Mud City Travels

The Journey of Anfouz

The Book of the Cloak - The Book of the Hill

Author's name: Saud Al-Sanousi

The Journey of Anfouz

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 intimidated, and the children took refuge behind the men who had restrained their pride and dignity 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.

The Book of the Cloak - The Book of the Hill

If a stranger were to look out from the roofs of the mud houses after sunrise today, he would imagine that a flock of sparrows had landed on the moist coastal sands. Necks stretched toward the blue horizon, eyes watching for someone approaching from afar. However, the country only knows of crows singly, not in flocks. They sneak onto the merchant ships docked in the ports of India, and hide among the sacks of spices, grains, and tea. They travel with the ships on their return to the country, finding themselves a stranger in a strange land. They stay on the eastern coast for months, watching for the sailing ships to set sail again for India. There are no crows in the country. Only a few.