Mud City Travels

The Journey of Anfouz

Author's name: Saud Al-Sanousi

He emerged from the sea, his dishdasha wet and barefoot, and approached the men coming out of the Al-Sayer Mosque. The sight of him, his pale face and large glass eyes, shook them. The young men were terrified, and the children took refuge behind the backs of the men who controlled their pride and held themselves together in the face of his strange appearance. One of them was embarrassed to show fear in front of the other. The stranger said, panting, that he had come to ask about his father. One of the men asked him in a trembling voice, “Who are you?” The stranger answered as he had been accustomed to throughout his life on the island of Amsa:
I am absent, Boudryah.
As if by saying this he had poured a drop of vinegar into an anthill. Men and boys flew in every direction like sparks, escaping the sea monster that, as Umm Hadab had prophesied, would come to kill their father and reclaim his stolen cloak.