The edge overlooking the world

Author: Ahmed Al-Haqeel Category: Short Stories and Novels Publisher: Kalemat Publishing and Distribution Publication Year: 2025 Number of Pages: 302 Synopsis: - The first time I remember being obsessed with her was when I was ten. I saw a girl who had just left childhood, with a raised neck, tall stature, and full features, walking in the alley, followed by her younger brothers, and she was shouting at them: "Shut up, enough playing," and she disappeared behind the Sidr tree at the corner. The next day, I wasn’t playing as usual, and my brothers asked me: "What’s wrong with you, upset?" I replied contemptuously: "When will you stop playing? Enough playing," and I watched the corner, waiting, trying to look like her, as if I had just left childhood, with a pointed chin and tall stature. The daughter of those, killed me! Anyway, most things do not last longer than a fly’s lifespan. The moment dies with its end, pleasure with its fade, impulse with its shrinking insistence, dreams with their oars breaking, and the soul with its mood swings. A person sleeps as one person, and wakes as another. All the glories built, and the disappointments that have taken hold, can be erased in the blink of an eye and by the absence of existence, waking up stripped of the glory you built, freed from the disappointment you harvested. “Al-Nu’man the Traveler” sits as a king on the balcony overlooking the signs of his greatness, urging towards decay, only to wake wandering aimlessly, having left his kingdom and disappeared without a trace. And “Muhammad bin Abdullah” becomes an agent for his wife’s bedding business, terrified by what he saw, chained by the weight of his alienation that kept him awake wandering in the wilderness, only to wake as a messenger. A person sleeps as one person, and sleep is a minor death, and wakes as another.