Customs of joy

Author's name: Atef Suleiman

A closed door and a closed window, and darkness surrounds, more than anything, a closed door and a closed window, as if concealing them with a talisman. Jalal al-Din knows the darkness of this house, and in the darkness he will see the ruined edges of the wall, and he will see the wood of the door, which has been bent and cracked, and from which fluffy gray pieces have stuck. He will surely pause for a moment to let go of the tumult that surged from his heart and roared in his ears, before he pushes the door open with his shoulder, and the fine dust that has accumulated on the entrance beams will sprinkle over his head and shoulders.

The returnee entered and paced and lingered on the path of the small, crumbling garden, wondering whether the situation was really as it seemed. Perhaps the garden, too, might somehow notice him and trace in him the boy who used to isolate himself among its bushes to play alone, sometimes absorbed in the boredom of the afternoon.

In that darkness, Jalal al-Din walked, his memories haunting him, and beneath his shoes, dry branches crackled and buried themselves, like the bones of birds.

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Atef Soliman: An Egyptian writer and physician, born in 1959. He has published two short story collections: “A Desert Alone” (1995) and “In the Form of the Lotus” (2004), two books of essays: “A Green Millstone” (2013) and “A Jujube Tree Under the Towers” ​​(2018), and the novel “The Babylonian Review” (1998). He has several other works in publication.

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