Small Sun

Abu Fahd was given the opportunity to have a rich life and he destroyed his chance. When he is at first offered the jars of gold he is too consumed with the idea of having meat to eat that he is not fast enough to accept the black sheeps offer before he disappears. When Abu Fahd tells his wife about the black sheep under the bridge she and Abu Fahd begin to brainstorm all of the fancy material objects they could buy and how wonderful a life their unborn child would have if they were rich. Their son would never be hungry and have nice clothes, and be able to attend a prestigious school. It is as though they both became overwhelmed with hope and greed at the same time. If it was me being offered such wealth I would undoubtedly act the same way, I believe it is human nature to want more out of life. However, instead of waiting until the next night to search for the sheep like his wife advised him to, Abu Fahd had to get up immediately to return to the bridge, fearful that he would lose his chance. In other words, Abu Fahd’s greed got the better of him and in the end it destroyed hope of his family ever having any of the things that they had dreamed of. When Abu Fahd reaches the bridge he is confronted by a drunk man, and Abu Fahd being so anxious to find the black sheep, becomes furious when the drunk man doesn’t leave him alone. The two men get into a scuffle and Abu Fahd is stabbed many times and left to die. Because Abu Fahd couldn’t wait and succumbed to his greed he sacrificed any hope for himself, his wife, and for his unborn child of living a rich and happy life. Even if he never found the black sheep, if he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry he would have lived to see his unborn son and to be with his family. Now his wife and son will probably be worse off than they would, had Abu Fahd not been killed. Thus the theme seems to be that greed is a very destructive thing.

The Trial of the Small Black Woman

This story is about the case of the murder of a small black woman who never did anything wrong in the first place. The narrator of the story is the one that I thought had killed the woman. The narrator has a bundle of money that he accidentally drops in an alley and he blames the small black woman of stealing the parcel. The narrator goes to the priest and tells him what had happened. The mandal, who is like a magical medium, seeks out the small black woman and places some sort of curse on her saying that the guilty individual will blow up like the inflated animal carcass that they have, and die. Later the narrator finds that he never lost the money and that it was in his pocket the whole time. When he makes such a discovery he is at a loss of what to do. He already told everyone that the small black woman had stolen the money and if he said that he was wrong then he will look like the idiot. Furthermore, if he says that he was wrong it makes the mandal look like a fake and therefore creates this image of weakness of the church. So instead of telling the truth, I think the narrator murders the small black woman to make it appear as though she received her just punishment for stealing, like the mandal and priest said she would. In the end the narrator goes to the woman’s funeral but leaves in a hurry to avoid his guilty conscience regarding the matter. The story shows how even innocent, good people can be wrongfully accused of a crime. It just goes to show how imperfect society functions.

Dreams Seen by a Blind Boy

This boy believes in the Qur’an very passionately. It is ironic that he as well as everyone else in his neighborhood is preached to follow the teachings of the Qur’an and yet when the boy dwells too much on one specific area of the Qur’an he is punished. It seems like the boy is being torn, because if he follows what it is he believes the Qur’an is telling him, which is to follow his heart, men are equal, and a person can follow there own will and do as they wish, then he is misbehaving according to societies standards. Perhaps, since the boy is blind, and he has not actually seen the bad things that occur everyday, he is naïve in the sense that he does not really know how poorly the religious teachings of the Qur’an are followed in real life. But in a way the boy is blessed because he did not have to see the horrors of the world, he could imagine it based on the images that he created in his mind from reading the Qur’an. Those who can see should open their eyes to the world and evaluate how things are run and make changes to those things that aren’t so good.

