الألف

Author's name: Jorge Luis Borges Publisher: Al-Jamal Publications for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2021 Literary classification: Short story Brief about the book: One day or night I dreamed that in the prison cell there was a grain of sand. I went back to sleep, unconcerned; I dreamed that I was waking up and that there were two grains of sand. I went back to sleep; so I dreamed that the two grains of sand were three. Thus, they multiplied until they filled the prison, and I was dying beneath that half-sphere of sand. I understood that I was dreaming; I woke up with great effort. Waking up was futile; the countless sand was suffocating me. Someone told me: "You did not wake up from worship, but from a previous dream. That dream exists within another dream, and so on to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path you must retrace has no end, and you will die before you have truly woken up."