Tislam

I had to stop reading. I could not bear a single page more. Not a sentence more. I glanced across at the opposite page in an attempt to gain some courage to read on but had to lay the book down. It is sitting by my side now.

He is writing about a dream, an afternoon years ago -- a droplet of memory now. The story of this idyll lies trapped between two nightmares. And they are nightmares to make the sleeper shudder: visions of running, fleeing, then crawling away, slowly, weakly as the dogs chase. The nightmares of a prisoner.

But for just a moment between those flights of torture, there is in his palm something beautiful. It is about to crack in the next second, the very next moment -- but for the thinnest slice of time, there it is. It exists.

The fragility of a love. His love. A memory of time spent with a girl, a friend, a lover. With her.

I closed the book because I don't want to break it. I don't want it to shatter. I know it must. But I want some time to hold it. Examine it, knowing however that if I want to understand it, I have to read on. I have to open the book and cast my eyes on the pages and see it break.

I wish it didn't have to break.


(The book sitting next to me is I'jaam: an iraqi rhapsody, written by Sinan Antoon.)