Clocks Like Horses

In the story Clocks like Horses the main character takes his pocket watch to an old watch repairman who used to be a sailor. When the main character reaches his hotel room he meets a boy who asks the man if he is Indian and denies that he himself (the boy) is Indian. I am not sure why being Indian would be such a special thing. Perhaps this was a time where everyone was labeled based on their nationality. When the man takes his watch to the repairman he is told the story of the repairman’s life as a sailor. The old man used to be a syce, or a stable boy and groom, and he told the man about his travels from port to port trading horses and having to sneak behind the eyes of the Turks who wanted the horses for war. He also tells of the tragic end of his horse trading days, when the ship wrecked on rocks and the horses all drowned. I think that the significance of the clocks being set to times around the world represents a unique rhythm that reminds the old man of the horses and the noises from his sailing days. The rhythms of the clocks might create a sense of peace for the old man. The end of the story was difficult to understand because it repeats exactly what is said in the first paragraph of the story. I do not know if the repetition of the paragraph is supposed to prove that his prediction was correct or if it was somehow tied in with the clock theme. Perhaps the mechanical operations of the clocks is supposed to represent how society functioned, it was always predictable. In the story society is always predictable in that people expect it to label everyone.

Flower Crazy

This story was a little hard to follow. I was not sure why the woman is vomiting in the beginning. I thought that maybe she was pregnant or maybe she just had an illness. It seems like the woman lives in a poor neighborhood where there are a lot of immoral, flashy individuals. The man who is known as the poet and said to be flower crazy seems to be a womanizer, he gives flowers to the women that he likes and has affairs with. I could not figure out the relationship between the woman and the poet, it seemed as though the poet admired the woman and I thought that maybe the woman was the handkerchief woman that the poet kept referring to. It was strange how the woman would get dressed into nicer clothes and go into the nicer parts of the town. Maybe by going into the city she felt as though she escaped from the squwaller of the poor place that she lives. But in the end she finds that even squwaller lives in the nice part of the city.

Life by Instalments

This story had me a little confused. The narrator(s) keep referring to themselves as we, I couldn't figure out if it was two young boys or two older boys or if they were girls or what. But the narrator(s) seem to be ill and they are taking medicine and just trying to live their day to day lives as much as possible. They have a conversation with a religious man and a boy, asking the religious man about his personal life and just imagining how the two go about living their lives. The narrator(s) might be writing a story consisting of short instalments based on little everyday events and that is where the narrator finds his/her purpose. Or maybe the narrator(s) know that they will soon die and they are just trying to take note of the little pieces that occur in everyday life.

Voices from near and far

I interpreted this story as being about a mother of several young men who are soldiers. The mother always listens to a radio to hear the names of the soldiers and she is always feeling worried about her sons. She is telling a message carrier what to write to her sons. She says to write that she is worried and that she wants her sons to write back to her as soon as she gets her message. The note taker never rereads what it is that he has written and that makes me suspicious that he was not actually writing what the woman asked him to. In the end the mother may have become suspicious too because she asks the message taker to repeat what it is that he has written down. The mother describes the soldiers that her sons are a part of as if they have one voice together, which is what I think she keeps hearing on the radio, and she is waiting for one of her sons' own unique voices to break away from the mass and reach out to her to let her know that they are alright.

The Persian Carpet

This story is about a little girl whose mother just divorced her father to marry a man that she had loved since before she was arranged to marry the little girl's father. The little girl, her sister, and a relative of her father's named Maryam sneak out of the father's house to go and visit the mother at her new home. Before the little girl actually sees her mother again she imagines how the meeting will go and she thinks that she is going to act shy and have to pretend her happy emotions. But when the girl actually sees her mother again she is surprised that she is overcome with joy and hugs her mother tightly. That is until she sees a persian rug of her mothers on the floor in one of the rooms of her new home. The little girl remembers all of the times her mother would bring out the rugs in the fall. She suddenly becomes infuriated at her mother when she sees the rug because the mother lied and said that the rug had been stolen and the mother blamed it on the grounds keeper or servant. The little girl was upset that the mother had blamed it on the servant because it made him sad. I think that the mother lied about the rug being stolen because she wanted to take the rug to her boyfriends house. I think the story shows how when a person lies in order to meet their own wants they are being selfish and inconsiderate.

