The Paper Maker's Notebooks

Here you are now reading my paper, while my body has been swallowed by the sea where eternal tranquility resides. I am biased towards deep-sea fish when light breaks and hits the soft sands. I do not love earthworms where darkness and humidity bring extra pain to death. That is why I have given my body to water, the secret of eternal listening, and the embrace whose arms never close. I did not write my will, for there are no wills for those who have betrayed in their lives except to wish that someone would take the initiative to tune the dissonant string. And I have no wills to say, for I am merely a floating feather stuck in air that has not settled even for a moment. At that time, I could have perched on a tree and watched how a pear ripens on its mother’s chest, or I could have rested on the shoulder of a man going to meet a woman whom he has sworn in his heart to love as a bird loves its wings while fluttering over a street that its passersby endure in traffic. I am merely a woman betrayed in her life and came to think of retirement, like a famous musician retreating at the peak of his brilliance due to a flaw he senses coming inevitably. I have no wills but these words: burn this paper and scatter it here, perhaps it will become a wandering witness pointing to me. "Jalal Burjas" is a Jordanian novelist. His novel (Snakes of Fire / The Tale of the Lover Ali bin Mahmoud Al-Qasad) won the Katara Prize for Arab Novel, 2015; his novel (The Hanged Dreamer) won the Rifa Doudin Award for Narrative Creativity, 2014; his collection of short stories (The Earthquake) received the Roks bin Zayed Al-Azizi Award, 2012; and his novel (Ladies of the Five Senses) reached the longlist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction (Booker), 2019. He has published: (Tales of the Old Café), a joint novel, 2019; (Like Any Branch on a Tree), poetry, 2008; (A Moon Without Houses), poetry, 2011. It is worth noting that this novel reached the longlist of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2021.