

My position was natural. Suddenly, I was reversed to find my head next to my mother’s heart and my feet next to her uterus. my reversal was so violently surprising that I heard mummy cry out of pain.

I felt that a supernatural power was making me resist getting out. I do not know how much time has passed while I was resisting and she was pressing: resisting and pressing, resisting and pressing…

I was sweating all over inside and she was sweating all over outside… I do not know how much time has passed when I felt myself , with my eyes closed, swept out with the torrential the water.

I raised my leg to the ceiling to keep inside in mummy’s womb. It is only then that dead coldness started numbing may feet gradually moving upwards. Mummy’s heartbeats were slowing down, my temperature dropping down, my sense of my body faints with the drop of my temperature, my mother’s heartbeats faints more and more…I did some effort to hear the beats…while trying, mummy, I felt your mild touches on my face and I woke to you warm voice saying:

- «Good morning, my little bird! »



III)-The maid’s dream:

I dreamt myself in the country-side with two girlfriends whom I had never met before. One of them was as black as a ripe olive. The other one was as white as snow. All of all were riding one donkey going out to fetch some grass for the farm animal.

The black girl was taking the reins and controlling the journey while I was sitting down between her and the white girl who was stuck to my back fearing to fall backwards as she was sitting on the hindquarters.

I dreamt myself standing between them on of the donkey’s back, stretching my arms in the air, laughing.

At first, I was laughing all alone but, afterwards, my two girlfriends joined me and we were laughing and singing louder and louder, waving about our sickles in the air as if to cut of invisible heads!

There emerged the field from afar. I felt great happiness, looking at the green grass dancing in the wind. Oh! How beautiful is our village and how fertile is its soil!

We shall sow grass to the farm animals and taste the fine herbs the flavour of which we have been missing for such a long time! We shall eat to our fill to compensate for the past drought years!

Suddenly, a dark cloud concealed the field before me. I looked at my white girlfriend’s feet spurring violently the donkey’s flanks. They looked like a camel’s hooves. I jumped down and took to my heels, shouting alarmingly at my black girlfriend:

-‘‘watch out! She is a devil! She is a devil! Run away before she catches you!”

She was chasing after us until a green field came out to our eyes. We rushed towards it to find that it was a sea! We threw ourselves in its waters, swimming in a direction that neither of us knows, I had gone too far when I turned around. the devil, or the girl whom I thought that she was my friend, was following us with her eyes blazing in the dark . It seems that she fears the sea !... I carried on swimming away, however, until I was safe on the other coast.

My joy was great when I knew that it was a European coast! How did I know? I have no idea!

So, I am in Europe and no-one has barred my way! What about my black girlfriend? Where is she? In fact, I felt no worry or grief at her loss because if she were with me, both of us would be identified as a stranger and caught. Here I am in Europe safe, without mediation, without eternal queues to get a visa, without risking my life in a rowing-boat!

I was all alone spinning around on European sands, dancing, laughing, laughing… until I woke to my loud laughter!



V)-The dream of the mother narrator :

I dreamt myself a child anew, walking all alone in a narrow path between the green wheat fields the ears of which have grown taller than myself. Walking, all alone, as if there is no-one in the world but me and these fields stretching infinitely away. Wherever I look, I see nothing but green fields. It is as if I were alone in the sea rowing a small boat and seeing nothing around but blue colour!

At first, I was walking slowly. Afterwards, I hastened my pace more and more until I felt my feet rising above the ground gradually, my body and my arms stretching in the air like a flying bird… I felt a fresh air totally new to me: Pure and delicious. The more I breathe it, the more I feel light and lively. I was feeling increasingly light until I lost every contact with my body:

- ‘‘How beautiful those fields below look!’’

Strangely enough, this dream is repeated on and on during all my childhood and teen years. Afterwards, it became very seldom until I lost sight of it. I do not see it at night but I have remembered it sometimes in the morning. A memory that has slackened more and more until it stopped definitely. At that time, I forgot that dream and it forgot to visit me at night.

Now, I wonder:

- « why, after all this time, does the same dream come to me? »

In fact, it is not quite the same dream. There is a small difference, however, that adds a new flavour to the dream: A wonderful flavour! The flavour is that in my familiar dream, I used to fly at a slightly low height, staying hung between Heaven and Earth; whereas, in yesterday’s dream, I was hugging stars and planets… That was astonishing!...

Why does this dream come to my mind right now?!...

Why does it come to me so lively, so beautiful?

Has my dream really stopped at any time earlier? Or was it me who never did any effort to remember my dreams in the morning?

Why does it come so clear to my eyes now while my old dreams were usually a blur?



Remarque:

I do not know much in the interpretation of dreams. I do not believe in the popular interpretation that traces any dream to its opposite denotation: laughter stands for crying, crying stands for happiness, death stands for longevity and wedding ceremonies stands for funeral rituals…

In my early youth, when my dreams were great and abundant and when this very dream used to visit me every night, I would search for a booklet to find a logical interpretation for my dreams but in vain.

Later, when I fell on better references on the subject, my dreams had already boycotted my nights or rather opposed being revealed to me in the morning. Accordingly, those books were of no use.

So, please, is there anyone to interpret these dreams for me?





***********

* The writer, Zahra Ramij, is a Moroccan novelist, short-story writer and translator born in Casablanca. Author of:"The Moan Of Water” (Short stories) in 2003, "Is The Sun Really Going Down?" in 2006 (Short stories) , "The Wrinkles Of The Walls" in 2006 (Novel), "Exercises In Tolerance" in 2005 (A play translated from French), "Judge Of The Shade" in 2005 (A play translated from French) , "Just A Woman" in 2005 (A novel translated into Arabic), "Rustic Lover" in 2006 (A novel translated into Arabic) . She is getting ready to print: "Flashes" (Short stories).



* The translator, Mohamed Saïd Raïhani, is a Moroccan translator, scholar & short-story writer, born on December 23rd 1968 in Ksar El Kébir. He published in Arabic "The Singularity Will " (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. he is getting ready for printing:"Beyond Writing & Reading " (testimonies) and "Kais & Juliet" (An E-Love Novel).



* " Dreams" is the ninth narrative text in the "The Moroccan Dream", An Anthology of Moroccan new short story directed by Mohamed Saïd Raïhani.

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