Cairo is a Small City

Adil Salim is an engineer who becomes infatuated with a young woman that passes by his home with her mother and their flock of sheep often. As a means to get the beautiful woman’s attention he offers her and her mother bread for her sheep. Adil becomes convinced that the young woman named Salma is attracted to him as well. One day he is invited to meet her family at her camp in an oasis outside of town. The oasis is the last beautiful thing he sees because he is convicted of murdering someone that belongs to the girl’s clan. Adil’s throat is cut and he is left to die. I think the message of this story is that beauty can be deceiving. Maybe the girl Salma knew that Adil was wanted for murder, maybe she used her looks as a means to lure Adil to her home. Perhaps she kept looking at Adil in a frightened manner because she had heard what a dangerous man Adil was, since he had killed a man before. The story also shows how quickly one’s life can be taken from them. Adil was only thinking about his building that he was working on and wooing the beautiful Salma, I don’t think that he even thought about possibly being in danger when he was going to Salma’s home.

The Drumming Sands

This story is about a man named Misbah who discovers the control and corruption that the government unleashes on people and how wrong it is for them to do such a thing. A man named Jabbour is traveling with Misbah in the beginning. Jabbour is a rebel, he is against the government body that currently runs what I believe is a town in the southwestern part of Libya called Ghat. He uses the desert to explain to Misbah how the people feel about being controlled by the government which I think is from Europe. Jabbour says, about the desert, “It promises you everything, it promises you water and when you look for the water all you find in front of you is a mirage- mirages and mirages, a sea of mirages. They dance in front of you and stick their tongue out at you in mockery, leading you on without purpose.” I think Jabbour is hinting to Misbah that the foreign government does much of the same thing as the desert. The government promises the people opportunities and a fruitful life, but it is all just one big lie used to cover up their desire to rule the land and people. They tease the citizens by leading them to believe that they, the government, can provide great things to them, but in the end, these promises are nothing but figments of their imaginations. The lieutenant kills Jabbour and tries to make Misbah think that he perished in the desert because he went mad. Eventually Misbah figures out that the lieutenant had murdered him because the lieutenant knew that the man was a rebel and was trying to form an uprising amongst the people. At the end of the story it almost seems like Misbah is not really mad at the lieutenant for killing Jabbour because he sees that he cannot stand up against the law and try to make sure that the lieutenant receive just punishment. All in all I think that this story is about the importance of not letting someone or something stop you from obtaining freedom. You cannot give in to what you are told and become blind to the truth no matter how hard it may be to prevent such an occurrence.

Glimpses from the Life of Maugoud Abdul Maugoud and Two Postscripts

Maugoud starts off as a college student. He doesnt fit in with his fellow students and is somewhat reserved and quiet. When he finds his own apartment to live in he meets Madeeha and Madeeha's daughter, Zeinab. Maugoud is fascinated by Madeeha and has an affair with her. Meanwhile he agrees to marry Zeinab. Zeinab eventually discovers Maugoud and Madeeha and is so distraught that she commits suicide. When this happens the mother, Madeeha becomes consumed with regret and sadness. She shuns Maugoud, but she kept something that Maugoud wanted, Zeinab's red slippers. Maugoud wants them back and one night he goes to Madeeha's flat to try and get them and they end up struggling and he knocks Madeeha unconscious. The next day she is found dead. Now Maugoud starts to become very fearful and paranoid that he will be suspected and he starts to live in constant fear. He fears social environments, he fears staying in one place too long, and he fears the night because that is when all of his nightmares haunt him. Maugoud takes on a mind set where he thinks that if he is not fearful then he will let himself slip and risk his discovery in the death of his wife and lover. It doesnt seem like he ever really becomes very sad about the deaths of the two women because he is constantly worrying about his freedom and safety. In the end he sits in his little room which has become like a prison of guilt and paranoya, because that is the only place he feels safe from prying eyes and judegement by people. Maugoud starts telling himself that this could be his last moments, I think he is preparing himself for what he knows is his fate, a horrible death. The story teaches that even if a person is not actually convicted of a crime by the justice system, they still can be convicted by their consciounce. Maugoud spends the rest of his life trapped in this circle of guilt and fear because he knows what he did was wrong and that will haunt him always.

