A small elephant in a big house

I lived for years in a rich geography within a popular neighborhood in the middle of Old Damascus. The stories there were generated by the number of footsteps walking on the paved roads, by the number of vendors' shouts, neighbors' quarrels, by the number of shots piercing the sky and the layers of hearts. Everything around me was inspiring, ever since I moved to that Arab house, and took over the smallest room in the apartment located on the second floor: a small, rectangular room, with a single window overlooking the courtyard of the house. I quickly placed a writing table beneath it, and a yellow curtain controlling the light entering the room, so that it stained the walls and objects with a dull winter color. To emphasize the ritual, I placed on the edge of the window a number of souvenirs: dried pomegranate seeds, a maritime star, a tiny plate and pot, a laurel soap, a box of matches, and finally hung on the wooden beam from which the curtain hangs seven dried gardenias, and of course there is no need to say that each of these items has a story.