The Cypriot Man

At first it seemed like the cypriot man was just some womanizer who was just having a conversation with the main character. Then it seemed like the cypriot man could be the main character and maybe the main character had a multiple personality. But then at the end when the main character experiences "a slight numbness at the tips of the toes which gradually began to advance upwards until it was as though terrible claws were tearing at my stomach, chest, back and head: the fires of hell had all at once broken out," I think that he is having a stroke or something. But instead of him dying his father dies and that is what the Cypriot man tells him in the end, that next time he will die. I think the Cypriot man is like the devil, or that he represents death. He says that "the term of life is designated, but we take into consideration the skill shown in playing the game. Beware for you are now ascending towards the mountain peak." The cypriot man talks about "playing the game," I think that just means the game of life and how well one can meander there way through life. The story also has this moral of dont take life for granted because it can be taken away from you in a flash, people dont always get a second chance at life.

Another Evening at the Club

This young girl marries a man that her parents choose for her. He is wealthy and handsome. The girl loses her emerald ring that her husband bought for her and she blames it on their servant, who is consequently taken to jail and beaten until she confesses. The next day the girl finds her ring behind her dresser and tells her husband. But instead of calling the police to release the girl the husband takes the emerald ring and says that he will pawn it off for something else the next time that he travels. He does this because he is afraid that the town will find out that they had actually made a mistake, and that will make them appear foolish. At first the girl is uncomfortable with their choice, but as soon as her husband reminds her of her care free happy little rich world, she is back to being happy. She too gives in to the luxuries of being wealthy and loses her integrity like her husband.

Advice from a Sensible Young Man

Uncle Khalil is an old man who is a drug addict. He goes to Adil to ask him for money. At first he says it is for his family to help them along until Khalil starts his job, then it is for doctors fees, and then for a taxi cab. Uncle Khalil has become so addicted to drugs that he would through away his families future just to get another high. He comes to the point of begging Adil to help him, kissing Adil's hands and holding his arm and running after him. Adil keeps trying to tell Khalil that he needs to go and see a doctor and get cleaned up, but Khalil will not listen because he is so far gone from reality. It is ironic that Adil says that Khalil would be better off dead, because just after that moment Khalil is hit by a car and dies. I think Adil decides not to go back just because the man who was killed in the accident, Khalil, did not matter to him anymore, perhaps because it was not the same Khalil he used to know. Khalil became a low life because of his dependency on drugs and Adil treated him that way.

At a womans house

This story was confusing to me. There is a man sitting in a dark room which I am assuming is the house of the woman who comes in at the end of the story. He is there looking after a young child he guesses is about seven months old. He keeps referring to the city Taizz as beautiful and great. He also keeps mentioning the neighbors, the wife is cheating on the husband and she has thrown out her husband who sits on the front steps smoking tobacco. It sounds as though the baby may be ill because the man keeps saying how pale or yellowish the skin of the infant is. When the woman comes in at the end of the story it sounds like the man is just figuring out that he is actually in love with her.

My Brother

This story is about a boy who lives with his mom and brother in a hut near a canal. The boy's brother, I believe, had some sort of mental problem, which would explain why he could not talk and why he had such odd behavior. The boy and his brother always used to go and play across the canal on the hill but as they grow older they do not have as much fun. The boy seems to be growing apart from his brother, he is tired of him coming into his room unexpectedly in the middle of the night and he is tired of his now large brother man handling him. Because of his brothers disability, I think that the boy has remorse against his brother because it makes life so much harder for him and his mother. Also, since the boy's father passed away he has had to take over the role of the father of the house by obtaining a job and helping his mother take care of his brother. The older the two boys get the less the boy seems to care for his brother because he feels the hard work and pain that he and his mother must face in taking care of his mentally challenged sibling.

The Gap in Kaltouma's Fence

This story was difficult for me to follow. From what I figured out, Kaltouma is a fiesty woman who is a widow. She is not old but she thinks that she should act older for some reason. Like when she is frozen in thought in the gap between her and her neighbor's yard. In that moment she cannot decide how to behave because she didnt know at what point in her life she belonged. She didnt feel like a child anymore but she wasnt sure if she would be considered older. In the end she marries Faki al-Baseer because that is what her family decides is best for her. I dont think Kaltouma knows what it is she wants or who she really is. A person should act as young or old as they want to but they should not let their age be the deciding factor.

The Chair Carrier

I think that the man carrying the chair, carries it because it is the only living that he has come to know. He feels like it is his responsibility to handle and carry the chair until he is released from the job by someone of authority. It is strange that the chair has the sign that tells the chair carrier to take it to a safe place and sit upon it and that the man who has been carrying the chair for the whole time cannot read. The man carrying the chair reminds me of someone who is stubborn, stuck in their own ways, and who is unwilling to change. No matter how the crowd member tries to make the man see what damage the chair has done to him, or how easy it would be to just put down the chair and walk away from it forever, the chair carrier persists in his ways. Maybe the man feels that if he does not continue to carry the chair no one else will, kind of like an obligation. Lots of people in the real world feel obligated to do things that they dont enjoy, but they do them any way because they dont think that anyone else will do it.

Papa, Snake and I

When a young boy finds one of the deadliest snakes in his families chicken house, he is for some reason, captivated by the creature. The snake seems to represent great power. The snake causes fear in everyone, even the dogs. The significance of the dog, Wolf, being bitten by the snake is that the world is a dangerous, competitive place and those who are the toughest will win in the end. When the father says, "Yet when a horse goes wild it gets shot down, and its all finished. But tame horses die every day," I think he is saying that not only do the wild and crazy creatures in life get punished but even innocent beings are punished. The snake was seen as an evil, deadly, murderous being that deserved to be killed, and the dog was just innocent. It was not a really big deal that the dog also had to die because every day innocent lives are lost. A person has to have hope in order to live day to day and still find some sort of fulfillment to keep them from giving up. The father seems to believe in this message a lot. Perhaps it is the fact that he doesnt really agree or get along with his wife and that he does not enjoy his job, that causes him to think that God is the only hope he has to live his life somewhat happily.

The Coffee Cart Girl

A girl named Zodwa (aka Pinkie) operates a coffee cart selling pancakes and coffee. She meets a man named Ruben (aka China) when he is on the street outside of a factory on strike. Ruben and Zodwa paticipate in a sort of courtship, visiting with eachother over pancakes and coffee almost everyday. When Ruben finally gets a new job he takes Zodwa to a shop to buy her a gift. Ruben buys Zodwa a few small accessories, amongst them a fancy brooch. While they are in the store the store owner, Naidoo, compliments Zodwa of her beautiful complexion and figure while she is trying on the accessories. For the next few days Naidoo visits Zodwa at her coffee cart, and he offers Zodwa a ring to pay for pancakes. When Ruben sees Naidoo and the ring on Zodwa's hand his jealousy erupts. He threatens Zodwa with his knife, swearing that he loved her the moment he saw her the day of the strike and how dare she think Naidoo felt the same. Ruben does not cause any harm to Zodwa and apologizes. After a few days when Ruben tries to see Zodwa again he learns that the coffee cart had been removed from the streets because the white government said that the cart made the city look dirty. Ruben just sits at an abondoned cart thinking of all the moments he shared with Zodwa. In the end, Ruben's jealousy and lack of trust ruined something that made him happy, and he will likely never see the woman he cared about again.

Snapshots of a Wedding

This story is about a man named Kegoletile, who is the bridegroom. He is going to marry Neo, because she is well educated and not Mathata because Mathata is not well educated. Both women are pregnant with Kegoletile's child and when he must choose which woman to marry he chooses Neo because of her education. With her good education, Neo will have the opportunity to earn a lot of money. Kegoletile seems like he is blaming his choice on the expectations of society. As the author says, "They all wanted as wives, women who were big money-earners and they were so ruthless about it! And yet it was as though society itself stamped each of its individuals with its own particular brand of wealth and Kegoletile had not yet escaped it." Neo is rude and stuck up, and even her family says so, while Mathata is kind and beautiful. Yet Kegoletile still chooses Neo just because of the issue of money. When Neo's aunt warns Neo about how she has been misbehaving and not using manners and that her husband will not like her, Neo finally gets a clue and starts reserving herself. Sometimes a little sense has to be knocked into a person. When Neo is threatened with the idea of her husband rejecting her because of her poor behavior, she snaps out of her daze of arrogence. When a person is faced with losing something that is very important to them they will often be willing to change in order to keep from losing that something.